1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and method for verifying an integrated circuit pattern formed on a substrate.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacture of semiconductor devices, there is a need of verifying whether an integrated circuit pattern formed on a substrate is formed as designed in individual processes.
FIG. 15 is a view to explain a method of verifying a hole pattern. According to the method, a target data TD of preset hole pattern is overlapped with a contour data CD extracted from hole pattern formed on a substrate. In the overlapped state, distances from several places of the foregoing two patterns are measured. It is determined whether or not the difference between the measured distances is within a predetermined allowable value, and thereby, it is determined whether the formed pattern is non-defective or defective.
The method of evaluating a pattern shape has been proposed (for example, JPN. PAT. APPLN. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-31525). According to the method, the distance between CAD (Computer Aided Design) output data and pattern data measured by SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) is measured in the same manner as described above. Based on the measured distance, evaluation is made with respect to the pattern shape.
The method of evaluating a pattern defect information has been proposed (for example, JPN. PAT. APPLN. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-93875). According to the method, the error dimension between CAD output data and shape simulation output data is measured. If the measured error dimension is not within a predetermined value, pattern defect information is displayed.
In addition, the following method has been proposed (for example, JPN. PAT. APPLN. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-182912). According to the method, comparison is made between an inspection reference pattern formed based on the design layout pattern and the finished predictive pattern. By doing so, pattern distortion of the finished predictive pattern is detected, and thereafter, the detected pattern distortion is identified in accordance with criticality.
According to the method of measuring the distance between the foregoing two patterns, a great many of places is measured, and thereby, the measurement accuracy is improved. However, if the measured places are too many, long time is spent for measuring these places. According to the method, the difference from the corner of the pattern is not so taken into consideration. For this reason, when verifying a pattern having a complicated shape, it is very difficult to determine whether the pattern is non-defective or defective. Moreover, there exist various patterns requiring to bridge neighboring patterns depending on pattern, or to control only line width of the shorter side of the pattern. In the foregoing patterns, the allowable (variable) range for the target dimension has not been clarified. For this reason, according to the conventional method, it is determined that patterns formed with accuracy having no problem on the device operation are defective.
According to the conventional method, time is taken to verify the pattern, and the features of the pattern are not considered; as a result, the pattern is not properly verified. In addition, according to the conventional method, it is difficult to evaluate a complicated pattern.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for taking out laundry articles from a laundry pile, wherein a minor batch of laundry articles is seized by a pull gripper intended therefor and pulled out of the laundry pile and lifted clear above the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such machines are known today for use in e.g. industrial laundries where the laundry articles, such as bedclothes and cloths which are, for instance following washing and tumble drying, in a more or less entangled pile, in a damp state.
These laundry articles are subsequently to be introduced individually into machines intended e.g. for straightening, ironing and folding the laundry articles.
In the laundries, it is thus a task to separate the laundry articles from the pile in which they are following washing and tumble drying in order to allow them to be introduced in to the subsequent machines for e.g. straightening, ironing and folding.
Today this process is carried out more or less manually but efforts are made to increasingly automate the process, the work positions involved in the manual process being quite straining, and therefore machines have already been developed to carry out at least some steps of the process automatically.
Such machines are known from e.g. DE 43 30 911 which features an arrangement consisting of two separate grippers which may cooperate to take out an individual laundry article from the laundry pile and thus to convey the individual laundry article to the subsequent machinery. The grippers in the known machine are so arranged that the gripper which pulls the individual laundry article out of the laundry pile has been optimised accordingly, whereby the gripper seizes a. comparatively small corner or a comparatively small portion of the laundry article with a view to ensuring that the gripper takes out only one laundry article from the pile.
It is a problem, however, with these prior art machines that the laundry articles in the laundry pile are often very entangled as a consequence of the washing and drying processes, and that this is enough to require a powerful pull in the laundry articles in order to separate them from the pile, Which is further aggravated by the fact that frequently the laundry articles are slightly damp whereby the friction between the laundry articles is often increased. This may mean that the gripper which takes out the laundry article from the pile is incapable of performing this task in a satisfactory manner since, advantageously, the seizing force and seizing area of the gripper is as small as possible as it is desired to ensure to the highest degree possible that the laundry articles are taken out of the pile individually. If the seizing force is increased, tearing of the laundry articles may as it is desirable to have a small seizing area.
In practice this may mean that the gripper cannot take out any laundry articles whatsoever which would require interference from an operator or readjustment of the machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,198 features an apparatus for automatically taking out laundry articles from a laundry pile whereby automation of this step of the process is allowed, and whereby it is ensured to a higher degree that no operational stoppages or tearing of the laundry articles occur.
This is obtained by a smaller batch of laundry articles being pulled out of the laundry pile by a gripper intended therefor, following which this minor batch of laundry articles is taken away from the laundry pile and conveyed above a support, following which the laundry articles are deposited on the support. This minor batch of laundry articles will then be significantly less entangled than it was in the pile following e.g. washing and tumbling, thereby facilitating the subsequent taking out of individual laundry articles from this minor batch of laundry articles substantially.
The pull gripper may thereby be so designed that it seizes a large portion of the laundry articles and in a powerful manner, since there is no requirement that the gripper takes out one single laundry article at a time from the pile. When more laundry articles are taken out at a time it follows that the risk of tearing the individual laundry article is also reduced.
Since the method and apparatus according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,198 deal with the desire to ensure that only one single laundry article is taken out at a time, more room is left for providing such convenient pull gripper as to ensure that laundry articles are always taken out from the pile with no regard to the quantity.


It is a problem both to safeguard data that is stored on a computer system and to restore all or portions of this data that are lost or corrupted. Many computer systems have no protection systems in place and the loss of data from these computer systems is irrevocable. Other computer systems make use of attached data backup systems to store a copy of the data that is stored in the computer memory and updates thereto for eventual retrieval to restore data that is lost from or corrupted in the computer system memory. However, the use of these existing data backup systems is laborious and can be confusing to the casual user. Furthermore, in the instance of network connected computer systems, the use of a common shared data backup system wastes a significant amount of memory by storing multiple copies of the same data, since many programs and customer files on the plurality of computers are duplicates of each other.
In information technology, backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. These additional copies are typically called “backups.” Backups are useful primarily for two purposes. The first is to restore a computer to an operational state following a disaster (called disaster recovery). The second is to restore one or more files after they have been accidentally deleted or corrupted. Backups are typically that last line of defense against data loss, and consequently the least granular and the least convenient to use.
Since a data backup system contains at least one copy of all data worth saving, the data storage requirements are considerable, which data storage requirements can be exacerbated by the method used to perform the data backup where change tracking is wasteful of memory. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process is a complicated undertaking. A data repository model can be used to provide structure to the data storage device for the management of the data that is backed up. In the modern era of computing there are many different types of data storage devices that are useful for making backups. There are also many different ways in which these data backup devices can be arranged to provide geographic redundancy, data security, and portability.
Before data is ever sent to its data backup storage location, it is selected, extracted, and manipulated. Many different techniques have been developed to optimize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well as compression, encryption, and de-duplication, among others. Many organizations and individuals require that they have some confidence that the backup process is working as expected and work to define measurements and validation techniques to confirm the integrity of the backup process. It is also important to recognize the limitations and human factors involved in any backup scheme.
Due to a considerable overlap in technology, backups and data backup systems are frequently confused with archives and fault-tolerant systems. Backups differ from archives in the sense that archives are the primary copy of data and backups are a secondary copy of data. Data backup systems differ from fault-tolerant systems in the sense that data backup systems assume that a fault will cause a data loss event and fault-tolerant systems assume a fault will not cause a data loss event.
Data Repository Models
Any backup strategy starts with the concept of a data repository. The backup data needs to be stored somehow and probably should be organized to a degree. It can be as simple as a manual process which uses a sheet of paper with a list of all backup tapes and the dates they were written or a more sophisticated automated setup with a computerized index, catalog, or relational database. Different repository models have different advantages. This is closely related to choosing a backup rotation scheme. The following paragraphs summarize the various existing backup models presently in use.
Unstructured
An unstructured repository may simply be a writable media consisting of, for example, a stack of floppy disks or CD-R media with minimal information about what data from the computer system was backed up onto this writeable media and when the backup(s) occurred. This is the easiest backup method to implement, but probably the least likely to achieve a high level of recoverability due to the dearth of indexing information that is associated with the data that is backed up.
Full+Incremental
A Full+Incremental data backup model aims to make storing several copies of the source data more feasible. At first, a full backup of all files from the computer system is taken. After that full backup is completed, an incremental backup of only the files that have changed since the previous full or incremental backup is taken. Restoring the whole computer system to a certain point in time requires locating not only the full backup taken previous to that certain point in time but also all the incremental backups taken between that full backup and the particular point in time to which the system is supposed to be restored. The full backup version of the data is then processed, using the set of incremental changes, to create a present view of the data as of that designated certain point in time. This data backup model offers a high level of security that selected data can be restored to its present state and this data backup model can be used with removable media such as tapes and optical disks. The downside of this data backup process is dealing with a long series of incremental changes and the high storage requirements entailed in this data backup process, since a copy of every changed file in each incremental backup is stored in memory.
Full+Differential
A Full+Differential data backup model differs from a Full+Incremental data backup model in that after the full backup is taken of all files on the computer system, each incremental backup of the files captures all files created or changed since the full backup, even though some may have been included in a previous partial backup. The advantage of this data backup model is that restoring the whole computer system to a certain point in time involves recovering only the last full backup and then overlaying it with the last differential backup.
Mirror+Reverse Incremental
A Mirror+Reverse Incremental data backup model is similar to a Full+Incremental data backup model. The difference is that instead of an aging full data backup, followed by a series of incremental data backups; this model offers a mirror that reflects the state of the computer system as of the last data backup and a history of reverse incremental data backups. One benefit of this data backup method is that it only requires an initial full data backup. Each incremental data backup is immediately applied to the mirror and the files they replace are moved to a reverse incremental backup. This data backup model is not suited to the use of removable media since every data backup must be done in comparison to the data backup mirror version of the data. This process, when used to restore the whole computer system to a certain point in time, is also intensive in its use of memory.
Continuous Data Protection
This data backup model takes the data backup process a step further and instead of scheduling periodic data backups, the data backup system immediately logs every change made on the computer system. This is generally done by saving byte or block-level differences rather than file-level differences. It differs from simple disk mirroring in that it enables a roll-back of the log and thus can restore an old image of data. Restoring the whole computer system to a certain point in time using this method requires that the original version of the data must be processed to incorporate every change recorded in each differential change to recreate the present version of the data.
Problems
In spite of all of these various methods of data backup, existing data backup systems (including both hardware and software) fail to ensure that the user can simply plug in to the computer system to “back-up” the data stored therein, and also enable recovery of a revision of a file from a point-in-time, and enable all of the hard disk(s) in the computer system to be restored to a point-in-time. Existing data backup systems fail to efficiently track and store the state of multiple file systems over time, while allowing for correct disk-level and file-level restoration, to a point-in-time, without storing a significant amount of redundant data. These data backup systems require the user to learn new technology, understand the file system of the computer system, learn how to schedule data backup sessions, and learn new controls that must be used for this new functionality. Furthermore, the restoration of lost files is difficult using these data backup systems.


Computer control of a machining system that involves the CAD/CAM based support has been widely accepted to improve productivity and reduce production cost. Recently, more intelligent functions have been developed and integrated into CNC machine tools. CAD/CAM provides the facilities to create and monitor tool paths to use on the workpiece. In some CAM software programs, machine tools and machine virtual environments can be utilized to dynamically simulate the machining operations. These dynamic simulations provide NC program generation and verification, material removal analysis and collision detection error. With the process simulation, the tool path can be analyzed and verified before actually machining the part. It has become easier to machine complex parts more accurately and more quickly with the advancement of simulation tools. However, in selection of machining strategies, the methods offered by CAM software often are based on the parts' geometrical information with little or no consideration of the machine tool capability or the physics of metal cutting. On the other hand, machine tools (or operators) have limited information about NC programs, hence it is difficult to judge whether machining is performed properly. Running machine tools under undesirable operating conditions can cause damage to tools, the machine tools or workpiece. Operating at, near or over the machine limits, for a short time or over a long period of time, can lead to damage to the tool, the machine tool or workpiece.
Moreover, in practice, operating parameters are still mainly selected based on either on machining handbooks and/or tool manufacturer's catalogues which are typically very conservative and aggressive, respectively. Therefore, it has been difficult to perform the machining under an optimal condition, which either leads to low productivity or deterioration in machining accuracy and surface roughness. Moreover, when the tool is a cutting tool which is engaged in cutting with a rapidly increasing cutting load, damage easily occurs to the cutting tool as well as work material to be machined.


Commuters in big cities in the United States, e.g., Washington, District of Columbia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Miami, Dallas, Detroit, San Diego, Phoenix, etc., spend an average of 50 hours a year waiting in traffic. In one study, the cost of all this wasted time and fuel is estimated to be more than $100 billion a year. In other big cities around the world, e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Brussels, Antwerp, Milan, London, Paris, Rotterdam, etc., the average can be much higher. A context-based traffic flow control system and method thereof can advantageously help minimize travel time and decrease traffic congestion.


(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roller assembly for a roller furnace for heat treating slabs of steel, etc. The roller assembly has a number of spaced carrier rings for carrying the slabs and thermal insulation between the carrier rings. The slabs are transported through the roller furnace by the roller assemblies on the carrier rings for heat treatment thereof. The hollow cavity of the roller assembly is usually water cooled. The thermal insulation is for protecting the roller assembly from the hot slab, as well as preventing the hot slab from cooling due to the presence of the roller assembly.
(2) State of the Prior Art
DE 32 31 736 C2 discloses a sheathing for insulating a cooled slide, skid or transverse pipe in a furnace. Moldings for the bottom side of the pipe made of a ceramic fiber material and moldings for the upper side of the pipe made of a refractory ceramic are provided for adapting the bottom and upper sides for the different stresses the sides will undergo. This type of an arrangement is unsuitable for a rotating roller assembly. Preformed insulating moldings result in joints in the thermal insulation of the roller assembly. Such joints have a negative impact on the insulating effect of the thermal insulation.
Moldings for insulating pipes are also described in DE 31 25 440 A1 and in DE 36 09 047 A1. The types of moldings described in these disclosures are unsuitable for roller assemblies, since the moldings have very little ability to withstand the dynamic stresses of a rotating roller assembly, and since the joints in the moldings negatively impact on the effect of the thermal insulation.


In the manufacturing steps of rubber products such as tires, a strip-shaped belt member is used that is made of a plurality of steel cords disposed side by side at a predetermined cord angle and covered with rubber. This belt member is formed by cutting the member obtained by covering the steel cords disposed side by side with rubber, at a predetermined length and at a predetermined angle set in accordance with the cord angle, and bonding together a plurality of the cut members (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-226817A, for example). This strip-shaped belt member is wound around a molding drum and molded into a cylindrical shape. Further, a tread rubber forming a tire tread is molded into a cylindrical shape by winding strip-shaped unvulcanized rubber around the molding drum.
When the strip-shaped belt members and the strip-shaped unvulcanized rubber are wound around the molding drum in a meandering manner, a cylindrical member having strain in the width direction of the drum is molded. Further, in the cylindrical member molded by winding the plurality of strip-shaped members around the molding drum, also when the strip-shaped members are offset with respect to each other while being misaligned in the width direction by an amount greater than a set value, the strain in the width direction of the drum occurs in the cylindrical member. Manufacturing tires using the cylindrical member subject to this kind of strain makes it difficult to ensure consistent tire quality. Therefore, it is important to accurately assess a widthwise misalignment of the cylindrical member obtained by molding the strip-shaped member in the cylindrical shape.


1. Field of the Invention
This invention is concerned with preparing alginic acid esters known as "alkylene glycol alginates" by a procedure for treating seaweeds of the Class Phaeophyceae. This novel and improved process involves treatment of the seaweed with an acid and thereby forming alginic acid therein and subsequently reacting the alginic acid content of the treated seaweed, with an alkylene oxide to form an alkylene glycol alginate in situ without prior isolation of alginic acid or its salts from the solid seaweed residue.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Alginic acid is a polyuronic acid generally believed to consist of two uronic acids; mannuronic acid and guluronic acid, the proportions of which vary depending on factors such as, for example, seaweed species, plant age and seasonal variation. Alginic acid in the form of mixed water insoluble salts, in which the principal cation is calcium, is present in seaweeds of the Class Phaeophyceae, typical examples of which are: Fucus vesiculosus, F. spiralis, Ascophyllum nodosum, Macrocystis pyrifera, Alaria esculenta, Laminaria longicruris, L. digitata, L. saccharina, and L. cloustoni.
Methods for the recovery of water insoluble alginic acid and its water soluble salts, particularly sodium alginate, are well known. The first extraction process was patented by Stanford in British Pat. No. 142 (1881). A series of variations of Stanford's method have subsequently been described in the patent literature. The most recent and familiar are the processes of Green, U.S. Pat. No. 2,036,934, and Le Gloahec and Herter, U.S. Pat. No. 2,128,551.
In Green's process, seaweeds of the Class Phaeophyceae are treated with dilute acid, such as dilute hydrochloric acid, followed by water washing. This converts the natural alginate salts present to alginic acid. Salts, residual hydrochloric acid, and water soluble organic materials are then removed by washing. The pretreated seaweed is then chopped or milled and an excess of sodium carbonate added together with a quantity of water to extract the water soluble sodium alginate formed. The mixture is filtered to recover the clarified sodium alginate solution to which a solution of calcium chloride is added to precipitate the alginate in the form of water insoluble calcium alginate. The highly hydrated precipitate is separated from the solution of sodium chloride, excess calcium chloride, and soluble color bodies, particularly phenolic compounds, usually present in the original extract. The precipitate may still retain some color bodies, even after water washing, and calcium hypochlorite is added as a bleaching agent. The precipitate is then treated with dilute hydrochloric acid to convert the purified calcium alginate to alginic acid. This gelatinous precipitate is washed with water to remove excess hydrochloric acid and calcium salts. It may be neutralized to provide the purified sodium alginate of commerce.
In the Le Gloahec and Herter process, seaweeds of the Class Phaeophyceae are treated with a solution of calcium chloride and the water soluble components of the seaweed are then extracted and removed by draining. The seaweed is then treated with dilute hydrochloric acid, drained, and water washed. Sodium carbonate is added and the seaweed mixture milled and diluted with water to extract the sodium alginate. The slurry is aerated to separate insoluble materials by a method of air flotation and the residual clarified solution is treated with a decolorizing agent. The purified sodium alginate could then be recovered by conventional means, as for example, by alcohol precipitation. To recover alginic acid, the solution is treated with dilute sulfuric acid, the precipitate being separated and pressed to remove the aqueous solution containing sodium sulfate and excess sulfuric acid. The precipitate is dehydrated with alcohol, washed with further quantities of alcohol, and then dried to produce the alginic acid of commerce.
Methods for preparing alkylene glycol alginates are also described in the patent literature. Steiner in U.S. Pat. No. 2,426,125 discloses a method for the manufacture of glycol alginates followed subsequently by Steiner et al in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,494,911 and 2,494,912, Nielsen et al in Canadian Pat. No. 904,847, and Pettitt et al. in their related disclosures in Canadian Pat. No. 942,744 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,266. All of these patents describe, with variations in procedure, methods by which alkylene oxides are reacted with alginic acid.
The prior art teaches the preparation of glycol alginates by the reaction of alkylene oxides with the alginic acid produced by methods known in the art, such as those described above or those mentioned by Steiner in U.S. Pat. No. 2,426,125, viz. U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,814,981 to Thornley et al., 2,036,922 to Clark et al. and 2,036,934 to Green. It will be noted that Steiner U.S. Pat. No. 2,426,125 states (column 3, lines 3-6) "that the free acid from the above or other modifications of the general method may be used for my purpose provided only that the acid be in a state of commercial purity". The wet alginic acid is typically partially dried so as to contain approximately 50% by weight of water. This acid is milled to provide a large surface area; and either before, during, or after the drying process, it is partially neutralized with any suitable base so that between 5 and 30% of the carboxyl groups of the acid are combined with the base. It is essential that the base used be thoroughly disseminated through the acid so as to avoid the possibility of part of the acid being completely neutralized, and thus rendered unsuitable for the esterification reaction, while some of the acid remains free of partial neutralization. For this reason, Steiner describes several methods of partial neutralization. For example the base may be dispersed in a quantity of low boiling alcohol or ketone and added as a slurry to the stirred, wet, milled alginic acid. A wetting agent may also be added to aid dispersion.
Steiner's partially neutralized, finely divided, alginic acid is reacted with an alkylene oxide such as ethylene oxide or propylene oxide (1,2-epoxypropane). In commercial practice, the preferred glycol alginate is propylene glycol alginate formed by reaction of alginic acid with propylene oxide. The reaction proceeds with both the formation of the glycol alginate, and hydrolysis of the alkylene oxide due to the presence of water and the low pH of the mixture. Thus, a greater quantity of the alkylene oxide than the stoichiometric equivalent is required. It is believed that molar ratios of between 2:1 and 3:1 alkylene oxide: alginic acid are used, although Nielsen et al in Canadian Pat. No. 904,847 state (page 9, lines 17-18) that "the amount of propylene oxide may be from 1 mol to about 25 moles per mol alginic acid." In Nielsen's case, the reaction is carried out in a diluent, such as an alcohol or ketone, and a substantial portion of the oxide is thus not consumed in the esterification reaction. It is generally recognized that complete reaction of oxide and available carboxyl groups is not only difficult, requiring the use of large quantities of alkylene oxide, but unnecessary.
Said Pettitt et al patents disclose partly neutralized alginic acid of critical 65-78% solids content reacting with propylene oxide gas in the absence of air in 3 hours or less at 60.degree.-100.degree.C. In the examples, the oxide : acid molar ratios range from 2.8:1 to 15:1.
Wallerstein et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 2,478,988 teach the use of propylene glycol alginate as a foam stabilizing agent. According to Steiner U.S. Pat. No. 2,659,675, the glycol alginate used for the purpose of the Wallerstein patent was designed for use as an emulsifying agent in French dressings and the like and had the analysis: neutralization as ammonium alignate 30 to 40%; esterification 25 to 40%; and unreacted acidity 20 to 45%. In the same patent, Steiner teaches that an improved foam stabilizing agent has the following characteristics among others: neutralization as sodium alginate 15 to 20%; esterification 65 to 80%; and unreacted acidity 5 to 15%. Therefore, depending on the end use of the glycol alginate product, it appears that a fully satisfactory product may have any of the following characteristics: neutralization of between about 5 to 40% with any suitable base or mixture of bases; esterification of from about 25 to 80%; and unreacted acidity of from about 5 to 45%. In general the glycol alginate should be completely soluble in water giving a solution the pH of which is not less than about 3.5. Storage stability of the dry product may be impaired if the pH of its aqueous solution is below 3.5.
From the above description of the prior art, it is quite evident that prior art techniques for the preparation of glycol alginates have involved formation of alginic acid, separation thereof from seaweed residue and subsequent esterification of the alginic acid to produce the glycol alginate and have been rather complex, slow and costly in terms of chemical and processing requirements. Of the procedures described, the initial preparation of alginic acid appears the most complex, although separating the alginic acid in a form considered to be suitable for esterification, as described earlier, also appears to require a great deal of care and attention.
It has now been discovered that, contrary to previous belief, the alginic acid used for reactions, such as the esterification reaction described above, need not be in the extracted state of commercial purity. In other words, the present invention is based on the discovery that it is not necessary to isolate the alginic acid from the solid residue of the precursor seaweed in order to react the alginic acid with an alkylene oxide. In addition, the glycol alginate products of my novel process are capable of meeting the various commercial requirements and specifications such as those outlined above, together with color, purity, etc.


The invention relates to a front, side or rear view monitoring method for a motor vehicle (such as an automobile) which can warn a driver by using images taken by a video camera installed on the front, side or rear part of the motor vehicle and sensing a motor vehicle or an obstacle ahead of the driver's own motor vehicle during a drive.
A conventional method of this type is disclosed in a publication of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 241855/1990. The method disclosed in the publication comprises the steps of: picturing a front view from a driver's own motor vehicle that is moving; recognizing a movement of a single point in the pictured front view as an optical flow at predetermined times; gathering information, i.e., the position of a preceding motor vehicle relative to the driver's own motor vehicle and the relative speed, based on the optical flow as well as on the distance of the preceding motor vehicle as measured by a range sensor; and warning the driver of danger when the presence of danger is judged.
To calculate the optical flow, a method called a matching method has here ore been adopted. The matching method detects a corresponding point in two images. The matching method comprises the steps of: setting a window W1 for a target pixel P in an image at a time t, as shown in FIG. 10 (a); calculating a correlative value while moving the window over the entire part of the image or a neighboring area; and finding a corresponding point in a window W2 defined at the time the correlative value is maximized, i.e., a pixel Q, as shown in FIG. 10 (b). An arrow PQ indicates an optical flow. To calculate the above-mentioned correlative value, the following equation is used. EQU .SIGMA.(W1.sub.(x, y) x W2.sub.(x, y))/(.SIGMA.W1.sup.2.sub.(x, y) x .SIGMA.W2.sup.2.sub.(x,y)).sup.1/2 ( 1)
where W1.sub.(x, y), W2.sub.(x, y) are the outputs of coordinates (x, y) within the windows W1, W2.
However, in order to judge danger, the conventional method requires a range sensor for measuring the distance of a preceding motor vehicle to identify the position of the preceding motor vehicle relative to the driver's own motor vehicle, in addition to a video camera for picturing the front view.
Further, in order to calculate the optical flow, the operation of detecting the corresponding point in an image must be performed. As described above, such operation comprises detection of all the pixels in the entire part or a neighboring area of the image relative to a single pixel within the image to find a single corresponding point. To detect the corresponding point over the entire part of the image, this operation must be performed on all the pixels. In addition, a great number of calculations are required to be performed to find correlative values that are to be used as indexes for search.
Therefore, an increased volume of calculation makes realtime processing impossible. For achievement of the realtime processing, a high-speed processor is required, which elevates hardware costs. Further, it is not easy to distinguish the source of an optical flow; e.g., whether the optical flow is derived from the preceding motor vehicle or from scenes outside the road, or characters, symbols, or white lines on the road surface, or the like.


The concept of the “intelligent network” (IN) was developed for efficient deployment of resources when using digital communication networks. This is a structural concept for flexible service control and service development through the use of software and functionality implemented therewith. Internationally IN is defined in the Q.1200 series recommendations, for which the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) is responsible. The basic thinking behind IN is the separation of switching functions and service functions, i.e. resources for connection set-up are no longer located wholly in the individual switching point but are centralized. The advantage of this concept is simpler management and adaptation of these centralized resources. For example, when new services are introduced, not all switching points have to be adapted individually.
There are three hierarchical levels in the IN architecture, management level, service control level, and switching and transport level. The switching points—generally referred to as SSP (service switching point)—of the lowest level, i.e. the switching and transport level, are controlled by control points—generally referred to as SCP (service control point)—at service control level for the implementation of services and where appropriate are supplied with data from centralized databases. SSP and SCP are defined as physical entities for the IN concept in Q.1205.
General aspects of an INAP (intelligent network application protocol) protocol are described in Q.1208 for IN applications. At present INAP protocols with CS2 (capability set 2) and CS3 (capability set 3) operational features in accordance with the ITU recommendations numbered Q.122x and Q.123x are frequently used for IN applications.
Further specifications are required to provide telecommunication services and service features in the context of the IN concept. For example, for ISDN (integrated services digital network) applications signaling functions are standardized in the context of the ISUP (ISDN user part) in ITU documents Q.761-Q.764 and Q.766, with the ISUP representing a protocol based on signaling system no. 7 (SS#7), which allows separation of the transfer of user data and control data and which is standardized by the ITU in the Q.700 series. For ISDN applications in the context of the IN concept the ITU has produced standards Q.1600 and Q.1601 which govern the interaction of ISUP and INAP CS1 or INAP CS2.
Given the increasing importance of the transfer of user data and any signaling data via different networks or carriers, as is frequently the case, for example, with IP based applications, signaling protocols are being developed, which allow a specific set of services and service features, regardless of the carrier. An important example of such a service is internet telephony (VoIP), in which connection-based voice transfer is to be achieved via different physical networks. The ITU draft of Q.1901 describes a signaling protocol, the BICC (bearer independent call control) protocol, with which the services and service features defined for the ISDN network—hereafter referred to as ISDN services or service features—are to be implemented, regardless of the carrier. The BICC protocol is based on the ISUP protocol. As described in the draft of Q.765.5, the transport mechanism (application transport mechanism) set out in Q.765 can be used for the transport of carrier-related data using the BICC protocol.
When implementing ISDN services and service features in the context of the IN concept with user data transfer via a packet network using a carrier-independent signaling protocol, such as, for example, BICC CS2, there is the problem that the parameter changes necessary or desirable for this are not supported.


This invention relates to the spraying art and, more particularly, to a spray manifold in and through which the quantity and rate of flow (or, more accurately, the spray) of fluid is easily adjustable by moving a pintle.
Spray manifolds and pintles are well known. Equally well known are the facts: that the desired flow of a fluid into and through a spray manifold is conventionally adjusted by deforming the manifold; and, that any exposure of the deformed manifold to any hot operating environment adversely alters the deformation and, thus, the already-adjusted flow through the manifold, thereby requiring further adjustment of the manifold.
We have eliminated this re-adjustment problem with a uniquely stuctured spray manifold, wherein the desired flow into and through the manifold is very easily adjusted and maintained by moving a pintle, instead of further deforming the manifold, as is done traditionally.
Thereby, we have significantly advanced the state-of-the-art.


1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an addressing circuitry and more particularly to an improved addressing circuitry for driving dot matrix vertical scan display apparatus, such as a plasma display panel.
Of the number of display apparatus, dot matrix vertical scan plasma display panels have been of a relatively recent introduction. One such manufacture of plasma display panel has been Burroughs Corporation. Burroughs has introduced a number of different models. These displays usually have a number of rows and a number of characters per row to display ASCII characters. In earlier models, number of the rows and characters per row have been based on binary progression numbers; for example, the number of rows of the characters displayed on the panel is one row or two rows or four rows or eight rows which is in the progression of 2.sup.0, 2.sup.1, 2.sup.2, 2.sup.3 and likewise the number of characters per row is 16 or 32 characters or 2.sup.4, 2.sup.5. Each of the characters is represented by illuminating selected ones of seven by seven dot cross points. More recently a new line of models have been introduced wherein the number of rows and the number of characters per row are not binary progression numbers. The new models have been introduced to meet the market needs.
Where the display panels wherein the number of rows and the number of characters per row correspond to a binary progression number, the prior art addressing circuitry provided by manufacturers of the displays have been found satisfactory.
However, the present inventors found that this is not the case with the displays having character rows and having characters per row which are not of binary progression numbers. More specifically, the present inventors found that the prior art addressing circuitry if used to operate such a display, would read out the characters in the random access memory but not in sequence. Instead, they skipped certain character locations in the random access memory in the read out process. This wasted random access memory locations.
The prior art addressing circuitry is also found not to be completely satisfactory in providing cursor, blanking and blinking operation of the display.


This relates generally to compression of depth buffers.
Previous depth buffer compression schemes compress the depth obtained by rasterizing static triangles. This provides generous bandwidth usage savings, and so is of great importance to graphics processors. However, stochastic rasterization for both motion blur and depth of field is becoming a reality even for real-time graphics, and previous depth buffer compression algorithms fail due to the irregularity of the positions and depth of the rendered fragments.


1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automobile passenger protection, and specifically, is a method and apparatus for modifying and adjusting existing shoulder belts to fit passengers who are currently unable to wear them.
2) Discussion of Prior Art
Standard three-point automobile seat belts are only designed to restrain a passenger of average adult size. The shoulder portion crosses the passenger seat, and hence the body of the passenger seated thereon, at a location which is fixed in relation to the passenger seat, not to the passenger. The crossover point is not always properly over the center of the passenger's breastbone, a.k.a. the mesosternum. In fact, this crossover point may even be over the neck or face of a passenger of below average height or size. The result is that such a passenger, e.g., a child, is unable to use standard shoulder belts. It has been thought desirable to adjust the position of the belt and/or passenger so that the shoulder belt would properly cross the mesosternum, and permit the passenger to wear a shoulder belt.
Some devices of the prior art has attempted to lower the shoulder belt crossover point by lowering the "vertical transition point", the point from which the shoulder portion of the belt turns and proceeds diagonally across the passenger. The position of this point is originally located at the "vertical transition member", which is the hardware member, typically a D-ring, to which the shoulder portion of the belt rises and meets the vertical portion of the belt. This vertical transition member is typically mounted in the car's interior near the passenger's shoulder. Providing means to move the vertical transition point by moving the actual vertical transition member necessarily required a substantial modification of the vehicle interior. Hence, such prior art devices could not be used on existing automobiles. Furthermore, they are a cumbersome solution to the problem.
Other prior art attempts attempted to lower the vertical transition point, and hence the point at which the shoulder belt crossed the occupant's chest, without moving the actual vertical transition member. One such approach is shown by Pollitt's U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,755, and Ashworth's U.S. Pat. No. 4,289,352. These provide, along with the standard safety belts, an additional belt mounted about or adjacent to the seat. Further provided is a deflection member, which is adjustably mounted on the belt. The shoulder belt may be deflectively adjusted by the deflection member so as to better cross the occupant's chest. A strong disadvantage shared by Ashworth's and Pollitt's apparatuses is that they each require adding an additional separate, independent belt to the car, upon which their deflection member is mounted. Thus, they cannot use existing belts, but require either retrofitting existing automobiles or redesigning future automobiles to include the extra parts. Furthermore, the deflection members utilized by Ashworth and Pollitt lack a superior means for being securely, yet adjustably, mounted to the belt supporting them, as well as means for optimal torsional positioning of the shoulder belt which they are deflecting so as to lay flat as possible in fullest desired contact with occupant. Furthermore, the devices taught are not substantially co-planar with the interior automobile and belt surfaces, and hence present an additional hazard to the user.
Thus, nothing in the prior art shows, teaches, or suggests the present invention, especially of its: (1) providing a method and means of adjusting the point at which the shoulder belt crosses the passenger by lowering the effective upper end of the diagonal portion of the seat belt by deflecting it towards the vertical portion of the belt itself with a device that is itself frictionally and mechanically bound to the vertical portion of the belt and held to thereby, and (2) providing belt adjustment means which are mounted on the vertical portion of the belt and which engage the shoulder portion of the belt and which are used by sliding them up and down on the vertical portion of the belt so as to raise and lower the effective connection of the shoulder belt to the vertical portion of the belt, and also so as to raise and lower the effective height of the point from which the shoulder belt proceeds diagonally downward and also to raise and lower the point at which the shoulder belt crosses the passenger.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art, and has numerous objects and advantages which will become apparent from the drawings and the ensuing description.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a screwdriver. More particularly, the present invention relates to a screwdriver of the type with a ratchet mechanism allowing a change in the driving rotational direction for driving a screw and in a free rotational direction not driving the screw.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,802 discloses a ratchet driving mechanism for a screwdriver. The ratchet driving mechanism includes a main body having two slots. A detent is received in each slot. The detents are selectively biased outward by springs to engage with teeth of a cylindrical rotary seat, thereby allowing a change in the driving rotational direction for driving a screw and in a free rotational direction not driving the screw. In manufacture, formation of the slots requires two elongate mold cores that are placed in a cavity of a mold. Since each slot does not extend through the main body, each mold core has an end unsupported in the cavity. When molten metal is filled into the cavity, the mold cores sway and wobble due to high temperature and high pressure in the mold such that errors are incurred in the specification of the slots. Namely, if the slots are not processed subsequently, the movement of the detents in the slots would not be smooth, leading to risks of getting stuck and malfunction. The cost is thus increased. Further, only two detents are used, and only one of them is engaged with the teeth of the cylindrical rotary seat such that the detent might slide relative to the teeth or the detent and/or the teeth might be damaged when a large torque is applied to the screwdriver. Hence, such a screwdriver can only be driven by a small torque, leading to limited application of the screwdriver, and if in any event a torque exceeds what the screwdriver can withstand, the detent which moved to a position in engagement with the teeth would be pushed out of the slot by the teeth.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0096422 discloses a ratcheting mechanism for a driving tool. The ratcheting mechanism is utilized for permitting the driving tool to make a change in the driving rotational direction. The ratcheting mechanism includes two pairs of detents and each pair has a spring connected therebetween. The two pairs of detents are received in two spaces respectively defined in a driving member and each detent has one side abutted and supported by a wall of the space and an opposite side selectively engagable with a plurality of teeth defined in a control ring. Additionally, the control ring is rotatable and operably moves one of one pair of detents to a position in engagement with the teeth and has a stir bar that moves the other of one pair of detents to a position away from the teeth. Thus, when the driving tool is rotated in one driving direction two detents (i.e. upper left and bottom right or upper right and bottom left) would engage with the teeth at the same time, and this results that the driving tool is more capable of withstanding higher driving torque in comparison to the prior admitted invention. Further, while the two detents engage with the teeth, the other two detents are kept away from the teeth.
But, it is noticed that this invention has a practical difficulty because in operation when the control ring is rotated counterclockwise, the upper right and bottom left stir bars cause the upper right and bottom left detents to disengage or separate from the wall of the space and coact with the teeth, and even worse, after subsequent direction changes the detents will not mesh with the teeth correctly. Likewise, when the control ring is rotated clockwise, the upper left and bottom right stir bars would cause the upper left and bottom right detents to disengage from the wall of the space and coact with the teeth, leading to incorrect meshing after subsequent direction changes.


This invention relates generally to a computer network-based system and more particularly to systems and methods for managing workflow both internally to provide services to customers and externally to allow customers to monitor workflow.
Electronic information exchange has improved workflow management problems to some extent, however differences between, for example, two companies interested in making a deal still exist. Legacy formatting issues between the companies and differences in procedures have left much of the inefficiencies found in paper based methods unaffected. For example, time expended manually in gathering information regarding the deal and possibly converting the information into a different format contribute to the inefficiencies. Overall, both the traditional paper methods and known electronic methods can be very frustrating and may not necessarily facilitate resolving workflow management issues.
It would be desirable to manage workflow issues by implementing a web-based system that allows real-time access to project status, both internally to the supplier of services and externally to the customer where they can monitor the workflow of services provided, while eliminating the inefficiencies of known systems thereby providing higher customer satisfaction and reduction in deal cycle time.
A workflow management system providing an integrated approach to exchanging information real-time and notifying responsible persons to pending commitments concerning a particular deal is disclosed. The web-based system includes a server having a centralized database of deal data. The connecting of at least one client system to the server facilitates a method of uploading initial proposed deal data, notifying an underwriter of the uploaded proposal, uploading a workflow timeline for the proposed deal and notifying responsible persons that actions for tasks are due according to the timeline.
The workflow management system is further configured to restrict database access only to authorized users for viewing of and providing updates to the deal.


The following U.S. patents are believed to represent the current state of the art:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,496,236; 5,016,870; 4,860,763; 4,550,908 and 4,402,502


Polishing is an activity which is useful to maintain the appearance and condition of footwear, and other accessories such as belts, purses, and the like. These objects, whether made from fabric, leather, or similar materials, often become dirty or dull as a result of use. Various implements have been developed for applying treatment agents to the surfaces of such objects to clean or enhance their finish, and for polishing after treatment. In many cases, more than one implement is required to complete the polishing process; for example, when polishing shoes, it is often necessary to use one implement for applying polish to the shoes, and another implement to buff the polish in order to achieve the desired shine. Moreover, such implements generally require both hands, and use of them often results in transfer of treatment agent to the hands of the user. Because of the need to use more than one implement, and the mess that is often associated with the process, many users are not inclined to regularly polish their shoes. Accordingly, there is a need for a shoe care apparatus which is multifunctional, can be used with one hand to achieve effective treatment and buffing, and which minimizes the need for the user to come in direct contact with polish and other treatment agents.


There are many circumstances wherein individuals can become overheated. Vigorous exercise is a clear example, as well as leisure activities under conditions of high temperatures and/or intense sunlight. Active and effective cooling of individuals under these circumstances can protect their health and significantly increase their comfort and enjoyment.
Evaporative cooling is well known as a highly effective means for cooling individuals. Indeed, it is the mechanism by which the body cools itself through perspiration. The discomfort and potential dehydration of cooling by perspiration can be avoided through the application of a mist of water to an individual, which cools the body in essentially the same manner as perspiration, and can be even more effective than perspiration since the mist impacts the skin at a temperature significantly below body temperature, and hence absorbs more heat than an equivalent quantity of perspiration.
Means for generating and applying a water mist to one or more individuals are well known. However, misting does not always provide sufficient cooling efficiency, due to limited evaporation rates. Also, misting can lead to wetness if the evaporation rate is not sufficient.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a blood pressure measuring apparatus including a surface-pressure sensor adapted to be pressed against an artery of a living body or subject via a body surface of the subject.
2. Related Art Statement
There is known a blood pressure (BP) measuring device which non-invasively measures a BP value of a living subject based on a pulse-sound signal or a pulse-wave signal which is continuously obtained while an inflatable cuff wound around subject's body portion such as an upper arm is inflated, or is deflated after being inflated, to press the body portion. The non-invasively measured BP value is an approximation of an intra-arterial BP value directly or invasively measured from inside an artery of the subject.
In the conventional BP measuring device, however, the cuff presses the subject's body portion all around with a considerably great force, so that the subject may suffer the discomfort due to the use of the cuff.
Meanwhile, Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Application laid open under Publication No. 1(1989)-161707 discloses a blood pressure (BP) monitor including (a) an inflatable cuff, (b) a fluid supply which supplies a pressurized fluid to the cuff, (c) a control device which changes the fluid pressure in the cuff, (d) a surface-pressure sensor adapted to be pressed on subject's body surface to detect a pressure pulse wave produced from subject's artery and generate a pressure signal representing the detected pulse wave, and (e) BP determining means for determining a BP value of the subject, based on each of successive pulses contained in the pressure signal, according to a relationship between blood pressure (BP) and pressure signal (PS). In the BP monitor, the BP-PS relationship is determined, and updated, based on the standard BP values periodically measured using the cuff. The cuff is necessary to measure the standard BP values used for calibrating the pressure signal of the surface-pressure sensor, because the accuracy of the BP measurement using the surface-pressure sensor is not satisfactorily high.


This invention relates generally to valves for molded inflatable articles, particularly to valves which accept an inflating needle, and to the method of forming the valve during the molding process.
There are several types of valves known for inflating articles such as balls, toys, tubes and similar articles. One type, represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,107,683 and 4,341,382 utilizes metal valve parts inserted after the inflated article is formed. Another type, represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,100,641, 3,204,959 and 3,220,729, utilizes metal or plastic parts which are placed in the mold prior to forming the inflated article. This valve is in the form of a tube or sleeve including a side aperture which pushes out or displaces the stem when pumping begins. Another type, more pertinent to this invention, is represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,295,804, 2,302,985, 2,318,115, 2,387,455, 2,600,862, 2,760,775, 2,934,344, 3,174,501 and 4,660,831. These patents relate to inflatable articles in which the valves are self-sealing after withdrawal of an inflating needle. The valve chamber either contains a soft, sticky, puncture-sealing composition or a plug with a passage in the form of a slit which is effectively sealed by air pressure on the outside of the walls of the chamber which holds it. Inflation, thus, closes the plug opening. In each instance the plug is forced into the chamber by compressing it, so that it can be held in the chamber by some overlapping element such as a shoulder, a rib, a flange or a groove. The disadvantage of such an arrangement is that the pressure required to insert the plug, equals the pressure bringing about its removal. The use of a bonding agent for the plug is not totally satisfactory because it limits valve replacement.
The invention herein overcomes these disadvantages in a manner not disclosed in the known prior art.


Field of the Invention
Belonging to a technical field of sunshade, the present invention relates to a sunshade, and more especially, relates to an opening and closing structure for an umbrella combining automatic and non-automatic modes applied to a sunshade.
Description of the Related Art
As modem daily appliances, umbrellas can roughly be divided into folded ones and straight ones. With the progress of the times, umbrellas with automatic opening and closing functions have been unveiled. With regard to the structure for an umbrella with automatic opening and closing functions, the design for the structure of a folded umbrella is easier to achieve due to the short stroke distance of its opening and closing movement, but for a straight umbrella with a long stroke distance of opening and closing movement, its structure is more difficult to achieve. An application which Publication Number is CN101999785A discloses an electric umbrella, including a movable rod and a tubular umbrella column. A lower end of the movable rod extends into the umbrella column and an upper end of the movable rod is fixedly connected with an upper umbrella plate, the umbrellacolumn is sleeved with a lower umbrella plate, and the upper umbrella plate and the lower umbrella plateare connected with an umbrella rib. An upper end of the umbrella column is fixedly provided with a pulley structures, the pulley structures are all connected with a rope, and the lower end of the movable rod is provided with a center hole, one end of the rope is connected and passes through the center hole, while the other end respectively fixed onto the lower umbrella plate. A transmission mechanism, a motor, and a control panel respectively connected with the motor are mounted in the umbrella column, wherein the transmission mechanism is fixed to the lower end of the movable rod and the motor's output shaft is connected with the transmission mechanism and capable of driving the movable rod to slide up and down through the transmission mechanism. However, an umbrella with this structure is difficult to manufacture due to the complexity of the structure and high costs. Nowadays, some electric sunshades are getting popular and are widely used in outdoor areas of venues such as beaches, villas, swimming pools and coffee shops, but the electric umbrellas are driven by a motor, so when there is no external power supply or no adequate battery charging, it is impossible to realize the electric opening and closing functions.


Traditional engine fuel control systems use a mechanical linkage to connect the accelerator pedal to the throttle valve. Engine idle speed is then controlled by a mechanical system that manipulates the pedal position according to engine load.
Since the mid-1970's electronic throttle control or “drive-by-wire” systems have been developed. Electronic throttle control systems replace the mechanical linkage between the accelerator pedal and the throttle valve with an electronic linkage. These types of systems have become increasingly common on modern automobiles.
Generally, at least one sensor is typically placed at the base of the accelerator pedal and its position is communicated to the engine controller. At the engine, a throttle position sensor and an electronically controlled motor then regulate the throttle to maintain a precise engine speed through a feedback system between the throttle position sensor and the electronically controlled motor. An example of an electronic throttle control system can be found with reference to U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,874 to Keefover, the entire specification of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In conventional electronic throttle control systems, the various components of the throttle position sensor stator and connector assembly are mounted to the casting. The connector assembly is also connected to the motor. Thus, the throttle position sensor stator and the connector assembly move simultaneously during assembly and thermal expansion, thus possibly allowing one or both of them to become misaligned, which could potentially affect performance of the electronic throttle control system.


Webs of microfibers as taught in the prior art have significantly limited utility utility as thermal insulation. This is true despite the fact that previous investigators of microfibers have almost routinely included thermal insulation in their lists of potential uses for the fibers. See several patents dealing with blown microfibers, including Francis, U.S. Pat. No. 2,464,301; Ladisch, U.S. Pat. No. 2,571,457; Watson, U.S. Pat. No. 2,988,469; and Buntin et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,849,241 (blown microfibers are very fine, discontinuous fibers prepared by extruding liquified fiber-forming material through orifices in a die into a high-velocity gaseous stream, where the extruded material is first attenuated by the gaseous stream and then solidifies as a mass of the fibers); or see Vinicki, U.S. Pat. No. 3,388,194, which describes microfibers formed by a centrifugal spinning operation. While these previous workers did not report thermal insulation values for a web of microfibers, or give any indication of having measured such values, they appear to have automatically considered that a new fibrous web should be useful as thermal insulation.
The limited value of existing microfiber webs as thermal insulation is true despite another fact, which is not set forth in any known prior literature, namely that microfiber webs provide unique insulating values. For example, a one-centimeter-thick web of polypropylene blown microfibers will give 1.8 clo of thermal resistance, in contrast to the about 0.9 exhibited by a 1-centimeter-thick web of commerical polyester staple fibers..sup.1 (Footnotes and methods of measurement are at the end of the specification).
The reason why existing microfiber webs have only limited value as thermal insulation is that, at least after these microfiber webs have undergone a normal compression history, they are heavier than alternative types of fibrous insulation. This heaviness is an inherent consequence of the very nature of microfibers; their very fine size and comformability causes the microfibers to come together as a dense, fine-pored web. As an illustration, a one-centimeter-thick web of blown microfibers is about five times as heavy as a one-centimeter-thick web of commercial polyester staple fibers. Even if a blown microfiber web only half as thick as a web of polyester staple fibers is used (so as to provide roughly equivalent thermal insulation resistance), the blown microfiber web will still be about two-and-one-half times as heavy as the polyester staple fiber web.
When weight is only of secondary importance (as in glove or boot insulation, for example), thin, dense, blown microfiber webs can be quite useful. But when weight is a more primary consideration, as in such insulated articles as coats, snowmobile suits, sleeping bags, etc., existing microfiber webs will be passed by. Since the latter kinds of uses are major ones, the foreclosing of microfibers from such uses is a severe limitation on their utility in the insulation field.


In recent years, in a high-speed and high-density signal transmission between electronic devices or between wiring boards, the conventional transmission through electric wirings has began to reveal limitations in realization of high speed and high density, because mutual interference and signal attenuation constitute barriers. In order to overcome such limitations, a technology for connecting between the electronic devices or between the wiring boards by light, a so-called optical interconnection, is being examined. A polymer optical waveguide has drawn attention as an optical transmission path because of being easily processed with low costs, greater wiring-flexibility, and high density.
As the modes of a polymer optical wave waveguide, it is considered that a type which is formed on a glass epoxy resin substrate on an assumption of being applied onto a photoelectric consolidated substrate or a flexible type having no hard supporting substrate supposed to make a connection between boards are preferred.
The polymer optical waveguide is also required to have high heat resistance in addition to have high transparency (low optical transmission loss) in terms of usage environment of an applicable apparatus, part implementation thereof, or the like. Known materials for the optical wave guide include (meth)acrylate polymers (see, for example Patent Documents 1 and 2).
However, even the (meth)acrylate polymers described in those patent documents have a high transparency of 0.3 dB/cm at a wavelength of 850 nm, evaluation of heat resistance performance, for example, specific test results such as optical transmission loss after a solder-reflow test are not described in detail and thus unclear.    Patent Document 1: JP Hei 06-258537 A    Patent Document 2: JP 2003-195079 A


The Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis has been used for long time for the production of synthetic hydrocarbons from synthesis gas (syngas), a mixture of gases comprising mostly hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO).
The FT synthesis is a chemical reaction conducted over a metal oxide catalyst where the active metal comprises iron (Fe), cobalt (Co), ruthenium (Ru) and nickel (Ni). These catalysts can be produced by precipitation or can be supported in a metal oxide like alumina, titania, zirconia, magnesia and the like.
The FT synthesis primary reaction can be described as follows:2H2+CO→—[CH2]—+H2O
In this reaction —[CH2]— represents the primary building block of a paraffinic hydrocarbon, sometimes also referred as alkanes.
The process is carried out at elevated temperatures normally in the 200-400° C. range and high pressures of up to 40 bar-g. It can be conducted in many reactor designs like (i) tubular fixed beds, (ii) 3-phase slurry beds (a.k.a. bubble columns), (iii) high temperature circulating beds, and (iv) 2-phase fluidised beds. These had been extensively described in the literature in works like the Fischer-Tropsch Technology book edited by A P Steynberg and M E Dry (Elsevier, 2004).
This reaction proceeds by a mechanism known to those in the art as chain propagation. The reaction above described repeats many times resulting in the production of long chain species with up to 100 carbon atoms. The products from this synthesis are often described in the art as primary FT products, covering a very broad distillation range including FT hydrocarbon gasses (C2 to C4), FT liquid products (C5 to C21) and solid FT products (C22 and heavier) at ambient conditions. This blend has also been described as a synthetic crude or syncrude in many publications like “Processing of Fischer-Tropsch Syncrude and Benefits of Integrating its Products with Conventional Fuels” (NPRA Paper AM-00-51, 2000).
The primary products or syncrude from the FT synthesis can be separated into various liquid streams at processing conditions for example a C3 to C5 range, a naphtha C6 to C8 range and a C9 and heavier range.
Fuels refineries, irrespective of whether they refine crude oil, Fischer-Tropsch syncrude, coal liquids, oil shales or tar sands, generally produce a product slate that may include a kerosene cut.
The most common refining pathway for producing jet fuel (Jet A-1) from the kerosene range material is by hydroprocessing. In some instances it is desirable to produce more kerosene range material to ultimately boost jet fuel production and suggestions for doing this have been made, for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,092.
More recently, the United States Department of Defense expressed interest in a universal fuel for military use and preferably from a synthetic process to improve energy security (Forest, et al. 2005). This so-called Battlefield Use Fuel of the Future (BUFF), is very similar to jet fuel in specifications, but has a more stringent flash point specification (60° C. like JP-5). Ideally such a synthetic fuels refinery should produce only kerosene range material. Although a “jet fuel only” refinery may be conceptually devised, there are limits to the yield of kerosene range material that can be obtained in practise. Even conversion processes known in the art to be very kerosene selective, such as the conversion of propylene over solid phosphoric acid (Jones 1954), do not exclusively yield kerosene range material.
Straight run Fischer-Tropsch products have some inherent drawbacks in meeting Jet A-1 and/or BUFF specifications, namely a high linearity that results in a high freezing point and low temperature viscosity and a tow aromatics content. Furthermore, the Anderson-Schultz-Flory distribution often used to describe the carbon number distribution of Fischer-Tropsch products, show that the volume of straight run syncrude material in the kerosene range is limited, irrespective of the Fischer-Tropsch process. Using the Anderson-Schultz-Flory description it may be shown that the straight run kerosene production from a Fischer-Tropsch process can be optimised by tailoring the Fischer-Tropsch catalyst to have a chain growth probability factor (α-value) preferably In the range 0.76-0.86. Most current commercial Fischer-Tropsch technologies operate outside of this range, with high temperature Fischer-Tropsch (HTFT) technology operating with an α-value of less than 0.7, while low temperature Fischer-Tropsch (LTFT) technology generally operates with an α-value higher than 0.9. However, even with a Fischer-Tropsch conversion process optimised for the production of kerosene range material, the straight run yield of kerosene is less than 30%. Nevertheless, the synthesis of jet fuel components from Fischer-Tropsch products and the blending thereof to produce semi-synthetic jet fuel and fully synthetic jet fuel are known in the art.
In this context, kerosene may be understood as a fraction having a carbon number range of C9 to C16, typically having a boiling point range of from 149° C. to 288° C., although variations to this definition may exist.
Preparation of Jet A-1 from low temperature Fischer-Tropsch (LIFT) hydrocracker products by distillation results in a small C8-C13 fraction that meets most of the specifications, but contains less that the required 8% aromatics of Jet A-1
The initial boiling point of the material is limited by the flash point specification of jet fuel, while the final boiling point is restricted by the Jet A-1 specification (maximum 300° C.). However, in practise a lower final boiling point is often required to meet the freezing point specification (maximum −47° C.). It has also been pointed out that the low temperature viscosity of kerosene range material from Low Temperature Fischer-Tropsch (LTFT) syncrude may present a problem by being too viscous (Lamprecht 2006).
The LTFT hydrocracker design of Shell, as commercially used in their gas-to-liquids facility in Bintulu, Malaysia, has a maximum kerosene mode of operation which is reportedly capable of refining 50% of the LTFT syncrude to kerosene range material while the naphtha and distillate products from such an operation are only blending components and not transportation fuels meeting motor-gasoline and diesel fuel specifications.
Preparation of Jet A-1 from high temperature Fischer-Tropsch (HTFT) hydrogenated straight run kerosene and iso-paraffinic kerosene from short chain olefin oligomerisation over Solid Phosphoric Acid (SPA), meets all the specifications, including density, however, the volumes that can be produced are unfortunately limited.
What is needed is a synthetic fuels facility that can maximise kerosene yield in such a way that the kerosene meets Jet A-1/JP-8 and/or JP-5/BUFF specifications.
A need has been identified for a kerosene dominant refinery in which the naphtha and distillate that are co-produced are easily refinable to meet final fuel specifications, rather than having to be sold as naphtha or distillate blend stock. This is especially pertinent in instances where the refinery is located far from markets for such intermediate products, or in instances where the refinery is used as strategic asset for the production of fuel for military use.


Mobile computing devices have been developed to increase the functionality that is made available to users in a mobile setting. For example, a user may interact with a mobile phone, tablet computer, or other mobile computing device to check email, surf the web, compose texts, interact with applications, and so on.
Because mobile computing devices are configured to be mobile, however, the devices may be exposed to a wide variety of environments having varying degrees of safety for the computing device. Accordingly, devices were developed to help protect the mobile computing devices from their environment. However, conventional techniques to install and remove the devices from the computing device alternated between being difficult to remove but providing good protection or being relatively easy to remove but providing limited protection.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating a semiconductor package, and more particularly, to a chip scale package (CSP) fabrication method including an electric die sort (EDS) and a burn-in test.
2. Description of the Related Art
Semiconductor packages have been continuously improved to meet new demands for high-performance, small-size and high-speed electronic appliances. Accordingly, semiconductor packages have been evolved from old-fashioned dual in-line packages (DIPs) to state-of-the-art semiconductor packages such as CSPs. As a result, electronic appliances such as camcorders or portable telephones can be miniaturized using the CSPs as their essential components.
The CSPs are known to be ideal for a package having 100 pins or more with high speed operation, or for a package having a large size chip. Although the definition of the CSPs has not been fixed in semiconductor industry, the packages that are smaller than 120% of the size of a semiconductor chip is typically referred to as a CSP. Even semiconductor packages larger than 120% of the size of a chip, such as ball grid array (BGA) packages, land grid array (LGA) packages, and small outline non-leaded (SON) packages, are considered as a CSP. In particular, the BGA packages having solder balls instead of leads mounted on the lower surface thereof, the LGA packages having a land array mounted on the lower surface thereof, and the SON packages having two land arrays instead of leads mounted on the lower surface thereof are examples of the CSPs.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a typical process for fabricating CSPs. Referring to FIG. 1, a plurality of semiconductor chips are formed on a wafer by integrated circuit fabricating processes. Then, the plurality of chips on the wafer are tested to identify good dies from bad dies depending on electrical characteristics or functionality of each chip by performing an electric die sorting (EDS) process. The EDS process utilizes a probe card having probe needles mounted thereon for electrically connecting a tester to an individual chip for testing, in step 51. Following the EDS process, preferably, only good dies are packaged into a CSP strip, in step 53. Next, the CSP strip is singulated (separated) into individual CSPs, in step 55.
The individual CSPs are subjected to a burn-in test for inducing the failure of marginal CSPs with defects, in step 57. This burn-in test accelerates failure mechanisms such that devices which have the potential to fail later but which failure would not otherwise be apparent at nominal test conditions can be eliminated by applying a serious stress, for example, heat, voltage or high frequency such as a clock, to a semiconductor package. Thus, defective CSPs can be screened out early before a final test, and only non-defective CSPs are subjected to the final test, in step 59.
Next, the final test is preformed, in step 59, on CSPs that are determined to be good (non-defective) in the burn-in test. Then, CSPs determined to be good (fully-funictional) by the final test are marked their corresponding product titles, in step 61. Also, in step 61, the CSPs are finally inspected for visual defects. Thereafter, good CSPs are surface-mounted on a module board, in step 63. The CSP module is subjected to a module test, in step 65, and finally packed to be sent to end users, in step 67. Here, reference numeral 69 denotes a section where process steps are being carried out with singulated CSPs, before module assembly. Reference numeral 71 denotes a section from module assembly to final packing, where process steps are being carried out with a CSP module board.
FIG. 2 is a schematic view illustrating a final test using a plastic tray 93 that is generally used to transport CSPs. Referring to FIG. 2, singulated CSPs are placed on the plastic tray 93 and then are transported between the processes using the tray 93. Thus, in the final test, singulated CSPs are contained on the test tray 93. The test tray 93 has a plastic main body 89 whose surface is treated as anti-static, and grooved pockets 91 on which singulated individual CSPs 81 are placed. Thereafter, the singulated CSPs placed on the test tray 93 are loaded onto a handler connected to a tester. In the handler, solder balls acting as external connection terminals for CSPs 81 are connected to socket contact terminals 87 (e.g., POGO pins) in a socket 85 on an interface board 83, and the CSP 81 is subjected to the final test. Although not shown, in burn-in test equipment, CSPs are inserted into sockets on a burn-in board, and subjected to a reliability test to sort out defective CSPs early.
According to this conventional CSP fabrication method, singulated individual CSPs are loaded on a plastic tray and unloaded from a burn-in board numerous times during a burn-in-test. Also, in a final test, loading and unloading to and from the plastic tray are repeated.
Hence, the final test and the burn-in test with respect to singulated individual CSPs have the following problems.
First, as external connection terminals, CSPs generally use solder balls, rather than outer leads. Such solder balls could be easily damaged by outside impact or physical stress. Further, encapsulating materials for the CSPs are relatively weaker than that of conventional encapsulating materials for ceramic or plastic packages. Thus, generally the CSPs are vulnerable against physical impact during the repeated loading and unloading in the burn-in test and the final test. Accordingly, various visual defects can occur easily. The visual defects include package breaking, cracking, damage to solder balls, and consequential contact failure. These visual defects significantly reduce the yield of the CSP fabrication process.
Second, the CSPs being a surface-mounting semiconductor package have more contact terminals than the other conventional semiconductor packages. Thus contact failure in the CSPs is more and more frequent due to an increase in the number of contact terminals during the burn-in test and the final test.
Third, a complicated mechanism is needed to connect the socket to solder balls of the CSPs. This inevitably increases the price of socket, in tun, increasing overall manufacturing costs.
Fourth, the burn-in testing process and the final test require a great amount of time and man-power for repeated loading and unloading. Accordingly, an excessive amount of time and man-power is required in the conventional CSP fabrication process, thus lowering productivity.
Accordingly, what is needed is a better way to fabricate the CSPs minimizing the visual defects, contact failure and the other problems discussed above, thereby improving productivity and lowering manufacturing costs.


Memory technology implies the need for accessing data within memory devices, such as DRAM or other memory devices. Therefore, different addressing strategies have already been proposed.
A possible feature of DRAMs is address multiplexing. This technique enables splitting the address in half and feeding each half in turn to the chip on the address bus pins.
The chip has a large array of memory capacitors that are arranged in rows and columns. To read one location in the array, the control circuit first calculates its row number, which it places on the DRAM's address pins. It then toggles the row address select (RAS) pin, causing the DRAM to read the row address. Internally, the DRAM connects the selected row to a bank of amplifiers called sense amplifiers, which read the contents of all the capacitors in the row. The control circuit then places the column number of the desired location on the same address pins, and toggles the column address select (CAS) pin, causing the DRAM to read the column address. The DRAM uses this to select the output of the sense amplifier corresponding to the selected column. After a delay called the CAS access time, this output is presented to the outside world on the DRAM's data I/O pin.
To write data to the DRAM, the control logic uses the same two-step addressing method, but instead of reading the data from the chip at the end of the operation, it provides data to the chip at the start of the operation.
After a read or write operation, the control circuit returns the RAS and CAS pins to their original states to ready the DRAM for its next operation. The DRAM requires a certain interval called the precharge interval between operations.
Once the control circuit has selected a particular row, it can select several columns in succession by placing different column addresses on the address pins, toggling CAS each time, while the DRAM keeps the same row activated. This is quicker than accessing each location using the full row-column procedure. This method is useful for retrieving microprocessor instructions, which tend to be stored at successive addresses in memory.
In addition, the provision of commands is typically provided through command strobes on the command bus. The number of different commands depends on the number of pins on the command bus with 2N commands being a possibility with N being the number of pins at the command bus. With the increasing demand for different commands, the command bus needed to be expanded. However, as die size is a crucial factor in application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design, the number of pins on the command bus needs to be decreased.
Further, the size of the buses is also relevant for the overall size of the connection interface between the memory device and the central processing unit (CPU). The higher data rates that were required, the higher the number of connection pins on the data bus were selected. This increased the size of the interface. In addition, the number of pins on the address bus and the overall number of pins of the interface determined the type of memory to be used on the interface, besides protocol issues. However, the demand for flexibility of usage of different kinds of memory devices was not accounted for. There is a need for a flexible interface, which enables the use of different kinds of memory devices with different kinds of capabilities in terms of data throughput on the data bus.
With the rising need for flexible use of standard components, there is a need for providing a memory interface enabling to use both volatile memory and non-volatile memory on one same interface. However, as non-volatile memory and volatile memory have different prerequisites for the interfaces, there needs to be a possibility to adapt the interface for use with both types of memory.


The present invention relates to a newspaper conveying mechanism of a newspaper vending machine, which includes friction wheels and driving claw means to convey the newspaper at two stages. It is avoided that many newspapers are delivered at the same time. Also, the newspaper is prevented from being torn apart during conveying and is released as an integer.
As shown in FIG. 10, a conventional newspaper vending machine includes a newspaper conveying mechanism 1a, a newspaper releasing means 2a and an automatic changing mechanism 3a. The newspaper conveying mechanism 1a utilizes the weight of a main body to depress a pile of newspapers and employs rotary sharp claws 6a of a pushing means 5a driven by a motor 4a to forcedly directly contact with an upmost newspaper and push the same outside the machine.
According to such arrangements, the sharp claws 6a directly contact with the surface of the newspaper and are slightly planted thereinto at several points for conveying the newspaper. Due to the pressure of the main body and the stress of the sharp claws 6a during rotation, the sharp claws 6a tend to damage the surface of the newspaper and imprint a track thereon. Moreover, in case that the motor 4a rotates at irregular speed or inappropriate speed, the newspaper may be torn apart. Therefore, it is necessary to provide an improved newspaper conveying mechanism to eliminate the above shortcomings.


Recent domestic events have heightened the need for an effective manner in which to assure the uncontaminated delivery of contained products to a consumer, particularly medicinal products taken internally. Specifically needed is the provision of a container for such products which bears assuring indication to the consumer that the contents have not been tampered with from their point of manufacture to the point of consumer sale.
In one prior art approach toward meeting this need, use is made of so-called "telltale" indication, i.e., a readily discernible characteristic indicative of tampering, such as a visible sign that some person has previously attempted to gain access to the container contents. Broadly speaking, these efforts may be generalized as placing a tamper-indicating member, e.g., an ambient-sensitive element, in the path of access to a container to indicate tampering by discernible change, e.g., change of color of the member. A quite early example of this practice is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 1,095,313 wherein a light-sensitive label is applied to a bottle and the releasably capped bottle with such label is wrapped in a light-impermeable paper. When the wrapper is removed in ambient light, the label changes color and indication is thus provided to a subsequent purchaser that the wrapper has previously been removed. In a practice within the last decade, seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,295, this technique is modernized by including the telltale substance as an interiorly disposed protected component of the wrapper. In the '295 patent, a heat-shrinkable member straddles both the cap and container vessel after capping and has a pH-sensitive integrity indicia imprinted on the interior of the member, the indicia being packaged with a basic gaseous material which maintains the indicia of a given first color. When the heat-shrinkable member is first removed from the cap and vessel, ambient pH causes the indicia to change color.
Another telltale approach is seen in situations in which containers are not releasably capped, i.e., the telltale is a component of a strippable closure member. Examples of this effort are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,826,221 and 3,923,198. In the '198 patent, a multilayer member serves to close the access avenue to a container and includes a layer which becomes opaque when subjected to stress. A color backing or printed legend normally visible through the stress-sensitive layer is not seen on tampering, thus providing a color change which is discernible to the user to indicate that tampering has occurred. In the '221 patent, an outer seal is adhesively secured to a container as a closure member and includes an ink which smudges if the closure member is tampered with.
In applicants' view, the latter approach is more desirable in one aspect than the former, since the latter provides indication of tampering directly at the access port rather than at a preceding wrapper removal stage. Thus, the heat-shrinkable member discussed above is a stage removed from the removal of the cap of the container and may not be present at the cap removal. However, such advantage in the latter techniques is obtained at the expense of exposing the telltale to inadvertent activating stress in the course of handling and shipping. It is applicant's further view that tamper indication should be effectively provided without need for such ambient-sensitive telltales or that more effective such ambient-sensitive telltale containers should be afforded to manufacturers.


Wireless communication systems are constantly evolving. System designers are continually developing greater numbers of features for both service providers as well as for the end users. In the area of wireless phone systems, cellular based phone systems have advanced tremendously in recent years. Wireless phone systems are available based on a variety of modulation techniques and are capable of using a number of allocated frequency bands. Available modulation schemes include analog FM and digital modulation schemes using Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Each scheme has inherent advantages and disadvantages relating to system architecture, frequency reuse, and communications quality. However, the features the manufacturer offers to the service provider and which the service provider offers to the consumer are similar between the different wireless systems.
Regardless of the modulation scheme in use, the wireless phone available to the end user has a number of important features. Nearly all wireless phones incorporate at least a keyboard for entering numbers and text, and a display that allows the user to display text, dialed numbers, pictures and incoming caller numbers. Additionally, wireless phones may incorporate electronic phonebooks, speed dialing, single button voicemail access, and messaging capabilities, such as e-mail.
Subscribers' reliance upon their mobile terminals (such as, cell phones) and on wireless service in general continues to increase. The demand for and implementation of Emergency-911 and geo-location services for mobile terminals are two typical examples of this increasing demand. However, subscribers quickly learn that, once away from areas equipped with cells and base stations, their mobile terminals are no longer able to function. This lack of connectivity is a significant drawback of the prior art.


1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of power electronics,wherein mains system disturbances and mains voltage reductions occur in a voltage supply system.
2. Discussion of Background
Circuit arrangements of this type, also known as Dynamic Voltage Restorers (DVR), supply a separate voltage, in series with the disturbed voltage supply mains system, in order to compensate for mains voltage reductions and mains system disturbances. In consequence, only insignificant changes and disturbances can be recorded on the load. To this end, the feeder converter must react very quickly, which means that the power semiconductor switches in the converter have to have a high clock frequency. This also results in the requirement that the filter connected on the mains system side of the feeder transformer must be kept as small as possible. In conventional systems for low and medium power levels, it is possible to use IGBTs and a comparatively low intermediate-circuit voltage. During operation at the required clock frequencies in such configurations, the switched-on losses of the elements are typically the governing factor, to such an extent that no further measures can be taken to reduce the overall losses significantly. At higher power levels, it is on the one hand increasingly more difficult to use IGBTs, and on the other hand the intermediate-circuit voltage must be increased in order that the currents that occur can still be coped with well. In addition, conventional GTOs have the disadvantage that they cannot be switched fast enough. In general, the switching losses in silicon semiconductor switches tend to increase at higher voltage loads. This applies to both IGBTs and GTOs. Modern, hard-driven GCTs (Gate Commutated Thyristors) can, furthermore, be produced with lower switched-on losses than IGBTs. The ratio of the switched-on losses to the switching losses is thus shifted to a major extent toward the switching losses for high-power applications, particularly with respect to the use of GCTs.