This invention relates to devices for the unique marking and identification of various products, e.g., credit cards, machine parts, computer chips, bullets, etc., and to the fabrication and encoding of such devices, and particularly to the secure encoding of devices. By "secure encoding" is meant encodings which are difficult to change and/or eradicate, and which survive usage of the encoded product.
A wide variety of systems have been recently developed for mounting or implanting devices in various products as a means for marking, e.g., identifying the products. Possibly the best known product example is the "smart card", comprising a plastic credit card having embedded therein a microelectronic semiconductor device including a programmable memory. Using appropriate writing means, data about the owner of the card, including identification and financial data, can be written into the memory and later read out by insertion of the card into an appropriate read out machine located on a merchant's premises or the like.
Numerous other examples of systems and devices for uniquely encoding products are known and described, for example, in the following U.S. patents, the subject matter of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,142,128 (Perkin et al), 4,010,355(Opicella, Jr. et al), 4,839,875 (Kuriyama et al), 4,827,110 (Rossi et al), 5,182,543 (Siegel et al), 5,166,676 (Milheiser), 4,959,515 (Zavrachy et al), 4,685,515 (Anderson et al), 5,175,424 (Lisimaque) and 4,752,776 (Katzenstein). The various devices and systems disclosed in these patents are likely useful, but all contain limitations and disadvantages relating, primarily, to large size, ability to operate in difficult media, strength or ability to withstand acceleration, the need for electrical or other connections, and/or the ability to be embedded in a hidden location in a product.
For example, and with reference to certain of the patents in the foregoing list having similarities to the present invention, Zavrachy et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,515) disclose a structure comprising a plurality of cantilevered beams, the free ends of which overlie electrodes on a substrate. Upon the application of electrical charges to the beam ends and electrodes, the beams are deflected, thereby changing the spacing between the beam ends and the electrodes, and thereby providing an electrically detectable event, e.g., a variation in a parameter of an electrical circuit. By selectively disconnecting various ones of the beams from the associated electrical circuits, only selected beams remain to generate electrical signals upon the application of the electrical charges. The pattern of signals thus produced corresponds to a unique code for the device.
Disadvantages of the device are that it includes numerous electrical circuits all of which have to be individually addressed. The device is thus relatively complex, cannot be hidden in a product, and cannot withstand high temperatures.
Anderson (U.S. Pat. No. 4,686,515) discloses the use of a strip of magnetostrictive, amorphous metal adapted to be magnetically biased for mechanical resonance at a known frequency. Although not disclosed in the patent, the metal strip or strips are somehow positioned on a marker applied to the product to be identified so that each strip is free to vibrate. By applying to the markers both a dc bias field and an ac interrogation field from a reading mechanism, energy is alternately stored and released with the frequency of the ac field. The quantities of energy storage and release are greatest at the mechanical resonance frequency of the strip, hence an electrical signal is generated having a unique pattern characteristic of the particular resonant frequency of the strip. While the patent refers to the use of "strips", the patent is entirely silent as to how such plural strips would be fabricated, encoded, mounted and decoded. Also, the system disclosed is complex and expensive.
Not included in the foregoing list is U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,933 (Brand), which relates not to an identification system but to a vibration sensor. This patent discloses structure related to the present invention in that cantilevered beams are used, but, as with U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,515, the beams are individually electrically addressed, hence the device and associated systems are comparatively complex and expensive.
As explained hereinafter, the present invention provides significant advantages over the prior art.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to development of Web sites and applications. More specifically, the present invention relates to facilitated Internet communications between a client-side and a server-side.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior to Rich Internet Applications, traditional Web applications involved a client-server architecture with all of the processing on the server side and the client-side used to display the HTML web-pages served by the server. Each time a user desired to view a new Web-page, a HTTP request was sent to the server and the requested Web-page was served to the Web browser on the client-side. Such a traditional system is shown in FIG. 1 with a Web-server 1000 on a server side receiving requests over the Internet 1005 from a Web-browser 1003 on a client-side.
Rich Internet Applications, such as Ajax, greatly improved on the traditional client-server architecture by allowing the client machine to dynamically render and partially refresh web pages based on an initial set of instructions from the server, user input, and small amounts of subsequent data dynamically requested from the server. As shown in FIG. 2, the client machine processes Ajax instructions to render a Web page for the user.
Early Web applications allowed a user's browser to send a request to a server. The server processed the request and responded to the browser with a Web page. When the user wanted to view a new page, another request was sent to the server and the server responded to the browser with a new Web page. Such a process resulted in a waste of bandwidth since much of the Web contents in the first Web page were also contained in the second web page. The need to resend the same information led to a much slower user interface of a Web application than that of a native application.
An emerging technology, called Ajax (Asynchronous and JavaScript XML), was developed for refreshing part of a page instead of refreshing the whole page on every interaction between the user and application. In an Ajax application, when a user submits a form in a page, a script program, usually a JavaScript program, resident on the Web browser receives the user's request and sends a XML (Extended Markup Language) HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) request to the Web server in background so as to retrieve only the needed Web contents instead of the whole page and perform corresponding processing to partly refresh the page when receiving a response from the Web server. In this way, the application response time is shortened, because the amount of data exchanged between the Web browser and the Web server is greatly reduced. And the processing time of the Web server is saved because much of the processing is performed at the client side.
General definitions for terms utilized in the pertinent art are set forth below.
Ajax is the use of dynamic HTML, JavaScript and CSS to create dynamic and usually interactive Web sites and applications. A more detailed explanation of Ajax is set forth in Edmond Woychowsky, AJAX, Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, Prentice Hall, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Applets or Java Applets are mini-executable programs named with the .class suffix and are placed on a Web page and provide interactive and multimedia uses.
Application Programming Interface (API) is a collection of computer software code, usually a set of class definitions, that can perform a set of related complex tasks, but has a limited set of controls that may be manipulated by other software-code entities. The set of controls is deliberately limited for the sake of clarity and ease of use, so that programmers do not have to work with the detail contained within the given API itself.
An Attribute provides additional information about an element, object or file. In a Document Object Model, an attribute, or attribute node, is contained within an element node.
Behavioral layer is the top layer and is the scripting and programming that adds interactivity and dynamic effects to a site.
Binding in a general sense is the linking of a library to an application program usually to prevent repetition of frequently utilized code.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a W3C standard for defining the presentation of Web documents.
Compiler is a computer program that translates a series of instructions written in one computer language into a resulting output in a different computer language.
Document Object Model (DOM) Element is an object contained in a Document Object Model (DOM). The term DOM is generally used to refer to the particular DOM held in the memory region being used by the Web browser. Such a DOM controls the Graphical Respondent Interface (GRI) or Graphical User Interface (GUI). The DOM is generated according to the information that the Web browser reads from the HTML file, and/or from direct JavaScript software instructions. Generally, there exists a unique DOM element for every unique HTML element. DOM elements are sometimes referred to as HTML/DOM elements, because the DOM element exists only because HTML code that was read by the Web browser listed some HTML element that had not previously existed, and thereby caused the Web browser to create that DOM element. Often specific elements of the greater set of HTML/DOM elements are identified by specifying an HTML/DOM checkbox element, or an HTML/DOM text input element. A more detailed explanation of the document object model is set forth in Jeremy Keith, DOM Scripting, Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model, friends of, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a method of mixing text and other content with layout and appearance commands in a text file, so that a browser can generate a displayed image from the file.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a set of conventions for controlling the transfer of information via the Internet from a Web server computer to a client computer, and also from a client computer to a Web server.
Internet is the worldwide, decentralized totality of server computers and data-transmission paths which can supply information to a connected and browser-equipped client computer, and can receive and forward information entered from the client computer.
JavaScript is an object-based programming language. JavaScript is an interpreted language, not a compiled language. JavaScript is generally designed for writing software routines that operate within a client computer on the Internet. Generally, the software routines are downloaded to the client computer at the beginning of the interactive session, if they are not already cached on the client computer. JavaScript is discussed in greater detail below.
JSON is JavaScript Object Notation format, which is a way of taking data and turning it into valid JavaScript syntax for reconstituting an object at the other end of the transmission protocol.
MySQL is a relational database management system which relies on SQL for processing data in a database.
Parser is a component of a compiler that analyzes a sequence of tokens to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammer. Parsing transforms input text into a data structure, usually a tree, which is suitable for later processing and which captures the implied hierarchy of the input. XML Parsers ensure that an XML document follows the rules of XML markup syntax correctly.
Platform is the combination of a client computer, an operating system, and a browser, which together can support Internet access and in particular the operation of interactive forms.
Presentation layer follows the structural layer, and provides instructions on how the document should look on the screen, sound when read aloud or be formatted when it is printed.
Rendering engine is software used with a Web browser that takes Web content (HTML, XML, image files) and formatting information (CSS, XSL) and displays the formatted content on a screen.
Serialization places an object in a binary form for transmission across a network such as the Internet and deserialization involves extracting a data structure from a series of bytes.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a computer language designed for data retrieval and data management in a database.
Structural layer of a Web page is the marked up document and foundation on which other layers may be applied.
User is a client computer, generally operated by a human being, but in some system contexts running an automated process not under full-time human control.
Web-Browser is a complex software program, resident in a client computer, that is capable of loading and displaying text and images and exhibiting behaviors as encoded in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) from the Internet, and also from the client computer's memory. Major browsers include MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER, NETSCAPE, APPLE SAFARI, MOZILLA FIREFOX, and OPERA.
Web-Server is a computer able to simultaneously manage many Internet information-exchange processes at the same time. Normally, server computers are more powerful than client computers, and are administratively and/or geographically centralized. An interactive-form information-collection process generally is controlled from a server computer, to which the sponsor of the process has access.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an unofficial standards body which creates and oversees the development of web technologies and the application of those technologies.
XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is a language for describing the content of hypertext documents intended to be viewed or read in a browser.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a W3C standard for text document markup, and it is not a language but a set of rules for creating other markup languages.
There are three types of JavaScript: 1) Client-side JavaScript; 2) Server-side JavaScript; and 3) Core JavaScript. Client-side JavaScript is generally an extended version of JavaScript that enables the enhancement and manipulation of web pages and client browsers. Server-side JavaScript is an extended version of JavaScript that enables back-end access to databases, file systems, and servers. Core JavaScript is the base JavaScript.
Core JavaScript includes the following objects: array, date, math, number and string. Client-side JavaScript and Server-side JavaScript have additional objects and functions that are specific to client-side or server-side functionality. Generally, any JavaScript libraries (.js files) created in core JavaScript can be used on both the client and the server without changes. Client-side JavaScript is composed of a Core JavaScript and additional objects such as: document, form, frame and window. The objects in Client-side JavaScript enable manipulation of HTML documents (checking form fields, submitting forms, creating dynamic pages) and the browser (directing the browser to load other HTML pages, display messages). Server-side JavaScript is composed of Core JavaScript and additional objects and functions for accessing databases and file systems, and sending email. Server-side JavaScript enables Web developers to efficiently create database-driven web applications. Server-side JavaScript is generally used to create and customize server-based applications by scripting the interaction between objects. Client-side JavaScript may be served by any server but only displayed by JavaScript-enabled browsers. Server-side JavaScript must be served by a JavaScript-enabled server but can be displayed by any browser.
United States Patent Application Publication Number 20010037359 describes a system and method for a server-side browser including markup language graphical user interface, dynamic markup language rewriter engine and profile engine. The system includes a user computer and a destination server computer separated by a server computer hosting a server-side browser (SSB). The SSB includes a markup language graphical user interface (MLGUI), a dynamic markup language rewriter engine (DMLRE) and a profiling engine (PE). The SSB may be configured as an intermediary infrastructure residing on the Internet providing customized information gathering for a user. The components of the SSB allow for controlling, brokering and distributing information more perfectly by controlling both browser functionality (on the client-side) and server functionality (on the destination site side) within a single point and without the necessity of incremental consents or integration of either side.
However, current technologies that operate Server-side JavaScript fail to offer complete interactions which are the hallmark of rich web sites and applications. When writing software, it is often convenient to group the code according to the area of functionality it provides. But the group might span code that needs to run on the server, code that needs to run on the client, code that needs to run on both, or run on the server and get stored there and have a proxy for it created on the client, etc.


1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to folding, collapsible structures, and more particularly relates to an awning assembly for a shelter having a canopy portion with an upper framework, and at least two adjacent legs supporting the canopy portion, the awning assembly adapted to be removably mounted to at least two adjacent legs.
2. General Background and State-of-the-Art
Temporary shelters that can be easily transported and rapidly set up at emergency sites can be particularly useful in providing temporary care and housing. Such shelters can also be useful for non-emergency outdoor gatherings, such as for temporary military posts, field trips, and the like. It would be desirable to provide an improved collapsible shelter with a multipurpose awning that can be moved to different positions to provide shade and to serve as a holder for signage. It would also be desirable to provide a modular multipurpose awning that is adapted to mounted to an existing shelter and that can be moved to different positions to provide shade and to serve as a holder for signage. The present invention fulfills these and other needs.


In the electronics industry, a continuing need is to further and further reduce the size and weight of electronic devices while simultaneously increasing performance and speed. Cellular telephones, personal data devices, notebook computers, camcorders, and digital cameras are but a few of the consumer products that require and benefit from this ongoing miniaturization of sophisticated electronics.
Integrated circuit (“IC”) assemblies for such complex electronic systems typically have a large number of interconnected IC chips. The IC chips, commonly called dies, are usually made from a semiconductor material such as silicon or gallium arsenide. Photolithographic techniques are used to form the various semiconductor devices in multiple layers on the dies.
Dies are encapsulated in a molded plastic package that has connectors or leads on the exterior of the package that function as input/output terminals for the die inside the package. The package includes a leadframe, a die mounted on the leadframe, and wires.
The die is conventionally mounted to the top surface of the leadframe with, for example, a layer of an adhesive or an adhesive film, and then electrically connected to the leadframe by a number of fine, conductive wires, typically gold (Au) or aluminum (Al), that electrically connect the die to the leadframe. The wires are attached to the die at the bonding pads of the die, which are located around the periphery of the die.
After the wires are attached, the die, the leadframe, and the conductive wires are encapsulated in a mold compound, such as plastic or epoxy. The encapsulation protects the leadframe, the die, and the fine conductive wires from physical, electrical, moisture, and/or chemical damage.
The encapsulation process begins by placing the leadframe, the die, and the fine conductive wires in a mold. Next, a mold compound is injected into the mold. The mold compound flows through the mold, encasing the leadframe, the die, and the conductive wires.
Typically, a mold encapsulates multiple semiconductor devices at the same time. A two part mold mounted on a hydraulic press is generally used.
Initially the two halves of the mold are held apart. One or more lead frames containing semiconductor devices are placed in an open half of the mold. The hydraulic press is then actuated and the mold closed, forming a cavity around each semiconductor die. It is not unusual for a mold to contain thousands of cavities. Each of these cavities is connected by one or more gates, channels, and runners to one or more softened plastic central reservoirs or pots. A worm screw or ram compresses the plastic so that it flows into the cavities. As soon as the plastic has hardened, the mold is opened and the molded plastic packages removed.
Frequently, moveable pins are built into the mold to align the mold parts, to hold the lead frames in a particular location during molding or to provide automatic ejection of the encapsulated parts. Also, the mold may contain other moving parts such as variable gates, vents, and dams. Thus, molds for encapsulating electronic parts, particularly semiconductor parts, are often very complicated.
In order to push liquefied plastic from the reservoirs into the many cavities, it is frequently necessary to inject or transfer the plastic at very high pressures. If the mold halves fail to seal tightly against each other or against the lead frames, undesired or unintended crevices may be present therebetween. At such high pressures, the crevices fill with plastic during encapsulation, producing unwanted thin webs of plastic. These thin webs of plastic are referred to as “flash” and can result from such imperfect sealing of the mold. Before the encapsulated electronic devices can be used, this flash must be removed. This increases the cost of manufacture and is undesirable. Also, flash is a significant cause of mold wear, requires additional labor for mold cleaning between molding cycles, and increases mold down-time.
In order to minimize flash, great pains are generally taken to machine the mating surfaces of the mold halves flat and parallel where they are to seal. Usually, they are carefully inspected for planarity during manufacture and after installation in the press. Powerful hydraulic cylinders in the mold force the mold halves tightly against the lead frames and each other. However, the force that can be applied in an effort to seal the mold is limited, since excessive force causes coining of the lead frames and rapid mold wear.
As a result, adhesives, such as adhesive tape, are commonly used to secure leadframes and reduce mold flash. However, mold flash continues to occur. Furthermore, adhesives must be cleaned from leadframes, increasing process steps and cost. Despite these efforts, flash continues to occur, even in the most carefully fabricated molds. There is therefore also a need to selectively shield integrated circuits compatibly with reducing mold flash.
After encapsulation, integrated circuits are arranged on a printed circuit board with other integrated circuits and electronic components. Small electronic devices require the integrated circuits to be very close together. However, some integrated circuits are sources of electromagnetic interference and must be spaced further away from other integrated circuits. This required spacing increases the size of the small electronic device being assembled. What is needed is a way to manufacture shielded integrated circuits while reducing mold flash.
Thus, a need still remains for improved encapsulation methods for shielded and unshielded integrated circuits that reduce size, reduce weight, and eliminate unwanted flash.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.


In the latter half of the twentieth century, there began a phenomenon known as the information revolution. While the information revolution is a historical development broader in scope than any one event or machine, no single device has come to represent the information revolution more than the digital electronic computer. The development of computer systems has surely been a revolution. Each year, computer systems grow faster, store more data, and provide more applications to their users.
A modern computer system typically comprises one or more central processing units (CPU) and supporting hardware necessary to store, retrieve and transfer information, such as communication buses and memory. It also includes hardware necessary to communicate with the outside world, such as input/output controllers or storage controllers, and devices attached thereto such as keyboards, monitors, tape drives, disk drives, communication lines coupled to a network, etc. The CPU or CPUs are the heart of the system. They execute the instructions which comprise a computer program and directs the operation of the other system components.
From the standpoint of the computer's hardware, most systems operate in fundamentally the same manner. Processors are capable of performing a limited set of very simple operations, such as arithmetic, logical comparisons, and movement of data from one location to another. But each operation is performed very quickly. Sophisticated software at multiple levels directs a computer to perform massive numbers of these simple operations, enabling the computer to perform complex tasks. What is perceived by the user as a new or improved capability of a computer system is made possible by performing essentially the same set of very simple operations, but using software having enhanced function, along with faster hardware.
In the very early history of the digital computer, computer programs which instructed the computer to perform some task were written in a form directly executable by the computer's processor. Such programs were very difficult for a human to write, understand and maintain, even when performing relatively simple tasks. As the number and complexity of such programs grew, this method became clearly unworkable. As a result, alternate forms of creating and executing computer software were developed. In particular, a large and varied set of high-level languages was developed for supporting the creation of computer software.
High-level languages vary in their characteristics, but all such languages are intended to make it easier for a human to write a program to perform some task. Typically, high-level languages represent instructions, fixed values, variables, and other constructs in a manner readily understandable to the human programmer rather than the computer. Such programs are not directly executable by the computer's processor. In order to run on the computer, the programs must first be transformed into a form that the processor can execute.
Transforming a high-level language program into executable form requires that the human-readable program form (source code) be converted to a processor-executable form (object code). This transformation process generally results in some loss of efficiency from the standpoint of computer resource utilization. Computers are viewed as cheap resources in comparison to their human programmers. High-level languages are generally intended to make it easier for humans to write programming code, and not necessarily to improve the efficiency of the object code from the computer's standpoint. The way in which data and processes are conveniently represented in high-level languages does not necessarily correspond to the most efficient use of computer resources, but this drawback is often deemed acceptable in order to improve the performance of human programmers.
While certain inefficiencies involved in the use of high-level languages may be unavoidable, it is nevertheless desirable to develop techniques for reducing inefficiencies where practical. This has led to the use of compilers and so-called “optimizing” compilers. A compiler transforms source code to object code by looking at a stream of instructions, and attempting to use the available resources of the executing computer in the most efficient manner. For example, the compiler allocates the use of a limited number of registers in the processor based on an analysis of the instruction stream as a whole, and thus hopefully minimizes the number of load and store operations. An optimizing compiler might make even more sophisticated decisions about how a program should be encoded in object code. For example, it might determine whether to encode a called procedure in the source code as a set of in-line instructions in the object code.
Even with all the compilation and associated high-level language tools available to the programmer, there are still some types of executable programming code, typically low-level operating system kernel functions, which are of such critical importance that they are manually programmed at a much lower level to achieve greater computer resource efficiency. At these lower levels, the programmer may decide how to represent data, allocate registers, assign storage addresses, and do other tasks often performed by the compiler or optimizing compiler.
A typical program contains many places at which flow of execution may diverge or converge, and many potential paths in the flow of program execution exist. For a typical program, many of these paths are rarely if ever used, while a relatively small number of the paths are utilized frequently. Rarely used paths may exist to handle special cases or errors, or may be unintentional side effects of the way in which a program was written. A program will generally perform more efficiently if the bulk of the system's resources are allocated to the most frequently used paths. For example, variables which occur in the most frequently used paths should be given preferences in the allocation of registers over variables which occur in the rarely used paths. Unfortunately, it is difficult for a compiler or optimizing compiler to know in advance which are the frequently used paths, since whether a path is frequently used or otherwise depends on the input data. One of the reasons that programming code written by a programmer at a low level tends to outperform code which is written at a higher level and compiled to object form is that the programmer usually knows better than the compiler which paths will be most frequently used.
Generally, it is possible to produce more efficient object code, and particularly to produce more efficient object code using an optimizing compiler, if it can be known in advance what the pattern of usage of the various code paths will be.
It is possible to collect data from actual or simulated run-time execution of a computer program in order to determine experimentally the frequency of execution of the various paths of a program. Such data is referred to herein as program execution profile data, or simply profile data for short.
Commonly, collection of profile data is accomplished by inserting special instructions into the program to collect data at key points. These instructions are referred to herein as “instrumentation instructions”, or “hooks”. A hook, which could be a single instruction or a set of instructions (including a called procedure) causes some record to be made each time it is encountered during execution of a program. Typically, the hook causes a corresponding counter to be incremented, although a record could take some other form.
A complete and accurate picture of the performance of a computer program requires that the frequency of taking each possible path in the flow of control be known. Because a typical computer program contains a very large number of possible paths, placing instrumentation hooks in every such path to measure flow is a significant burden. However, it is not necessary to directly measure every path. Mathematical techniques exist for determining a subset of the possible paths for instrumentation, from which the frequency of execution of the remaining unmeasured paths can be inferred. These techniques involve the construction of a control glow graph (CFG), which is a directed graph in which each node represents a basic block of code (i.e., a set of sequential instructions having only one entry point and no branches except at the end) and each arc represents a possible path for transfer of control from one block to another (by branching or by fall-through). The frequency of taking a path (arc) in the control flow graph is represented as an arc weight. It is assumed that flow in the graph is conserved, i.e., the sum of the arc weights of all arcs entering any node is equal to the sum of the arc weights of the arcs leaving the node. From a control flow graph, a spanning tree of arcs can be determined, such that the arc weight of any arc can be inferred from the weights of the arcs that are not in the spanning tree, based on the assumption that flow is conserved. Therefore, if instrumentation hooks are inserted only in the paths represented by arcs not in the spanning tree, the frequency of taking other paths can be inferred. Typically, a spanning tree can be constructed such that only 30%-40% of the arcs in the control flow graph need be instrumented, thus realizing a considerable reduction in the number of instrumentation hooks required.
However, even 30%-40% of the possible paths in a program often represents a very large number of paths. To minimize the deleterious effect of instrumentation hooks on program performance, instrumentation code should be as simple as possible. Specifically, a given hook usually increments a single counter in memory only, without performing other operations. A separate counter is associated with each hook. Counter values are examined and used to derive additional data only after data collection from the program ceases.
Where multiple processes execute the same instrumented program code simultaneously, the simplicity of the instrumentation code can lead to errors. The multiple processes need to access and increment the same counters, yet the instrumentation code has no protection against contention. If two processes both attempt to read, increment, and write back to the same counter simultaneously, one of the increments may be lost. This effect is referred to as “counter contention”.
If all possible paths (control flow arcs) in a program are instrumented, the effects of counter contention is typically small. However, as explained above, instrumenting all paths is very burdensome. Where the arc weights of many paths are inferred from a smaller number of measured paths, errors in the measured paths due to counter contention can be propagated a significant distance in the graph. This may cause counter errors to propagate into code paths which are infrequently or never taken. A compiler attempting to optimize code based on such data may skew the optimization in favor of such paths, to the detriment of other areas of the programming code.
A need exists for a method and apparatus for obtaining more accurate profile data, without the burden of overly complex instrumentation code or larger numbers of instrumentation hooks.


The present invention relates to personal care products, such as wipes and absorbent articles, that are capable of providing a skin health benefit to the user. More particularly, the present invention relates to wet wipes comprising at least one botanical compound that selectively controls the growth and/or adherence of flora on the skin. The botanical compounds described herein and suitable for incorporation into a wipe or absorbent article may selectively promote the adherence of healthy flora to the surface of skin or mucosa, selectively inhibit the growth of problem flora on or around the skin surface, selectively inhibit the adherence of problem flora to the surface of skin or mucosa, or provide multiple combinations of these effects.
A variety of flora, both beneficial and pathogenic, may be found on the skin at any given time. Problem flora, such as pathogenic bacteria and yeast, have been associated with numerous ailments, including skin infections, diaper rash, urinary or vaginal infections, and malodors, and are associated with various irritants, such as proteases, lipases, carbohydrases, lipopolysaccharides (“LPS”), volatile organic compounds (“VOCs”), and other bio-molecules. In contrast, healthy bacteria attach to the skin, and may provide a variety of benefits, including playing a role in preventing pathogenic organisms from colonizing or growing.
The disruption in the protection of healthy flora may result in the colonization of other organisms, which in turn may cause irritation, infection, and diseases on or near the skin surface. One example of a healthy bacterium is Lactobacillus acidophilus, which colonizes the vaginal epithelium during child-bearing years, and inhibits the growth of pathogens. Another skin bacterium which can have positive health attributes is Staphylococcus epidermidis. S. epidermidis is a normal microbial inhabitant of human skin. In most cases, strains of S. epidermidis are nonpathogenic and play a protective role in their host. For instance, S. epidermidis appears to prevent colonization of the skin by dermatophytic fungi, and may alter the production of irritating metabolites. In limited circumstances, S. epidermidis, however, can become an opportunistic pathogen by spreading into the blood through breaks in skin barriers. Individuals most susceptible to S. epidermidis infection are intravenous drug users, newborns, elderly, and those using catheters or other artificial appliances. Regardless, S. epidermidis is generally regarded as a bacteria that provides a health benefit.
In contrast, an example of a common pathogenic flora is Candida albicans. When in yeast form, C. albicans naturally inhabits the human digestive tract, and is a normal part of bowel flora. However, under certain conditions, such as a weakened immune system, a high sugar diet, or improper pH in the digestive system, among others, C. albicans may shift from the yeast stage, to an invasive mycelial fungal form. The mycelial fungal form of C. albicans binds readily to the skin and mucus membranes, and is associated with a wide variety of infections, including vaginal yeast infections, oral infections, and diaper rash.
Other common pathogenic flora include Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis, and Escherichia coli. Like C. albicans, E. coli naturally inhabit the human gastro-intestinal tract. However, E. coli can be pathogenic, and are responsible for several types of infections in humans, including urinary tract infections. For example, E. coli can colonize from the feces or perineal region, and ascend the urinary tract to the bladder, causing infection and irritation.
P. aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen of humans, and is resistant to many antibiotics. P. aeruginosa may infect almost any type of compromised tissue, and can cause a variety of infections, including urinary tract infections, respiratory system infections, dermatitis, soft tissue infections, and bacteremia, as well as a variety of systemic infections, particularly in immunosuppressed patients.
P. mirabilis is a Gram negative rod that is widely distributed in nature and easily isolated in the feces of most animals, but is hardly ever found in high numbers unless the normal intestinal microflora is altered. P. mirabilis can cause invasive diarrhea and severe infections of the upper urinary tract, and has also been implicated in infections of blood and wounds.
To date, skin cleaning products, such as wet wipes and dry wipes, have primarily cleaned the skin by attempting to remove and/or kill all flora present on the skin, regardless of whether the flora are potentially beneficial or potentially harmful. For example, numerous commercially available wet wipes comprise at least one antimicrobial compound, such as an organic acid, which is typically used in combination with a surfactant to kill flora on the skin surface. Although typically effective in killing flora located on the skin surface, the antimicrobial wipe kills all flora and does not, and cannot, distinguish between “good” and “bad” flora.
Based on the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a skin health benefit for inhibiting the growth or adherence to the skin of problem flora, while maintaining, or even enhancing the adherence of healthy flora. Products, such as wipes or absorbent articles, that comprise one or more compounds capable of selectively controlling the growth and/or adherence of flora to the skin would thus be desirable, and could impart a beneficial health effect to the user.


The removal of dirt and debris from streets, parking lots, airport runways, factory floors, and other similar paved surfaces, through the use of various types of street sweeping vehicles or factory sweeping vehicles, as may be the case, has been known for many years. As is well known in the industry, street sweeping vehicles, also known as mechanical street sweepers, employ a sweeping broom to remove dirt and debris from a surface and a conveying type elevating mechanism to lift the debris several feet up and deposit it into a hopper. Also, as is well known in the industry, factory sweeping vehicles, also known as factory sweepers, employ a sweeping broom to remove dirt and debris from a surface and sweep the debris several feet up and deposit it into a hopper. For the sake of brevity, clarity and simplicity, such vehicles will be generally referred to in this document as surface sweeping vehicles.
In surface sweeping vehicles, a pair of counter-rotating brushes sweep dirt and debris inwardly to underneath the central area of the sweeper and an elongate cylindrically-shaped sweeping broom that rotates about a horizontal axis sweeps the dirt and debris forward up and onto a conveyor. The conveyor deposits the dirt and debris into a hopper for subsequent controlled dumping from the hopper. Such mechanical broom sweepers can remove large amounts of dirt and debris from a paved surface quite quickly and can generally remove large pieces of debris quite readily. However, they cannot contain fine particulate matter that has become airborne, without the use of water for dust suppression. The use of water is undesirable as it creates two problems. A covering of wet dirt remains on the surface behind the surface sweeping vehicle. During the warm months, when the water in this wet dirt evaporates, significant amounts of dried small particulate matter from the wet dirt become air borne. Also, water cannot be used in cold winter months because the water tends to freeze on the surface being swept, thus creating unsafe conditions, and tends to freeze in tank, lines and water pipes.
It is widely accepted in the industry that the containment of dust generated during the street cleaning operation is extremely difficult, especially the containment of dust having a particle size under ten microns, without using water. Virtually all street sweepers--that is to say mechanical street sweeping vehicles employing sweeping brooms as the primary means for removing dirt and debris from a road surface--have an inherent problem with containment of dust, especially dust having a particle size under ten microns. With street sweeping vehicles, it is common to use water for dust suppression. However, water can be used only during warm weather when the water will not freeze, and thus, such sweepers are often avoided altogether in many colder climates. Moreover, after a wet road surface has been swept by a sweeping broom, the wet road surface dries and leaves behind a residual fine dust that ultimately becomes airborne, commonly in the form of very fine dust having a particle size under ten microns, which is highly unacceptable.
Recently, it has become increasingly important for environmental reasons to not just fully remove dirt and debris during a street cleaning operation, but to remove dust and other particulate matter, especially particles less than about ten microns. In many jurisdictions, there are strict environmental laws pertaining to the removal and containment, during a street cleaning operation, of particulate matter having a size of less than ten microns, which is essentially breathable particulate.
Some mechanical type street sweeping vehicles employ a rotating broom that throws dirt and debris into a "squeegee" type elevator for deposit into a hopper. The elevator overthrows the dirt and debris into a hopper behind the elevator. The filtration system is located within the hopper, directly over the entire volume of the hopper. Air from the hopper is drawn upwardly through the filters, thus always creating a negative pressure within the hopper, elevator, and sweeping broom areas, and is expelled through a small additional filter to the atmosphere. During use, the filters trap dust and fine debris from the air stream created by the fan. A vibrating mechanism shakes the filters to shake loose the trapped dust and debris and deposit it into the hopper. However, since the air stream is continuously flowing at an aggressive pace through the filters, the trapped dust and debris can tend to clog the filters. In order to properly clear the filters completely, the sweeping operation must be stopped, and the filters vibrated until they are clear. Often, additional cleaning and maintenance of the filters may be necessary.
Moreover, due to the inherent positioning of the filter in the hopper, such filters are susceptible to moisture carryover, which can lead to clogging of the filters, thereby possibly causing cessation of dust control.
The only mechanical street sweeping vehicles that can employ an auxiliary debris suction hose to facilitate the supplemental suctioning of debris, must first stop their street sweeping operation due to their inherent design and operating characteristics.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a dust controlling apparatus for use in a mechanical surface sweeping vehicle, which dust controlling apparatus substantially precludes dust that is generated during a street cleaning operation from being expelled to the atmosphere.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a dust controlling apparatus for use in a mechanical surface sweeping vehicle, which dust controlling apparatus substantially precludes dust that is generated during a street cleaning operation from being expelled to the atmosphere, without the use of water for dust suppression.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a dust controlling apparatus for use in a mechanical surface sweeping vehicle, which dust controlling apparatus substantially precludes dust that is generated during a street cleaning operation, and has a particle size of less than ten microns, from being expelled to the atmosphere.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a dust controlling apparatus for use in a mechanical surface sweeping vehicle, which dust controlling apparatus substantially precludes dust that is generated during a street cleaning operation from being expelled to the atmosphere, during the cleaning in both wet and dry street conditions.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a surface sweeping vehicle that can suction dust and various forms of debris while sweeping a surface with a sweeping broom.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a surface sweeping vehicle having a dust and debris separator that does not become clogged with moist debris.


This invention relates to an indicator for showing the discharged voltage of a stroboscope used with a camera.
A photographic stroboscope is generally designed for the discharge of electric energy stored in a discharge capacitor through a flash tube. At the time of discharge, the flash tube sends forth a flash. The intensity of the flash varies with the static energy or voltage stored in the discharge capacitor. To ensure, therefore, a flash having a desired intensity, it is necessary to examine the voltage of the discharge capacitor. In other words, an indicator is needed which shows the voltage of the discharge capacitor.
A known indicator designed to meet this requirement is the type in which a neon discharge tube is connected to the discharge capacitor. The neon discharge tube requiring a certain discharge space is subject to limitations in being rendered compact. Accordingly, considerable difficulties are encountered in fitting a neon discharge tube type voltage indicator for stroboscope into a camera finder. In contrast, an indicator using a light-emitting diode (LED) in place of a neon discharge tube can be built in a camera finder, enabling a camera as a whole to be easily handled, because the LED can be made very compact. However, a larger amount of current is necessary for the LED to be lighted than when the neon discharge tube is lighted. Discharge current required for the neon discharge tube is about 0.01 mA. Whereas drive current of about 1 mA is required for the LED to give off a light. Therefore, direct replacement of the neon discharge tube used with the prior art indicator by a LED results in a noticeable increase in power consumption, namely, a decrease in the life of a dry cell used as a power source of a stroboscope.


The present invention relates to a valve-moving control apparatus for intermitting operation of a predetermined number of valves of cylinders of an engine in accordance with a load applied to the internal combustion engine and a method therefor.
In an internal combustion engine for intermitting operation of a predetermined number of valves of cylinders in accordance with the load applied to the engine, when an opening degree of a throttle is low at a certain rotational speed, a large amount of axis torque output is obtained by intermitting actuations of some valves of the cylinders and when the open degree of the throttle is high at this rotational speed, a large amount torque output is obtained by actuating all valves.
Accordingly, a switch for intermitting actuations of some valves of the cylinders or actuating all valves is usually operated at a timing (cross point) when the torque output of an internal combustion engine in which some valves are intermitted, and the torque output of the engine in which all valves are actuated, are equal to each other at the same opening degree of a throttle as shown in FIG. 9. When the switch is shifted at the cross point, torque shock does not occur, since the torque output does not change.
However, if an internal combustion engine in which some valves of the cylinders are intermitted is changed to actuate all the valves, inner pressure at the intake pipe of all the cylinder is very high immediately after the operation is changed, and a large volume of air is suddenly intaken into all the cylinders, so that a large torque occurs and its shock is transmitted to an internal combustion engine's mounts, a driving mechanism and wheels of the vehicle in which the engine is mounted.
The shock caused by such a torque difference is not very much when a gear is shifted to high speed traveling such as the third, the fourth gear and the fifth gear, for which a gear change ratio is relatively low. On the other hand, the shock is largely transmitted to a chassis when the gear is shifted to a low speed traveling, such as the first or the second gear, for which the gear change ratio is large.


The present invention relates to a digital-signal-processing circuit and a display apparatus and a liquid-crystal projector that employ the digital-signal-processing circuit. More particularly, the present invention relates to a digital-signal-processing circuit carrying out gamma correction on a digital video signal for driving a display device exhibiting a non-linear optical response characteristic and to a display apparatus and a liquid-crystal projector that employ the digital-signal-processing circuit.
A display apparatus exhibits a device-peculiar non-linear optical response to an input voltage. An example of such a display device is a liquid-crystal display apparatus employing liquid-crystal cells distributed among pixels to serve as electro-optical devices. An example of the optical-response characteristic of the display apparatus is a characteristic representing a relation between the transmittance and the applied voltage, as shown in FIG. 5. Such a characteristic is referred to as a V-T characteristic.
From a gradation-recognition characteristic of a human being, on the other hand, a desirable characteristic of a picture display apparatus display luminance, such as the transmittance, is an exponential function with respect to the level of an input voltage, as shown in FIG. 6. In order to obtain the desirable characteristic shown in FIG. 6 from a picture display apparatus with the V-T characteristic shown in FIG. 5, the voltage to be applied to the liquid-crystal device must be generated appropriately from the level of an input signal, as indicated by the non-linear relation shown in FIG. 7. The non-linear relation shown in FIG. 7 is referred to as a gamma-correction curve for an input digital video signal.
Generally known examples of the gamma correction include multi-break-point correction and correction based on an LUT (Look-up Table). These corrections entail the use of an analog or digital circuit. The LUT-based correction using a digital circuit has the problem of a large circuit scale. With a higher degree of IC integration achieved in the recent years, however, the limitation imposed by the large scale of the circuit is reduced. In addition, offering the merit of a high degree of precision, the LUT-based correction using a digital circuit has been becoming most popular.
In accordance with a related-art technology for implementing the LUT-based digital gamma correction, a digital gamma-correction circuit is used for carrying out the gamma correction as well as the transformation N≧n+2, where notation n denotes the bit count of the input digital video signal supplied to the digital gamma-correction circuit and notation N denotes the bit count of the digital video signal output by the digital gamma-correction circuit. For details of the digital gamma-correction circuit, refer to documents such as Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-20037. This related-art technology is intended for avoiding gradation deterioration in a gray zone.
To put it in detail, the gamma-correction curve representing a relation between the voltage to be applied to the liquid-crystal device and the level of an input signal has large gradients in a black-side zone and smaller ones in the gray zone, as shown in FIG. 7. These gradients indicate that, with the output-bit count set at the same value as the input-bit count, the gradation in the gray zone cannot be kept at the same degree of precision as the input gradation. The related-art technology described above carries out the gamma correction as well as the transformation N≧n+2 in order to avoid gradation deterioration in the gray zone, where notation n denotes the number of bits input to the LUT and notation N denotes the number of bits output from the LUT.
With the related-art technology described above, however, the number of output bits rises with an increase in input-bit count. There is thus raised the problem that the output-pin count of a signal-processing IC for carrying out the gamma correction also increases. In addition, the input-pin count of a D/A converter provided at a later stage rises as well. As a result, the circuit scales of the ICs also increase and the power consumption rises as well, raising the problem of an increased amount of unnecessary radiation. Furthermore, the related-art technology described above is no more than a technology for avoiding gradation deterioration in a gray zone where the gradient of the gamma correction curve is small.


Human alpha-thrombin appears to have growth-promoting activity for a wide variety of cells from various tissues. For example, alpha-thrombin has been shown to initiate proliferation of fibroblastic cells in culture without addition of serum or other purified growth factors, to synergize with epidermal growth factor in certain hamster fibroblasts and human endothelial cells, to initiate cell division or DNA synthesis in mammalian lens epithelial and spleen cells and actuate monocytes and neutrophils. Yet, the use of thrombin as a growth factor and its potential importance to wound healing has not been widely acclaimed. In part, this may be due to the complexity of thrombin's involvement with coagulation, platelet activation, and initiation of cell proliferation as well as to the complex regulation of thrombin and thrombin-like molecules by serum protease inhibitors and by cell-released protease nexins. This complexity and high degree of physiologic regulation, however, supports the potential importance of this initiation pathway in wound healing.
Thrombin may also play a role in both normal revascularization and migration of cells from the blood to the site of injury and the abnormal metastasis and angiogenesis associated with tumors. The ability of thrombin to increase endothelial cell proliferation and alter the barrier function of blood vessels may contribute to angiogenesis and inflammation at sites of tissue injury.
Thrombin derivative peptides have been described by the present inventors for the agonizing and antagonizing thrombin and/or thrombin receptor activity, such as in the treatment of wounds. U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,412 or 5,352,664, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. However, the patent does not teach the novel use of the thrombin derivative peptides for the treatment of damaged cardiac tissue, for revascularization, or for inhibition of vascular occlusion and restenosis.


Control circuits constructed with electronic components, and particularly control circuits having fault protection, have for some time been a part of the state of the art and are used, for example, for controlling presses, punching presses, automated systems and the like. These control circuits pick up fault conditions by using self-monitoring logic circuits, for example, two-channel logic circuits with antivalence monitoring (see German Offenlegungsschrift 27 21 270), or by cyclic monitoring of safety-related components (see German Offenlegungsschrift 26 33 322 or British Pat. No. 1,527,857). Such control circuits are designed for monitoring certain operational conditions such as single-stroke operation with eccentric presses, and in this they guarantee a high degree of operational reliability.
The actuators ad/or the power amplifiers preceding the presses, which actuators and/or power amplifiers are driven by the control circuits, are predominantly provided with semiconductor components. These semiconductor components can be connected to a load voltage supply circuit in such a manner that, if the control circuits and the machines to be controlled are functioning properly, the actuators which cause movements will be driven.
In the case of a fault, however, as a rule the load volatage supply circuits are cut off. This cut-off is a result of action by the control circuit which is protected against faults. Under special operating conditions, for example, during setting-up, the control circuit can be used in such a manner that it is possible to operate the machine even though certain safety circuits (e,g, protective screen up) are deactivated. During such an operating condition the semiconductor components which switch the load voltage supply circuit are connected direactly into the active circuit. Therefore, a failure of a semiconductor component can lead to an unplanned movement, for example, in an automated system, which greatly endangers the operator during setting-up operations.


This invention pertains to the field of digital optical communications.
A typical digital optical communications system includes a transmitter, an optical channel (e.g., optical fiber), and a receiver. Optionally, the optical channel may have one or more elements such as amplifiers to compensate for attenuation due to long distances and other dispersive effects. The transmitter is often constructed of a light source generating an optical carrier and an electro-optical modulator. A common electro-optical modulator is the Mach Zehnder (M-Z) modulator. The M-Z modulator operates by dividing incoming light into two optical paths. Into one or both paths is placed a material that, in response to a control voltage, alters the phase of the light traveling through it. The two paths are then optically recombined to generate the final output. Phase differences between the two paths cause destructive interference, operating to reduce the intensity of the output. When the two paths are exactly one-half wavelength out of phase (a radians), destructive interference is complete and no light exits the modulator. When the two paths are in phase constructive interference occurs and the light exiting is equal in intensity to the incident light (minus small system losses). FIG. 1 plots the percentage of transmitted light at different control voltages. The transfer characteristic of the M-Z modulator is a raised cosine. The difference in drive voltage between the minimum and maximum transmission points is called Vxcfx80 since it results in an optical phase change of xcfx80 radians. Vxcfx80 is generally stable, however, the absolute voltage of the optical minimum and maximum drift with time, temperature, and other phenomenon.
Typically, commercial M-Z modulators are driven with two electrical signals. The first is a data drive signal that modulates the phase difference between the two paths. The second is a bias voltage that controls the average phase difference between the paths. These electrical drive components can be combined externally to the M-Z, and applied to a single electrode set, or can be effectively combined within the M-Z modulator (on separate data and bias electrode sets). This separation of data and bias signals generally simplifies the overall electrical drive system. The bias voltage circuitry corrects for the relatively slow drift due to time, temperature, etc., freeing the high-performance data drive circuitry from addressing these effects. In some M-Z modulators, the data drive signal consists of a plurality of wires that may be driven differentially, redundantly or complementarily. The methods described in this patent apply equally to M-Z modulators with one or more data drive wires.
Some systems modulate multiple bands of electrical information onto a single optical carrier frequency. These systems are most efficient when the transmitter has a linear transfer characteristic. This is best achieved with the M-Z modulator by setting the bias point at a 50% transmission level (labeled xe2x80x98Axe2x80x99 on FIG. 1) and using the data drive signal to vary the transmission symmetrically about this point. Additional linearity can be achieved by limiting the data drive signal variance to less than Vxcfx80.
Other systems modulate the optical carrier with a single channel of digital electrical information. Increased data transmission rates are accomplished by increasing the electrical clock rate as well as the use of multiple modulators operating on multiple optical carriers of different frequencies (i.e., Wavelength Division Multiplexing). In these systems, linearity of the transmitter transfer characteristic is unimportant. Rather, the ability of the receiver to distinguish optical xe2x80x981xe2x80x99 from optical xe2x80x980xe2x80x99 must be maximized. We will call the ratio of the amplitude of the optical xe2x80x981xe2x80x99 to the amplitude of the optical xe2x80x980xe2x80x99 the extinction ratio. The higher the extinction ratio of the transmitter, the lower the required sensitivity of the receiver. The maximum extinction ratio is achieved by providing a data drive signal variance of Vxcfx80 combined with appropriate biasing. The term xe2x80x981xe2x80x99 level or xe2x80x980xe2x80x99 level is used to indicate the optimal optical amplitude at the transmitter when sending a xe2x80x981xe2x80x99 bit or a xe2x80x980xe2x80x99 bit to the receiver.
In prior-art systems, the data drive signal varies symmetrically and the bias voltage is maintained at the 50% level. Many bias voltage regulation schemes are known, one example is U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,838 titled, AUTOMATIC BIAS CONTROL FOR ELECTRO-OPTIC MODULATORS. In general, two prior-art bias methods are known. Both techniques rely on injecting a low frequency control tone into the M-Z modulator, extracting a resulting component of the control tone from the output of the M-Z modulator and adjusting the bias voltage by processing the extracted component and optionally, the original control tone.
In one technique, a control tone is modulated onto the bias voltage. The bias voltage is adjusted to maximize the detected control tone component. FIG. 6 shows an example of this system. Laser 700 generates an optical carrier transmitted through M-Z modulator 710. M-Z modulator 710 modulates the carrier by combining data drive signal 760 and bias voltage 770. Bias voltage 770 is generated by combining the output of control tone oscillator 750 and feedback control 730. The output of the M-Z modulator 720 is monitored by photo-detector 720. Feedback control 730 extracts from photo-detector 720 the control tone component that is combined with the output of control tone oscillator 750 to generate the necessary bias adjustment.
In another technique, the data drive signal is modulated by a control tone. The extracted control tone is multiplied by the original control tone to generate an error signal. Feedback correction of the bias voltage is done using well-known control techniques like proportional and integrative.
Increasing the transmitted data rate faces two difficulties. First, the shorter electrical wavelength of the modulating signal shortens the practical active length of the M-Z waveguide causing Vxcfx80 to increase. Second, it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve a particular voltage swing at higher electrical clock rates. These two difficulties combine to lower the actual data drive voltage swing below Vxcfx80, reducing the extinction ratio. When the data drive voltage swing is less than Vxcfx80, the system is said to be underdriven. One response to this effect is to increase the sensitivity required of the receiver. However, there are limits to receiver sensitivity due to a number of factors, including electrical noise in the photo-diode, optical noise injected by optical amplifiers in the transmission path and others. Consequently, it is desirable to maximize the extinction ratio of an M-Z modulator when the data drive voltage swing is less than Vxcfx80. The optimal extinction ratio for an underdriven M-Z modulator is achieved when the bias point is not at the 50% transmission level of the prior-art.
A goal of the invention is maximize the extinction ratio when the M-Z modulator is underdriven.
The amplitude of control tone modulation of the zero and one levels of the M-Z control voltage is independently controlled. Detecting the results of the asymmetric control tone modulation allows the system to better control the extinction ratio.
In a preferred embodiment, all of the control tone modulation is placed onto the zero level. The system adjusts the M-Z bias point to maximize the extinction ratio.


Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains, generally, to very lightweight safety and protective garments for working animals. The garments provide comfortable protection to such animals against insect (primarily biting flies) harassment as well as possessing high visibility, illuminative and identification indicia on any individual garment. Specifically, the invention provides an ensemble, consisting in an unitary or assemblage of garments that are constructed so as to cover, or drape, discrete portions of a working animal""s body and which (independently) provide protection against biting insects, while presenting, for use during times of low or obscured visibility, superficial illuminative indicia for identification.
2. Discussion of Relevant Art
Several documents have been found that disclose various attempts to provide animal clothing, or garments, that would afford the general characteristics stated above, namely safety and fly-resistive protection; however none appear to show high visibility, illuminating apparatus. The most relevant of these documents have, as they appear to the instant inventor, both advantages and limitations as hereinafter discussed.
In U.S. Pat. No. Des. 374,315, issued Oct. 1, 1996 for PROTECTIVE GARMENT FOR CANINES, there is shown a complete cloaking for a dog that covers the animal from crown to tail, stopping just short of covering the tops of the paws. The garment appears to be for warmth, but such a determination of utility is beyond the scope of the design patent. There is no showing of illuminative indications or paraphernalia.
The garment morphology shown in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 372,563, issued Aug. 6, 1996 for PROTECTIVE DOG GARMENT, is similar to one of the varied canine coverings of the instant invention. Again, with the design patent, actual utility is unspoken and there exists some ambiguity whether this is a garment for a xe2x80x9cprotectivexe2x80x9d (i.e., protection) dog or a protective garment for a dog. The instant invention""s intent is not served by the xe2x80x9cleggingsxe2x80x9d shown in this patent and in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 374,315; and there appears in neither the above-mentioned paraphernalia.
A REVERSIBLE HEAT-REFLECTIVE PET GARMENT is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,194, issued Jul. 18, 2000. This article covers the chest, flanks and back of a dog with a reversible cover that presents, outwardly, an alternate heat-reflective or water-repellant surface. The garment resembles yet another of the garment variations entertained by the present invention, but because of its non-porous composition, it is limited to use in only extreme hot/cold or wet climes.
Similar to the article of U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,194 is that disclosed in U.S. Patent No. 5,060,458, issued Oct. 29, 1991 and entitled: PROTECTIVE DOG COAT. This is a relatively heavy coat, for a dog of any type, which affords warmth and the addition of highly visible coloring. There is shown no other means for either identification or comfort.
One of the most relevant article found, relative to the instant invention, is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,891 (""891), entitled: PROTECTIVE HORSE MASK. Although confined to but a portion of a horse""s head, this device, by use of a lightweight mesh fabric and fleece, provides face, ear and nostril protection against both sun and noisome insects. Although the device is perceived to be well suited, to its task, the patent falls short of suggesting that the stated protection be applied to the preponderance of the animal""s body. The mask also lacks means for rendering the animal highly visible.
Although coverings for animals are quite plentiful, the instant inventor has not been apprised of a garment for working animals, particularly horses under saddling gear, or dogs, that possesses lightweight, extensive covering, which affords to the animal excellent ventilation, optional fly protection and especially high visibility during low-light conditions.
Several other disclosures show forms of protective garments for equines and canines that will be listed in the References Cited. Most show breathable fabrics or turnout garments and particular shapes; but all fall short of the salient aspects of the instant invention, which can be realized in one or a plurality of safety garments.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,128,891, issued to McMahon on Oct. 10, 2000 for a PROTECTIVE HORSE MASK is incorporated by reference for its showing of a partial head covering for a horse, said covering consisting in the combination of lightweight, fine mesh and fleece fabrics
Most terms used herein are to be taken as having their customary English meaning. When different or secondary meanings may be applied, the inventor has, with their first usage, employed quotation marks and given their intended definition in parentheses. A few terms, however, are to be read with the following meanings (especially in the claims):
breathablexe2x80x94having capability of ventilation or being evapotranspirative;
ensemblexe2x80x94an assemblage of parts (as in a set of clothing);
evapotranspirativexe2x80x94having the properties of liquid absorption and evaporation;
fluorescencexe2x80x94luminescence that may persist after removal of excitation;
illuminati(on)(ve)xe2x80x94practically speaking, any kind of light or light producing (def. illuminative).
iridescencexe2x80x94brilliance or high reflectance of light;
luminescencexe2x80x94emission of visible light after non-thermal energy stimulation; and
saddling gearxe2x80x94the saddle, including cinching and accouterments for attachments.
The instant inventor has overcome deficiencies of the early art by providing an ensemble of illuminative/illuminated, well ventilated, insect-resistive garments for working animals, such as horses (especially under saddling gear) or field dogs. Dual safety objectives are satisfied by this invention: first, prevention of animal harassment by biting insects such as deer/black/horse flies, which could cause a horse to stumble or a dog to turn into line of fire; and second, identification of the animal (and rider or master) during conditions of low ambient light. Hereinafter, the descriptions of the invention and its maximum benefits will be described, principally, in respect of the horse, donned with saddling gear (or under saddle): however, the invention is adaptable for use by most equine and canine creatures, while at task or leisure (i.e., at pasture or roaming).
The first of these objectives is attained, in varying degree, by cloaking portions of the animal in a single garment or a plurality of garments, the latter ensemble being preferred, but not required. Garments of the ensemble are constructed of lightweight, breathable mesh fabrics of the type that are used for their ventilation or moisture-wicking properties. Moreover, the fabric used by the inventor is produced, and available off the shelf, in iridescent colors. Under fair weather and light (normal) ambient conditions, the ensemble provides: a hood (head covering); a hood-connected cape (neck covering), which descends to the withers and is attached to the saddling gear; and a body drape, consisting in a single garment attached, to saddling gear, so as to cover the horse""s flanks, back and rump laterally and rearward of the saddling gear. The garment fabric is of a mesh small enough to frustrate the common biting flies, yet large enough to xe2x80x9cbreathxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94in the preferred embodiment, having foramen size from about 0.5 mm to about 1.5 mm. The bonnet portion (head cover) of the ensemble stands off the eyes of the animal, thereby providing to them an insect-and light debris-resistive guard or barrier protection. Under such (normal) conditions, both safety objectives of the invention are met when the iridescent fabric is used.
To achieve the second objective, under less than optimum visibility conditions, there is provided, on discrete sites of the garments, a series of illuminative strips or patches. Several fabrics of luminescent, fluorescent or otherwise highly reflective character are readily available, on the market. These indicators, or illuminative indicia, are affixed by sewing/stitching, snap fasteners or, like the preferred method of connecting the above garments, by use of materials bearing hooks and loops, as in the product Velcro(copyright).


As can be seen by reference to the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,734,567; 2,805,632; 2,948,083; and 4,841,686; the prior an is replete with myriad and diverse gutter screen assemblies.
While all of the aforementioned prior art constructions are more than adequate for the basic purpose and function for which they have been specifically designed, these patented structures are deficient either from the stand point of either the simplicity or complexity of their respective constructions.
In the instance of the simpler constructions, they are normally characterized by a flimsiness and fragility that does not provide sufficient rigidity to the screening element to guarantee a long useful life; whereas, in the instance of the more complex structures, they are much more difficult to manufacture and therefore more expensive bringing into effect the cost versus benefit ratio for the consumer.
As a consequence of the foregoing situation, there has existed a longstanding need among consumers for a simple, rugged, and inexpensive gutter guard apparatus that incorporates structural innovations and improvements that are not found in the prior art constructions, and the provision of such a construction is a stated objective of the present invention.


There is a great variety of tools for picking up and manipulating small objects, arranging for example from the simplest tongs and magnetized screwdrivers to extremely complex remote control arms. Many of these tools, such as tongs or pliers, require that the operator maintain his grip on the work piece being handled. Others, such as certain forceps and locking pliers, can be locked in a closed position on the piece being handled. Many of the locking manipulative tools are relatively large, clumsy, otherwise not particularly well-adapted for manipulation of small electrical components, or too expensive for the task. As background, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,256 which is directed to a locking tool for manipulation of electronic components, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,896,533, which is directed to a tool for inserting and removing circuit components.
Electrical outlets are frequently crowded environments in which it can be dangerous or difficult to handle components with the fingers. Accordingly, it is desirable to have tools which are small or portable, easily operable and manipulated by one hand, and which can grasp electrical components firmly, capturing them so that they can be manipulated in any orientation for installing and testing or removing electrical outlets from junction boxes. The tool of the present invention admirably fulfills these requirements. It is simple, easily operable by one hand, can be interconnected with the work piece being handled, and is able to capture and retain the electrical work piece being handled until the operator chooses to disconnect the tool from the work piece.


The present exemplary embodiment relates to solar charging protocols for electric or hybrid vehicles. However, it is to be appreciated that the present exemplary embodiment is also amenable to other similar applications.
Electric vehicles are powered by an electric motor to which electricity is provided by a group of batteries. Operation of the motor depletes energy stored in the batteries. Electric vehicles are typically recharged from an external power source. For example, the electric vehicle can be recharged at a home or office location by being plugged into a standard outlet. Also, commercial fast charging stations are becoming more commonly available where a higher current charge can be delivered.
A hybrid vehicle operates using both hydrocarbon fuel and electric power. A conventional engine is fueled by the hydrocarbon fuel while an electric motor is powered by a battery. The engine may operate a generator which charges the battery at times when the full power of the engine is not needed to propel the vehicle. A plug-in hybrid is a hybrid vehicle in which the driver has the option of plugging the vehicle into an exterior electric power source when it is parked so that the battery does not have to be charged by the engine.
Solar vehicles, as referred to herein, include electric and hybrid vehicles which have one or more solar panels on the body to provide part of the electricity for the electric motor and/or for charging the batteries and further to any vehicle including one or more solar panels that provide electrical power to a vehicle accessory, such as a radio or the vehicle's heating, ventilating and air conditioning system.
An exemplary electric vehicle including solar panels is depicted in FIG. 1. Vehicle 10 includes storage batteries 12 mounted within the vehicle. A plurality of solar panels 14 are located on the hood and roof to convert incident solar radiation into electrical energy. The solar panels 14 are electrically connected to the storage batteries 12 and are operative to supply electrical current thereto for recharging. In general, the panels are preferably as large as practical to help create a large total area of solar panels. In practice, this may mean that parts of the panels extend over air rather than the vehicle body.
Furthermore, notwithstanding the reference to solar panels, other types of systems devised to convert solar radiation into electricity may be suitable for use in the presently disclosed embodiment. Moreover, the present disclosure is suited to any type of apparatus attached to a vehicle that generates electrical energy from solar radiation. Accordingly, the use of the phrase “solar panel” throughout this disclosure is intended to encompass all such apparatus.
A typical car belonging to an individual is parked most of the time. Therefore, if significant sun exposure can be provided while parked, solar charging can provide a substantial portion of the required energy. In the case of an electric vehicle, the solar vehicle would likely also be a plug-in, so if sunlight is unavailable for any reason (weather, parked underground etc.) the battery can be charged from grid power. In the case of a hybrid vehicle, the battery of the solar hybrid can be charged by the solar panels and by the engine and perhaps also as a plug-in.
As compared to a solely plug in electric car, a key advantage of a solar vehicle is that it can be more easily charged at a location away from the operator's home. By utilizing an integrated vehicle controller and GPS system, and/or a smart phone, it is possible to provide guidance to the vehicle operator to maximize vehicle charging via solar energy.


Electronic compasses are not new in the art. Both flux gate and Hall effect circuitry have been used to create suitable directional displays for a variety of navigational tasks.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,402,142, issued to Robert C. Dinsmore on Sep. 6, 1983, describes an electronic compass for automobiles utilizing a series of Hall effect sensors. However, the circuits used in that invention have proven to require significant amounts of current, rendering the devices relatively impractical for portable use. Because of the current demands of the Hall effect sensors, amplifiers, Schmitt triggers and display drivers, present Hall effect devices typically consume current at the rate of approximately 200 milliamperes per hour. Extremely large batteries would be necessary to power these devices for extensive periods of time.
The within invention eliminates substantial current consuming portions of the typical Hall effect or flux gate-type compass, adds a "chopper" circuit which effectively shuts the compass electronics off during most of its operating cycle, and a vibration sensing device which shuts off electrical power to the compass when it is motionless for a specified time.


Retinoic acid (vitamin A acid, abbreviation: RA) is an essential substance to the growth and life support of humans and other mammals. It has been known that retinoic acid acts as a morphogenesis factor in ontogenesis and functions variously in the differentiation and proliferation of adults. For example, it has been known that the acid participates in the cornification, formation of hairs, functions of sebaceous glands, and so on with respect to the epidermis, in the metabolism of bones and cartilages with respect to the connective tissues, in the regulation of immune functions with respect to the immune system, in the differentiation of nerve cells with respect to the nervous system, in the differentiation and proliferation of blood cells with respect to the hemic system, and in the secretion of thyroid hormones, parathyroid hormones and so on and the regulation of the functions thereof in target organs, thus taking part in the mineral metabolism and the basal metabolism. These various physiological actions of retinoic acid are exhibited by directly controlling gene expression through retinoid receptor (RARs, RXRs) family present in cell nuclei. With respect to retinoic acid, there are not only deficiencies but also excesses thereof such as abnormality in cornification, depilation, metabolic disorder of bones and cartilages, and so on. Further, the abnormality of retinoid receptors has recently been found in acute promyelocytic leukemia, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, lung cancer and so on, and the participation of retinoic acid in the sideration and evolution thereof has been reported.
In order to elucidate detailed mechanisms of these various actions of retinoids and to find the possibility for clinical application thereof, it has great significance to develop compounds antagonistic against retinoids. Although TD-550 and TD-560 (Cell Biol. Rev., 25, 209(1991)) and Ro41-5253 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., U.S.A., 89, 7129 (1992)) have already been known as compounds antagonistic against retinoids, they are thought to be poor in both the ability to bind RARs and antagonism against retinoids.
Meanwhile, RARs and RXRs are known as retionid receptors, which are members of steroid/thyroid receptor superfamily present in cell nuclei. Known receptors belonging to this superfamily include estrogen receptors (ER), thyroid hormone receptors (TR), vitamin D.sub.3 receptors (D.sub.3 R) and steroid hormone receptors. With respect to RXRs, there are .alpha.-, .beta.- and .gamma.-subtypes, and the ligand thereof has recently been identified with 9-cis RA. Further, it has been found that RXRs have the physiological property of forming heterodimers together with RXRs, TR, D.sub.3 R or other receptors. Thus, it is being elucidated that RXRs act synergistically with their respective inherent ligands to take great part in the expression of the functions of retinoic acid, vitamin D.sub.3 or thyroid hormones through such heterodimers. In order to elucidate detailed mechanisms of these various actions of RXRs and to find the possibility for clinical application thereof, it has great significance to develop compounds binding to RXRs.
In view of the above actual circumstances, the inventors of the present invention have intensively studied to find that mono- or polyenic carboxylic acid derivatives which will be described below exhibit agonism for RXRs and are useful as drugs. As the prior art, although JP-A-2-76862 and EP 0568898 disclose monoenic carboxylic acid derivatives and polyenic carboxylic acid derivatives these derivatives are different from the compounds of the present invention in both chemical structure and drug effect.
Further, the inventors of the present invention have found that heterocyclic compounds described below exhibit extremely high ability to bind RARs and antagonism against retinoids, thus accomplishing the present invention.
For example, JP-A-2-240058 discloses heterocyclic compounds which exhibit such a function of agonist and are improved in the adverse reaction due to retinoid excess. However, these compounds are different from the compounds of the present invention in both chemical structure and drug effect.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor fabrication. More particularly, the invention relates to a salicided MOS device and a one-sided salicided MOS device on a semiconductor substrate and a simultaneous fabrication method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Complimentary metal oxide semiconductor, (CMOS), devices, for both logic and memory applications, fabricated on the same semiconductor chip, have been commonly used. For example, an embedded dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device includes a memory array and a logic circuit array formed together in a single integrated circuit (IC) chip. This embedded DRAM can thus access a large amount of data at much higher speeds. The embedded DRAM is thus widely used in logic circuitry, to process large amounts of data, such as in a graphic or an image microprocessor. An accomplished embedded DRAM typically includes a logic circuit, a transfer field effect transistor (transfer FET, MOSFET) array, and a capacitor coupled to the transfer FET, wherein the transfer FET serves as a electrode of the capacitor and a selective switch when the transfer FET is selected by a bit line. The voltage status of the capacitor can therefore be read or changed through the transfer FET. One transfer FET typically includes a gate structure and an interchangeable source/drain region on each side of the gate structure. The capacitor is coupled to the interchangeable source/drain region on one side of the gate structure, typically is the source region.
In order to obtain lower resistance and increase device speed, a method of performing a self-aligned silicide (salicide) process to form a salicided layer on all exposed silicon surfaces of the gate and source/drain region is proposed. However, the salicide process usually consumes junction depth, causing a shallow junction (also silicide junction), which may cause a charge leakage of the capacitor. For some leakage-concerned products, such as DRAM and CMOS image sensor, non-silicide junction is required for partial positions, for example, the position(s) of source/drain region of MOS connecting capacitor in DRAM and the position(s) of source/drain region of MOS connecting photodiode region in CMOS image sensor.
FIGS. 1-3 are sectional views of a portion of a semiconductor substrate, schematically illustrating a conventional fabrication process for forming an embedded DRAM. In FIG. 1, an isolation structure 110, such as STI (shallow trench isolation) or FOX (field oxide isolation), is formed in/on a semiconductor substrate 100 so as to create a DRAM active region 102 and a logic active region 104 on the substrate 100. An oxide layer (not shown) and a polysilicon layer (not shown) are sequentially formed on the substrate 100. Then, the oxide layer and the polysilicon layer are patterned to form a first gate structure 116 in the DRAM active region 102 and a second gate structure 118 in the logic active region 104. The gate structure 116 includes a gate 120a and a gate oxide layer 120b; and the gate structure 118 includes a gate 130a and a gate oxide layer 130b.
In FIG. 1, using the gate structures 116, 118 as a mask, lightly doped (LDD) regions 140 are respectively formed in the substrate 100 on each side of the gate structures 116, 118 by implantation. Then, a spacer 150 is formed on each sidewall of the first gate structure 116 and a spacer 155 is formed on each sidewall of the second gate structure 118. Then, interchangeable source/drain regions 160, 162, 164, 166 are respectively formed in the substrate 100 on each side of the gate structures 116, 118 by another implantation.
In FIG. 2, a photoresist layer 210 is formed on part of the substrate 100 to cover the interchangeable source/drain region 160 which will couple with a capacitor in subsequent process. Then, a self-aligned suicide (salicide) process is performed to form a silicide layer 220 on the gates 120a, 130a and the interchangeable source/drain regions 162, 164, 166.
In FIG. 3, the photoresist layer 210 is removed. Then, a capacitor 310 abutting the interchangeable source/drain region 160, such as a trench-type capacitor, is formed in the substrate 100. Number 320 denotes a dielectric film layer, conformal to an inner trench. Number 330 denotes an electrode coupled with the interchangeable source/drain region 160. The substrate 100 serves as another electrode of the capacitor 310.
According to the conventional method, however, since misalignment of the photoresist layer 210 easily occurs in submicron process, the DRAM cell performance cannot be precisely controlled. For example, when the misaligned photoresist layer 210′ covers part of the gate 120a, the silicide layer 220 cannot thoroughly form on the gate 120a, as shown in FIG. 4A. This affects the conductivity of the gate 120a. In addition, when the misaligned photoresist layer 210″ covers part of the interchangeable source/drain region 160, the silicide layer 220 partially forms on the interchangeable source/drain region 160, as shown in FIG. 4B. This may cause junction leakage (silicide junction), thereby decreasing device reliability.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,277,683 discloses a process for forming a salicided CMOS device and a non-salicided CMOS device on a semiconductor substrate. The method uses only one silicon nitride layer to provide a component for a composite spacer on the sides of the salicided CMOS device, and to provide a blocking shape for the non-salicided CMOS device during metal silicide formation. Nevertheless, this conventional method does not describe the process for forming a one-sided salicided CMOS device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,063,706 discloses a process for forming a salicided device and an ESD protective device having no salicide on a semiconductor substrate. The method uses a pad silicon nitride to cover the ESD protective device, and then two-step salicide process is performed on the substrate to form a silicide layer on the surface of a functional region. Nevertheless, this conventional method does not describe the process for forming a one-sided salicided CMOS device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,337,240 discloses a process for forming an embedded DRAM. The method implants ions onto a substrate with different dopant concentration to form different thickness gate oxide layers. An insulation layer serving as a mask is formed to cover the DRAM memory region. Then, a salicide process is performed to form a salicided layer on the surface of a logic region. Nevertheless, this conventional method does not describe the process for forming a one-sided salicided CMOS device.