According to a digital linearizing method, a digital input signal on a first path is operated with an output signal of a main amplifying unit, to thus detect distortion components included in the output signal of the main amplifying unit. A digital input signal on a second path is correlated with the detected distortion components, to thus adaptively control a gain of the digital input signal on the second path during the detection of the distortion components. Therefore, according to the above method, it is possible to effectively and correctly remove the distortion components included in the output signal of the main amplifying unit by amplifying the detected distortion components and coupling the amplified distortion components with the output signal of the main amplifying unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a feedforward linearizer, and more particularly to a digital linearizer of a power amplifier and a digital linearizing method thereof.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, a high power amplifier (HPA) is used to increase the power of an input radio frequency (RF) signal. An ideal HPA does not distort the input RF signal while it amplifies the magnitude of the input RF signal. However, since the HPA generally consists of active elements having non-linear characteristics, an output signal from the HPA inevitably includes distortion components. Therefore, various linearizing technologies and algorithms for improving the non-linear characteristics of the HPA are provided in the related art. Representative linearizing methods include a predistortion method, an envelope feedback method, and a feedforward method.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a related art feedforward linearizer. As shown therein, the feedforward linearizer includes a divider 101 for dividing an input signal a main amplifying unit 102 for amplifying the divided input signal, and a directional coupler 105 for adding the input signal delayed by a delay 103 to the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102, which is divided by a divider 104. The distortion components included in the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102 are thus detected. The feedforward linearizer further includes an error amplifying unit 106 for amplifying the detected distortion components, and a directional coupler 108 for coupling the amplified distortion components to thus remove the distortion components.
The main amplifying unit 102 includes a variable attenuator 11 for attenuating an input signal, a variable phase shifter 12 for shifting the phase of the attenuated input signal, and a HPA 13 for amplifying the phase shifted input signal.
The error-amplifying unit 106 includes a variable attenuator 14 for attenuating the distortion components, a variable phase shifter 15 for shifting the phases of the attenuated distortion components, and an error amplifier 16 for amplifying the phase shifted distortion components.
In operation, an input signal is divided by the divider 101 and the divided signals pass through paths 17 and 18, respectively. The input signal that passes through the path 17 is amplified by the main amplifying unit 102. At this time, multiple harmonics components, that is, distortion components other than the input signal, exist in the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102 due to the non-linear characteristics of the HPA 13. The input signal that passes through the path 18 is delayed by the delay 103 and is inputted to the directional coupler 105. The time of delay 103 is set equal to the amount of time required for the operation of amplifying unit 102.
The first directional coupler 105 couples the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102 input through the divider 104 with the input signal delayed by the delay 103, to detect the distortion components included in the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102.
The input signal of the path 17 sequentially passes through the variable attenuator 11, the variable phase shifter 12, and the HPA 13 of the main amplifying unit 102, and is converted into a signal having a magnitude that is identical to the magnitude of the input signal of the path 17 and a phase that is opposite of the phase of the input signal of the path 17. That is, the phase is different from the phase of the input signal by 180xc2x0. Therefore, when the input signal of the path 17 is added to the input signal of the path 18 by the directional coupler 105, the original input signal disappears and only the distortion components exist.
The detected distortion components sequentially pass through the variable attenuator 14, the variable phase shifter 15, and the error amplifier 16 of the error amplifying unit 106. The distortion components are thus converted into signals having magnitudes that are identical to the magnitudes of the detected distortion components, and phases that are opposite to the phases of the detected distortion components. That is, phases are different from the phases of the detected distortion components by 180xc2x0. The converted signals are then inputted to the directional coupler 108. For the above process, the error amplifier 16 is designed to increase only the magnitude of the signal and not to generate the harmonics components.
The output signal of the main amplifying unit 102, which is divided by the divider 104, is delayed by the delay 107 by the time delay of the error-amplifying unit 106 and is input to the directional coupler 108. Therefore, when the output signal of the main amplifying unit 102 is coupled with the output signal of the error-amplifying unit 106 by the directional coupler 108, the distortion components, whose phases are 180xc2x0 out of phase, offset each other. Accordingly, only the amplified input signal exists in the output signal of the directional coupler 108.
As mentioned above, the related art feedforward linearizer compensates for the non-linearity of the HPA by detecting the distortion components included in the output signal of the HPA and offsetting the distortion components included in the output signal of the HPA by the detected distortion components.
The feedforward linearizer of the related art has many problems and disadvantages. For example, if the time delay of the delay units 103 and 107 do not coincide with the time delay of the main amplifying unit and the time delay of the error amplifying unit, respectively, then the conventional feedforward linearizer can not effectively remove the distortion components.
In addition, if the related art feedforward linearizer does not correctly control the variable attenuator and the variable phase shifter, it cannot generate the output signal and the distortion signal of the main amplifying unit, whose phases are shifted by 180xc2x0.
Moreover, since the related art feedforward linearizer processes all of the signals in an analog way and, in particular, all of the signals are processed in a high frequency band, it is very difficult to correctly control the variable attenuator and the variable phase shifter. Additional circuits must inevitably be used in order to correctly control the variable attenuator and the variable phase shifter.
Furthermore, the non-linear characteristics of the HPA change according to time or external circumstances such as a temperature or bias. The related art feedforward linearizer cannot effectively compensate for such changes.
The above references are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for appropriate teachings of additional or alternative details, features and/or technical background.
An object of the invention is to solve at least the above problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described hereinafter.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a digital linearizer of a HPA, which is capable of accurately detecting the distortion components included in the output signal of the HPA by a digital processing method, and a digital linearizing method.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a digital linearizer of a HPA, which is capable of adaptively coping with changes in the non-linear characteristics of the HPA, caused by time or external circumstances such as a temperature or bias, and a digital linearizing method.
In order to achieve at least the above objects in whole or in part, and in accordance with the purposes of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, there is provided a digital linearizer including a main amplifying unit configured to amplify a digital input signal on a first path, a distortion component detecting unit coupled to receive the digital input signal on a second path and an output signal of the main amplifying unit and detect distortion components from the output signal of the main amplifying unit, and a correlating unit coupled to receive the digital input signal on a third path and the detected distortion components and configured to correlate the detected distortion components with the digital input signal to adaptively control the distortion component detecting unit.
To further achieve at least the above objects in whole or in part and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and probably described, there is provided a digital linearizer, including a main amplifying unit configured to amplify a digital input signal on a first path, a distortion component detecting unit configured to process the digital input signal on a second path with an output signal of the main amplifying unit, and to detect distortion components from the output signal of the main amplifying unit, a correlating unit configured to correlate the detected distortion components with the digital input signal on a third path, to adaptively control the distortion component detecting unit, an error amplifying unit configured to amplify the detected distortion components, and a directional coupler configured to couple the output of the main amplifying unit with an output of the error amplifying unit to remove the distortion components included in the output signal of the main amplifying unit.
To further achieve at least the above objects in whole or in part and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and probably described, there is provided a digital linearizing method, including amplifying a digital input signal on a first path, processing the amplified digital input signal of the first path with the digital input signal on a second path to detect a distortion component of the amplified digital input signal, and correlating the detected distortion components with the digital input signal on a third path to adaptively control a gain of the digital input signal on the second path.
To further achieve at least the above objects in whole or in part and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and probably described, there is provided a digital linearizing method including amplifying a digital input signal on a first path to generate an amplified digital input signal, processing the amplified digital input signal with the digital input signal on a second path to detect distortion components of the amplified digital input signal, correlating the detected distortion components with the digital input signal on a third path, to adaptively control a gain of the digital input signal on the second path, amplifying the detected distortion components, and coupling the amplified digital input signal with the amplified distortion components to remove the distortion components included in the amplified digital input signal.
To further achieve at least the above objects in whole or in part and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and probably described, there is provided a signal processing device, including a first digital-to-analog converter (DAC) configured to receive a digital input signal and convert the digital input signal into an analog input signal, a first hybrid divider coupled to receive the analog input signal and configured to divide the analog input signal into a first in-phase signal I and a first quadrature phase signal Q, first and second multipliers configured to multiply the first inphase signal I and the first quadrature phase signal Q by first and second components of a gain signal, respectively, a coupler coupled to the first and second multipliers and configured to combine the outputs of the first and second multipliers into a gain controlled analog input signal, a first analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to convert the gain controlled analog input signal into a gain controlled digital input signal.
To further achieve at, least the above objects in whole or in part and in accordance with the purposes of the invention, as embodied and probably described, there is provided a signal processing device, including a first digital-to-analog converter (DAC) configured to receive a delayed digital input signal and output a first analog delay signal, a first hybrid divider configured to divide the first analog delay signal into a first in-phase signal I and a first quadrature phase signal Q, a second DAC configured to receive the delayed detected distortion components and output a second analog delay signal, first and second multipliers configured to multiply each of the first in-phase signal I and the first quadrature phase signal Q by the second analog delay signal, and first and second magnitude calculators coupled to third and fourth multipliers, respectively, and configured to generate first and second components of a gain signal.
Additional advantages, objects, and features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained as particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

Digital linearizer of high power amplifier and digital linearizing method


A sleep circuit for use in a resonant inverter is disclosed. The sleep circuit activates a “sleep mode” (non-continuous operation) when the inverter output has no connected load, or a connected load is non-operative (e.g., fails). The “sleep mode” utilizes hysteresis control via the under voltage lockout protection feature of a control IC of the inverter. A primary DC source permanently connects to the Vcc pin of the control IC for startup (on) and burst (non-continuous) operation modes. An auxiliary DC source connects to the Vcc pin via a switch for continuous operation mode. A load current sensor controls the switch. When a sensed output current is above a threshold level, the switch connects the auxiliary DC source, and the control IC (and the inverter) operates continuously. When the sensed output current falls below the threshold, the auxiliary DC source is not provided and the inverter operates in “sleep mode”.

A typical gas discharge lamp utilizes an electronic ballast to convert AC line voltage to a high frequency current capable of powering the gas discharge lamp. The main component of such an electronic ballast is a resonant DC/AC inverter, which is typically a series resonant DC/AC inverter driven by a control integrated circuit (IC) chip.
A single electronic ballast may power a plurality of lamps placed in a fixture including the electronic ballast. When replacing one or more lamps, or when one or more lamps are damaged, the resonant DC/AC inverter of the electronic ballast should operate without a load being present. During the startup period of a lamp, that is, when the lamp first starts, and particularly during instant starting, that is, without starting the lamp without first preheating the lamp, the electronic ballast operates in a no load condition for some interval of time. Electronic ballasts should output a high frequency starting voltage, for example, up to 1000V rms (root mean squared), to instant start one or more fluorescent lamps. For high intensity discharge (HID) lamps, the electronic ballast should output an even higher starting voltage. A higher output voltage by the electronic ballast during the startup period, including instant starting, is required to compensate for voltage losses in cables or wires connecting remote lamps to the electronic ballast. Industrial wires and connectors used in lighting application are typically rated for a maximum of 600V rms continuously applied. In a no load condition, the output voltage of the electronic ballast may exceed this number.
Excepting voltage stress on components, another obstacle for continuous no load operation is a higher power loss concentrated in the transistors of the inverter and in a resonant inductor. Even total ballast power loss typically does not exceed the same under a full load. U.S. Pat. No. 7,372,215 issued to Sekine et al. teaches avoiding an open circuit mode in a multi-lamp ballast by sensing the conductivity of a lamp via lamp filaments, and shutting down the inverter when no load is connected. The system taught by the '215 patent requires additional wires between each lamp and the ballast. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,952,085 and 6,975,076, both issued to Nerone, disclose a control block for pulse inverter operation during starting as well as open circuit. These blocks include a pulse-width modulated (PWM) controller IC, such as a UC3861 from Texas Instruments recommended by the disclosures, a control transformer, and other active and passive components. The systems taught by the '085 and '076 patents detect open circuit conditions by having a resonant tank clamping circuit activated. U.S. Pat. No. 6,326,740 issued to Chang et al. discloses a no load voltage fed resonant inverter in a multiple-lamp ballast having over-voltage control with a flip-flop. This over-voltage control provides an on/off pulse inverter operation via an over-voltage feed back loop. The flip-flop provides a stable on/off inverter operation in sleep mode. However, the systems taught by the '085 and '076 patents feature an indirect detection of no load conditions via an output voltage sense features signal delay, which requires use of many complex surrounding circuits and ICs. A similar rms voltage limiting feature during lamp startup is used in an HID ballast according to U.S. Pat. No. 7,119,494 issued to Hui et al.


Techniques are provided for decoding tail-biting convolutional codes by using information within the received data stream that traditionally has not been used or been available to the convolutional decoder, e.g., cyclic redundancy check (CRC) and bit information known by both the transmitter and receiver. Further, a single parallel trace-back is used that reduces implementation complexity. In addition, the least reliable decisions made during forward processing may be reversed in order to generate additional possible codeword candidates. These techniques can be used to reduce false detection rates (FDRs) and/or detection error rates (DERs).

Viterbi decoders are used at a receiver to decode a data bit stream that has been encoded with a convolutional code for forward error correction (FEC). Viterbi decoders use the Viterbi algorithm which finds the most likely sequence of hidden states, e.g., states of a hidden Markov model (Forney, G. D., Jr.; "The Viterbi algorithm," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 268-278, March 1973). For example, when a radio frequency (RF) signal is received for decoding, the originally transmitted signal is unknown to the receiver. In addition, the originally transmitted signal may have been changed by the radio channel characteristics such as noise, fading, rain showers, etc. Accordingly, the originally transmitted signal bits are a "hidden" or unknown. FEC and Viterbi decoders are desirable when error correction is to be performed at the receiver or when feedback from the receiver to the transmitter is not practical. Viterbi decoders find practical uses in wireless communications, e.g., cellular telephone and satellite communications, speech recognition, storage verification, among others. This is the case in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular communication system where a convolutional code is used to improve the decoding reliability of the control channels (3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 36.212).
When used in wireless communications the receiver has a detector that generates an output signal that is fed into a Viterbi decoder. The decoder has to decide if the transmitted bits are ones or zeros. The input to the decoder from the detector may be in a binary form, which is known as a "hard" decision, or in the form of probability value, which is known as a "soft" decision. Hard decisions are made using signal strength comparison while soft decisions may be made with a probabilistic model.
The Viterbi decoder generates a Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimate (MLSE) of the transmitted bits by keeping track of the most likely path in the trellis associated with the convolutional code for each possible state. These most likely paths are also referred to as survivor sequences and are used to generate the decoded bit sequence. Two different approaches can be used for the generation of these sequences, register-exchange method and a trace-back method (Feygin, G.; Gulak, P.; "Architectural tradeoffs for survivor sequence memory management in Viterbi decoders," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 425-429, March 1993). The register-exchange method is conceptually simpler but leads to a larger number of memory accesses than the trace-back approach. The trace-back approach is therefore usually selected for implementation.
In order to help with the Viterbi decoding process, the convolutional code encoder state is often populated with 0 values. This forces the starting state in the Viterbi trellis processing to be equal to 0 and can be used to initialize the path metrics associated with the different states. Similarly, the encoder final state is often forced to 0 by appending a number of 0 bits to the end of the message. Forcing the final encoder state to 0 can lead to an improved performance as the decoder can make use of this information to decide on which survivor sequence to use for the generation of the decoded bits. The number of extra bits needed to force the final encoder state is equal to the memory or constraint length of the encoder. In other words the encoder is "flushed" with zeroes. Convolutional codes that flush the encoder with known values are known as "tailed" convolutional codes.
This performance improvement from tailed convolutional codes comes at the cost of reduced spectral efficiency since extra bits need to be added to the information message. Hence, when the information message length is large compared to the encoder memory, the spectral efficiency penalty is small and can be ignored. On the other hand, when transmitting short messages, the penalty can be significant and forcing the final encoder state to 0 (or any other fixed value) should be avoided. The spectral efficiency penalty can be avoided by using a "tail-biting" convolutional code (Ma, H.; Wolf, J.; "On Tail Biting Convolutional Codes," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 104-111, February 1986). Tail-biting convolutional codes do not force the initial and final states of the encoder to a known value but instead guarantee that they are both identical. This is achieved without any penalty on the spectral efficiently by initializing the state of the encoder with the final bits in the message to be transmitted.
Tail-biting convolutional codes offer performance similar to that of tailed convolutional code and do not suffer from any spectral efficiency loss. As a result of these properties, these convolutional codes are now often used for the coding and transmission of short information messages. They are, for example, used to protect some of the control channels, e.g., the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) or the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) defined in 3GPP LTE.
It should however be noted that tail-biting convolutional codes have a higher decoding complexity. The Maximum Likelihood Detector (MLD) for a tail-biting convolutional code requires S separate Viterbi decoding operations of the whole received sequence, each hypothesized on the initial and final states of the encoder, where S represents the total number of states in the trellis associated with the convolutional code. The best path across these S different possibilities would then provide the decoded bits (Shao, R. Y.; Shu Lin; Fossorier, M. P. C.; "Two Decoding Algorithms for Tailbiting Codes," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 1658-1665, October 2003). A number of sub-optimum decoding algorithms have also been proposed in order to achieve near MLD performance but with a reduced complexity (Cox, R. V.; Sundberg, C. E. W.; "An Efficient Adaptive Circular Viterbi Algorithm for Decoding Generalized Tailbiting Convolutional Codes," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 57-68, February 1994; and Zhang Min; Huang Junwei; Meng Jie; Deng Qiang; "Research on An-Based Decode of Tail-Biting Convolutional Codes and Their Performance Analyses Used in LTE System," 2009 International Forum on Information Technology and Applications, IFITA '09, vol. 2, pp. 303-306, 15-17 May 2009).

Tail-biting convolutional decoder and decoding method


A method is provided for efficiently and securely smoothing a surface of an electrode disposed on a base, such as a ceramic substrate, without damaging the electrode or the base. The electrode is fired by a non-shrinkage process using a constraining layer and is separated from the constraining layer. The base including the electrode disposed thereon is prepared and a surface of the electrode is smoothed by vibrating media such that the media are arranged to be in contact with the electrode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for smoothing an electrode disposed on a base, such as a substrate, a method for manufacturing a ceramic substrate using the smoothing method, and a ceramic substrate manufactured by the manufacturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, sintered metal electrodes disposed on ceramic substrates have high surface roughness and therefore do not necessarily have sufficient smoothness. In particular, electrodes that are formed on a ceramic substrate manufactured by the following process are likely to have insufficient smoothness: a non-shrinkage process in which the ceramic substrate is fired in a firing step so as not to transversely shrink such that constraining layers made of a sintering-resistant material that is not substantially sintered at the firing temperature of the ceramic substrate are provided on principal surfaces of the unfired ceramic substrate. This is because the electrodes have surface irregularities formed when removing the constraining layers.
Furthermore, electrodes formed by a screen-printing process or other processes are likely to have high surface roughness due to mesh traces.
Electrodes arranged on ceramic substrates are used as junctions for, for example, other substrates or mounting lands of circuit components. However, there is a problem in that the electrodes are likely to have insufficient properties, such as platability and wettability, when the electrodes have high surface roughness.
In a case in which, for example, electrodes formed on ceramic substrates are subjected to Ni plating, Ni particles grow isotropically. When these electrodes, which are bases, have irregularities, secondary particles of the Ni particles continue to grow so as to gradually cover the Ni particles deposited in recessed portions, and therefore, the irregularities are smoothed to some extent. Since the time required for the secondary particles to reach a certain height varies depending on the locations thereof, boundaries of the secondary particles grow with the growth of secondary particles. As a result, macroscopic networks of impurities are formed at the secondary particle boundaries. The impurities are melted during displacement plating to cause significant local corrosion. This causes blackening of the electrodes which causes problems, such as, a reduction in the soldering contact area and solder popping caused by water that is trapped in corroded portions.
Where electrodes that are subjected to wire bonding have surface irregularities, the wire pull strength thereof is relatively low. When such an electrode is subjected to Ni or Au plating, a Ni or Au plating layer growing thereon follows irregularities of the electrode and grain boundaries and therefore has surface irregularities.
Where surface irregularities of an electrode is smoothed by forming a thick plating layer thereon, there is a problem in that a substrate having the electrode disposed thereon is damaged and has a reduced strength because the immersion time of the substrate in a plating bath is relatively long and a portion of the substrate is dissolved.
In view of the problems described above, the following method has been proposed: a method in which the surface roughness of an external electrode removed from a constraining layer is adjusted to a range of about 0.1 μm to about 6 μm such that the platability and/or wettability thereof can be secured (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-318173).
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-318173 describes that the platability and/or wettability of the external electrode can be ensured such that the surface roughness of the external electrode removed from the constraining layer is adjusted to about 0.1 μm to about 6 μm.
However, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-318173 discloses no technique to accurately adjust or control the surface roughness of the external electrode removed from the constraining layer.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method for smoothing a surface of an electrode


A method of downloading web content during display of a web page which downloads and stores subsequent web content from a list of web content addresses. The method includes the steps of displaying a web page by the kiosk, determining links to web content at a subsequent depth in the web page from a list of web content addresses, and downloading and storing the web content at the subsequent depth and additional depths before displaying another web page until a download limit is exceeded.

The present invention relates to self-service kiosks and more specifically to a method of downloading web content to a network kiosk in advance.
Retailers have a desire to sell their products over networks, such as global networks which are a part of the World Wide Web (WWW or xe2x80x9cwebxe2x80x9d) and which use the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP protocol). These retailers wish to provide Internet server web sites which offer the same features as Internet server web sites available to home shoppers who use their computers to connect to the Internet server web sites.
Kiosks provide a publicly-accessible computing platform for displaying web pages and other web-delivered content from retailer web sites. Kiosks may be located within a retailer""s transaction establishment or elsewhere, such as in shopping malls. Kiosks may be easily networked to retailer web sites using the TCP/IP protocol. Web pages from web sites may be displayed using known and available web software, such as Microsoft(copyright) Internet Explorer software.
One problem with current global network service is bandwidth limitations. Bandwidth generally varies by type of connection, network usage levels, and time of day. Service problems are complicated by the fact that web pages differ in amount of content and web content differs in size. For example, a typical web page contains text, graphic images, and pointers or hypertext links to other web pages or content. However, web content may motion video files, which due to their size take significantly longer to download, even over high-speed or xe2x80x9cTxe2x80x9d series lines.
Various general methods of downloading web content are available today. Web browser software applications typically have the ability to store previously downloaded web content in temporary or cache files so that the same content need not be downloaded again the next time the web content is accessed. However, such methods are intended for general purpose operation and thus do not completely serve the needs of retailers. In particular, retailers do not want customers to walk away from their kiosks because web content is arriving to slowly.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a downloading method which relies on configuration information suited to the needs of retailers. It would also be desirable to provide a downloading method which automatically downloads subsequent web content while a web page is being displayed.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a method of downloading web content to a network kiosk in advance is provided.
The method includes the steps of displaying a web page by the kiosk, determining links to web content at a subsequent depth in the web page from a list of web content addresses, and downloading and storing the web content at the subsequent depth and additional depths before displaying another web page until a download limit is exceeded.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a method of downloading web content to a network kiosk in advance.
It is another object of the present invention to download and store subsequent web content from a list of web content addresses while web page is being displayed.

Method of downloading web content to a network kiosk in advance


A method for identifying an IP camera and enhancing transmission quality by packet transmission based on the ONVIF specifications is applied to a gateway device configured for data transmission to and from at least one IP camera and a network video recorder according to the ONVIF specifications. The gateway device sends a Probe packet to the IP camera after receiving therefrom a Hello packet, analyzes a ProbeMatch packet from the IP camera to identify the IP camera, relays a Resolve packet from the network video recorder to the IP camera in order to receive audiovisual data from the IP camera, and adds an exclusive group code (e.g., VLAN ID) and the highest transmission speed classification (e.g., Quality of Service) to the received audiovisual data to distinguish the audiovisual data from other network packets and give higher priority of transmission to the audiovisual data.

Referring to FIG. 1, a network surveillance system 1 typically includes a network switch (whose role is equivalent to that of the gateway device 12 in FIG. 1) connected with a plurality of IP cameras 11 and a network surveillance device (e.g., a network video recorder, or NVR) 13. Images taken by the IP cameras 11 are forwarded by the network switch to the network video recorder 13 for storage. While network switches bring security and convenience to networking, their difficult setting procedures hinder the traditional closed-circuit television (CCTV) service providers from entering the digital surveillance market and taking advantage of the convenience provided by digitization.
When setting a network switch, a large number of factors must be considered in order to achieve the optimal configuration. In fact, the factors are so many that even an IT professional is not immune to setting errors. Should a wrong setting be made, operation and maintenance of the afflicted network switch will present a problem. For example, it is not uncommon that a variety of terminal devices 14 (e.g., personal computers, IPTV receivers, and cloud storage devices) coexist in the local network where the IP cameras 11 are installed. In that case, data packets of different types tend to share the same network and end up mixed together, occupying a considerable portion of the bandwidth of the local network. Furthermore, these packets are not classified by transmission speed, so delayed transmission, or even loss, of important image packets takes place frequently. As a result, stored image frames get missing, and low replay quality ensues. This partly explains why, despite the prevalence of surveillance systems nowadays, businesses are still subject to irreparable losses attributable to the absence of critical surveillance images.
The issue to be addressed by the present invention is to improve the conventional network surveillance system 1 so that the onerous setting process can be dispensed with, allowing a user with basic network knowledge to complete all the complicated settings rapidly with the assistance of system automation, without having to perform an optimization operation or other command-based operations manually.

Method for identifying IP camera and enhancing transmission quality by packet transmission based on ONVIF specifications


The present disclosure relates to a grating and a method for manufacturing the same, a method for driving a grating, and a naked eye three-dimensional display system. The grating includes a simplest grating and a driving signal line, the simplest grating is composed of a plurality of grating units arranged in sequence, the driving signal lines are connected to the grating units, and the driving signal line is configured to transmit a driving signal to each one of the plurality of grating units according to different resolutions so as to drive each grating unit to present a light penetration state or a light blocking state such that a grating constant corresponding to the resolution is obtained by the simplest grating.

In the current three-dimensional display technology, in addition to requiring user to wear a pair of three-dimensional glasses to obtain a three-dimensional display effect, it is possible to obtain a naked eye three-dimensional display effect by adding a structure such as a grating for a naked eye three-dimensional display, in the display screen.

Grating and method for manufacturing the same, method for driving a grating, naked eye three-dimensional display system

BEIJING BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


Provided is a time series data device with which, when a process is changed, results of both a new and an old process are not outputted to the outside being mixed, and the results of the old process before and after the process is changed can be outputted to the outside. The device is equipped with: a first processing unit that executes a first process and outputs first results data; a second processing unit that executes a second process and outputs second results data; and a control unit that, when an instruction to change a process is received, determines whether the first process can be stopped, and generates first and second results data sets by appending identification information corresponding to process contents to the respective first and second results data.

First, "data processing concerning the time series data" will be explained. In this description, "data processing concerning the time series data" means a process that is carried out for time series input data, that is, a series of data inputted one after another. Results data of the data processing concerning the time series data is also outputted one after another similarly. "To be inputted one after another" means that a plurality of data arrives at a processing device at different timing over a period of time respectively. As an example of the data processing concerning the time series data, such as a process that calculates a sum of two nearest values of the time series data can be mentioned. Hereinafter, the data processing concerning the time series data is simply called as "time series data processing".
In the following explanation, an array of data is represented as [1, 2, 3, 4], a set (collection of elements) of data is represented as {1, 2, 3, 4}, and a set of data is represented as <10 degrees, January 1> by distinguishing them with different kinds of parentheses. Also, individual values of data such as 1 and 2 are transcribed as "1" and "2" and are distinguished from codes that show components.
Also, a period of a clock used for operation of a time series data processing device is called "a cycle", and it is used as a unit of a period of time. "Start time of cycle" means the first point of time of the period of time and "end time of cycle" means the last point of time of the period of time. For example, in case a frequency of a clock is 1 GHz, concerning a certain reference time, the first cycle means a period of time between the reference time plus zero second and the reference time plus 1 nanosecond, and the N-th cycle means a period of time between the reference time plus (N−1) nanoseconds and the reference time plus N nanoseconds. Start time of the M-th cycle means the reference time plus (M−1) nanoseconds, and end time of the M-th cycle means the reference time plus M nanoseconds.
Here, input data is a set consisting of no smaller than one value. As an example, a set of temperature and date, a set of temperatures only and a set of brand name, stock price and time can be mentioned. For example, a set of temperature and date is represented as <10 degrees, January 1>. In case there is no concern that they are confused, input data and a value handled by a device are simply called "data".
Time series data processing is often carried out to a plurality of input data. Further, the time series data processing is often carried out to a window of time series data. "Window" is a set (collection of elements) of input data, and there are two kinds. One is, supposing that a predefined number is N (N is an integer of no smaller than 1), a set (collection of elements) of input data of nearest N pieces. The other is, supposing that a period of time at a certain predefined time is P and regarding one element of a set of input data as time, the set (collection of elements) of input data that fits into the period of time.
For example, it is supposed that input data is a set of temperature and date, and that time series data such as <10 degrees, January 1>, <11 degrees, January 2>, <10 degrees, January 3> and <10 degrees, January 4> are given. The window that fits into a period of time from January 4 to the last 3 days is {<11 degrees, January 2>, <10 degrees, January 3> and <10 degrees, January 4>}.
Also, a set (collection of elements), a subset (collection of elements) and an element of input data in a window are called "window data". In the time series data processing, this window data is often stored. In the following explanation, the window or the window data is represented as an array or a set (collection of elements).
It is supposed that time series data processing is executed using an IC (Integrated Circuit) chip that has in plural an area (hereinafter, referred to as "a partition") that can define contents of a process and specifically, an area in which circuit information and so on for configuring a circuit that executes the process can be written. As an example of such an IC chip, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be mentioned. Or, it is possible to execute the time series data processing by using, as an IC chip, a processor that reads a program from a memory and executes it. In this case, process content, that is, a program that designates a procedure of the process may be written in the memory.
In time series data processing, there exist needs that want to change the first user defined process (referred to as "an old process") to the second user defined process (referred to as "a new process"). That is, the first user defined process (referred to as "an old process") is executed in the first partition on the IC chip. And at the time the first user defined process is in execution, by writing circuit information that executes the second user defined process (referred to as "a new process") in the second partition, the new process is executed and the old process is stopped. There exist needs to want to change the old process to the new process in this way.
As an example, consider an application that makes values of temperature sensors positioned distributed in a wide area as input data, calculates an average over a certain period of time, and detects an emergency situation including a fire. When temperature change has become intense, in order to raise speed that follows the temperature change, there exist needs to reduce a length of the target period of time to calculate the average of the temperature.
Also, consider an application that calculates an index to decide timing to purchase or sell financial products such as a stock. Depending on a brand of financial products to be purchased or sold and a strategy to purchase or sell, there exists a plurality of indices that is necessary, and sets (collection of elements) of the indices that should be outputted are different. A certain device can calculate only a finite number of indices simultaneously. Depending on time, the brand to be purchased or sold and the strategy change. Therefore, there exist needs to want to change the indices to be calculated depending on the brand to be purchased or sold at that time and on the strategy.
An example of change of processes in the background art will be explained using FIG. 32. In this example, an old process that calculates a sum of nearest two values is changed to a new process that calculates a sum of nearest three values.
Also, it is supposed that data is inputted every 1 cycle, and explanation will be made by using time with 1 cycle as a unit.
At start time of the first cycle, time series data 1 is inputted and the old process stores the value as a window data.
At start time of the second cycle, time series data 2 is inputted and the old process stores the value as the window data. Also, since the old process obtained nearest two values, "3" is outputted as a results data.
At start time of the third cycle, an instruction to change is issued to the new process. Also, it is supposed that information to execute the new process is written in a device, and operation has started. For example, it is supposed that circuit information to execute the new process is written in a certain area of an FPGA. Here, it is supposed that the circuit information to execute the new process is written separately from the circuit information to execute the old process, and the old process and the new process operate in parallel for a while.
At start time of the third cycle, time series data "3" is inputted and the new process stores the value as the window data.
At start time of the fourth cycle, time series data "4" is inputted and the new process stores the value as the window data.
At start time of the fifth cycle, time series data "5" is inputted and the new process stores the value as the window data. Also, since the new process obtained nearest three values, "12" is outputted as the results data.
Here, the old process is stopped or deleted, and change of the processes is completed.
Here, at the time of change of the processes, (1) it is desired that, while both the results of the new process and the old process are not outputted to device exterior being mixed, both the processes are carried out. (2) Further, there exist needs that both the processes are carried out while, among the results of the old process before and after the process is changed, those that are still useful and available are outputted to device exterior.
As an example, consider the application mentioned above that calculates an average of the values of the temperature sensor over a certain period of time and detects an emergency situation including a fire. At this time, when temperature change has become intense, in order to raise speed that follows the temperature change, it is desirable to change a width of the period of time to calculate the average of the temperature. Also, in order that the results of the old process and the new process are not confused, it is also necessary to change the processes so that both of the results may not be outputted to device exterior being mixed. Further, since also the result of the old process is still useful and available, it is desirable to receive the result of the old process from as many devices as possible until the result of the new process is outputted to device exterior. Needs as described above exist.
As another example, consider the application that carries out orders to purchase or sell financial products. Since it is desired to change a brand to be purchased or sold, it is necessary to change the process of instruction to purchase or sell. The brand before change is called "an old brand", and the brand after change is called "a new brand". Also, when instructions related to the new and the old brand are mixed before and after the processes are changed, there is a concern that purchasing or selling may be mistaken. Therefore, it is necessary that the processes are changed while the results of both the new and the old process may not be outputted to device exterior being mixed. Also, since instructions to purchase or sell may be carried out to the old brand until the last timing, it is desirable to receive the result of the old process from as many devices as possible until the result of the new process is outputted to device exterior. Needs as described above exists.
Further, in this application, there exist needs, in the course to change the processes, to stop the old process after a safe state is reached. For example, there is a case that, when an order to sell is issued, the instruction of the old process is made to be issued until an order to purchase is issued, and after that, only the instruction of the new process will be issued. That is, there exist needs that: (1) since a sequence of results that is outputted from the old process that is not in a state that can be stopped is useful and available, it is outputted to device exterior, and (2) after that, a sequence of results that is outputted from the old process that becomes to a state that can be stopped is replaced by a sequence of results outputted from the new process and is outputted to device exterior.
Technologies related to the processes as above are described in PTL 1-4 and NPL 1.
A system using a re-configurable device is disclosed in PTL 1.
A time series data compression device that carries out two kinds of processes is disclosed in PTL 2.
In PTL 3 and 4, a processing device that handles information to which a version number (an update version number) is appended is disclosed.
In NPL 1, a time series data processing device in which two kinds of processes, that is, an old process and a new process, is disclosed. In NPL 1, although implementation by software is assumed, for convenience sake, implementation by hardware is assumed and its block diagram is shown in FIG. 33.
The technology of NPL 1 is equipped with a processing unit 501 that carries out a user defined process corresponding to an old process and a user defined process corresponding to a new process; and a merging unit 511 that connects a result of the processing unit to an output port to the outside.
The technology of NPL 1 operates, roughly divided, in two kinds of methods. The operation by the first method is explained using FIG. 34 to FIG. 38.
In this example, the old process that calculates a sum of nearest two values is changed to the new process that calculates a sum of nearest three values. It is supposed that both the new and the old process generate the results in the same cycle as data is inputted. Also, it is supposed that the results of the processes reach the merging unit 511 from the processing unit 501 in 1 cycle. Also, it is supposed that the results of the processes reach device exterior from the merging unit 511 in 1 cycle. Also, it is supposed that the data is inputted every 1 cycle, and explanation will be made by using time with 1 cycle as a unit.
It is supposed that time series data "1" is inputted at start time of the first cycle and time series data "2" is inputted at start time of the second cycle. Since the old process obtained [1, 2] that are nearest two values, the processing unit 501 calculates and outputs the result "3". At end time of the second cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 34.
It is supposed that time series data 3 is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the third cycle. The old process outputs the result "5". At the same time, it is supposed that the contents of the new process is defined and starts execution. Definition of the contents of the new process is, in case the device that realizes the process is an FPGA, carried out, for example, by a partial reconfiguration function. The new process stores the time series data "3". The result of the old process "3" is outputted to device exterior. At end time of the third cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 35.
It is supposed that time series data "4" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the fourth cycle. The old process outputs the result "7". The new process stores the time series data "4". The result of the old process "5" is outputted to device exterior. At end time of the fourth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 36.
It is supposed that time series data "5" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the fifth cycle. The old process outputs the result "9". Since the new process obtained [3, 4, 5] that are nearest three values, the result "12" that is a sum of the three values is outputted. The result of the old process "7" is outputted to device exterior. At end time of the fifth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 37.
It is supposed that time series data "6" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the sixth cycle. The old process outputs the result "11". The new process outputs the result "15". The result of the old process "9" and the result of the new process "12" are outputted to device exterior. At end time of the sixth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 38. Thus, according to the first method of NPL 1, the results of both the new and the old process are outputted to device exterior being mixed.
Next, the operation by the second method of NPL 1 will be explained using FIG. 39 to FIG. 43.
Also, the old process that calculates a sum of nearest two values is changed to the new process that obtains a sum of nearest three values here. It is supposed that both the new and the old process output results in the same cycle as data is inputted. Also, it is supposed that the results of the processes reach the merging unit from the processing unit in 1 cycle. Also, it is supposed that the result of the process reaches device exterior from the merging unit in 1 cycle. Also, it is supposed that the data is inputted every 1 cycle, and explanation will be made by using time with 1 cycle as a unit.
It is supposed that time series data "1" is inputted at stat time of the first cycle. It is supposed that time series data "2" is inputted at start time of the second cycle. Since the old process obtained [1, 2] that are nearest two values, the processing unit 501 calculates and outputs the result "3". At end time of the second cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 39.
It is supposed that time series data "3" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the third cycle. At the same time, it is supposed that information to execute the new process is written and execution is started. According to the second method, the old process is stopped at this timing. The new process stores the time series data "3". At end time of the third cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 40.
It is supposed that time series data "4" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the fourth cycle. The new process stores the time series data "4". At end time of the fourth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 41. Thus, according to the second method, the result is not outputted to device exterior at this timing. In contrast, according to the first method, as shown in FIG. 36, the result is outputted.
It is supposed that time series data "5" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the fifth cycle. Since the new process obtained [3, 4, 5] that are nearest three values, the result "12" is outputted. At end time of the fifth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 42. Thus, according to the second method, the result is not outputted to device exterior at this timing either. In contrast, according to the first method, as shown in FIG. 37, the result is outputted.
It is supposed that time series data "6" is inputted to the new and the old process at start time of the sixth cycle. The new process outputs the result "15". At end time of the sixth cycle, each unit will be in the state as in FIG. 43.
As mentioned above, according to the second method of NPL 1, the results of both the new and the old process are not outputted to device exterior being mixed.

Time series data device, time series data processing method and time series data processing program storage medium


A vehicle tailgate is made of a plastic material and includes: an inner panel, an outer panel and a first glue bead applied between the inner panel and the outer panel, such that the inner panel and the outer panel are assembled via the glue bead and an inner space is disposed between the inner panel and the outer panel. The outer panel includes: a skin with an appearance surface; a housing configured to receive an optical unit, delimited by a peripheral wall joined to the skin; and a cavity delimited by the skin, at least a portion of the peripheral wall of the housing, and walls projecting from the housing towards an inner face of the skin. At least one of the walls projecting from the housing towards the inner face of the skin does not touch the inner face of the skin, such that there is a gap between the at least one wall and the inner face of the skin. The gap is sealed by a second glue bead.

The vehicle tailgates made of a plastic material usually comprise inner panels forming structural parts and outer panels forming visible skins. Sometimes, the vehicle tailgates also comprise optical units arranged on the two left and right ends of a tailgate, called rear lights.
The appearance of the tailgates varies depending on different vehicle styles. Consequently, the appearance of the rear lights integrated in the tailgates also varies considerably. Thus, housings are provided on the tailgates for receiving the optical units; the shape of these housings must be designed at least to be able to act as interface for integration and fixation of the optical units; in addition, it must match the style of the tailgates.
Apart from the requirements in terms of aesthetic quality, there are important constraints for tightness (in particular water-tightness) inside the tailgates, because the inner space of the tailgates comprises electrical equipment. Consequently, it is known to ensure the water-tightness of the tailgates by using a glue bead which allows to assemble an inner panel with an outer panel and forms a continuous sealing path on the entire perimeter, and in particular at the housings of the rear lights. This glue bead generally consists of a glue applied on the inner face of the outer panel. Due to the vehicle mass production requirements, the glue bead is usually applied by a robot. The assembling by gluing requires that the direction in which the inner and outer panels are brought must be compatible with the general three-dimensional shapes of the tailgates and the gluing path, so as to avoid any interference for example due to shapes related to undercut. In addition, it is desirable to be able to apply the glue bead everywhere, even on highly complex shapes, while facilitating the access of the glue applicator moved by the robot. To ensure the continuity of the path imposed by these tightness constraints, it is known to add additional walls called "bridge" on some areas of the tailgate, to improve the continuity of the gluing path. One solution consists in using bridges attached to the outer panels, for example refer to the application WO2009056775 filed in the name of the present applicant. Another solution consists in obtaining these bridges directly by moulding, during the injection of the outer panels, refer for example to the patent CN205573572U filed in the name of the present applicant. According to this patent, additional walls forming a bridge are added to walls forming angles of about 90° or less than 90° which surround the housings of rear light and which are on the inner face of the outer panel.
However, the solution which consists in adding additional walls forming a bridge on an outer panel is highly complex and is not favourable from a financial and industrial point of view. The other solution which consists in moulding bridge walls with an outer panel does not have the same problem, but this solution is quite likely to create appearance defects on the visible face of the outer panel. These appearance defects due to injection moulding may include for example sink marks or flow lines and be located at the junction of the bridge walls with the inner face of the outer panel. Consequently, this has a negative effect on the perceived quality of the vehicle. In the field of plastic moulding, visual defects are a well-known problem. To reduce these visual defects, one known solution consists, depending on the technical design possibilities and in particular the vehicle style shapes, in positioning the junction of the bridge walls on the outer panel opposite or near style lines or edges of the vehicle, so that the visual defects caused by the junction are less visible. It is also possible to reduce the thickness of the bridge wall locally near the junction of the bridge walls with the inner face of the outer panel.
Nevertheless, these known solutions do not completely eliminate the visual defects. Since the visual defects are due to the junction between the bridge walls and an inner face of an outer panel, it is known to take advantage of the movement of a movable slider in a mould in order to eliminate this junction, in other words to make sure that the bridge walls do not come into contact locally with the inner face of the outer panel. The movement of the movable slider is useful to demould cavities formed during moulding the outer panels. However, the lack of contact between the bridge walls and the inner face of the outer panel generates a discontinuity of the gluing path and therefore of the tightness between the inner panel and the outer panel of the tailgate: one must therefore proceed differently.


System and method for monitoring emissions from a cell phone in a vehicle having a driver side and a passenger side. A first directional antennas is aimed toward the passenger side, a second directional antennas is aimed toward a location in which a head of a driver would be situated when a driver is situated on the driver side, and a third directional antenna is aimed toward a location below the location at which the second antennas is aimed on the driver side. A receiver is associated with each antenna and includes at least one amplifier and a rectifier module that converting radio frequency signals to direct current signals. A microprocessor processes the direct current signals received and determines based thereon which antenna provides a strongest signal, which can be correlated to a most likely location of a cell phone being used by an occupant in the vehicle.

Thirty-one US states have enacted laws that ban texting during motion of a vehicle and nine states have enacted laws that ban the use of cell phones during motion of a vehicle and other similar telecommunications devices (collectively referred to herein as cell phones), completely causing automakers to try to develop a user interface solution that will bring drivers the information they want and allow some form of cell phone usage during motion of a vehicle. Until automakers create such a user interface, a need exists for apparatus and methods for determining whether a driver of a vehicle is violating these laws and if so, to take an action such as issuing a warning to the driver and/or others.
In this regard, Korean Patent Publication No. KR100251143(B1) describes a safety driving device to automatically decelerate a vehicle while a driver is talking over a cellular phone and to operate an alarm lamp and a buzzer to warn the driver.

Intelligent Technologies International, Inc.


Method, software, and system for efficiently enabling n-way collaborative work using common software over a network of computers. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, each participant in a collaborative session starts up a common software application, which includes a collaboration component. This collaboration component is used to establish a common session that includes all interested parties. The collaboration component replicates operations performed on any one instance of said application to all other instances participating in the same session, so the effect is as if all members of the session were sharing a single instance of the application on a single computer. In one aspect, the collaboration component also supports broadcast of audio and video over a computer network, to enable session participants to see and/or hear each other, and further includes other features that support collaborative work.

Collaborative work over the Internet, as an alternative to actual face-to-face meetings, has been growing in popularity. Discussions and lectures can be held while individual participants are in geographically distant locations.
A major requirement for efficient collaborative work of this kind is the ability to view a common document—whether a text document, overheads for a lecture, or a multimedia presentation. This preferably includes the ability to allow all participants to examine the document, the ability to direct everyone's attention to a specific item or page of the document, and the ability to add annotations that are visible (and perhaps modifiable) by all participants in the meeting. Further distinctions are possible: (i) one can distinguish between "synchronous collaboration" and "asynchronous collaboration"; and (ii) one can distinguish between "one-way collaboration" and "n-way" collaboration. In "synchronous collaboration," all collaboration activities occur online, and participants interact in real-time. In "asynchronous collaboration," collaboration activities can occur at different times for each participant. In "one-way collaboration," only one of the participants can manipulate the shared document—the others are just "along for the ride" (i.e., able only to view). In "n-way collaboration," any of the participants can perform operations that are then visible also to all fellow participants.
Two approaches are commonly used to provide these abilities. The first approach is to use a universal document representation scheme and install on the workstations of all participants an application able to manipulate documents. In some cases, the application has been enhanced to support collaborative work. This is the more common approach. HTML is typically chosen as the representation scheme, and a web browser (e.g., Netscape or Internet Explorer) is the common application. But such a scheme has disadvantages: web browsers do not "abstract away" from workstation-specific issues, such as screen size and resolution. As a result, products may be unable, for example, to place a highlighter in the same spot in the document as viewed by all participants in a session, causing obvious confusion.
The other common approach—known as "application sharing"—assumes that there is not one application common to all participants. To solve that problem, a single workstation is chosen to run the application needed to manipulate the document. The user at that workstation manipulates the document directly. Each of the other users is presented with a dynamically-updated snapshot of the screen window displayed by the application on the workstation. The remote users are able to manipulate the joint document through the replication of low-level events (such as mouse motion and keyboard operation) from the remote user's computers (where the snapshot is shown) to the workstation (where the application actually runs). There are at least two shortcomings to this approach: (a) it can be expensive, in terms of bandwidth required to replicate the snapshot across all remote computers; and (b) it can create a substantial security risk, since the technology used to replicate low-level events can be used to give a remote user control over the workstation where the application runs.
There is thus a need for an approach that provides the better features associated with each of the above approaches, without their corresponding drawbacks.
Another requirement for efficient collaboration is the ability to audibly and/or visually interact with other participants in a session. Many of the collaborative applications presently available rely on a teleconference over regular telephone lines to provide this component of the meeting experience. Such an approach can be quite cumbersome, since it may require that the participants manage computers as well as telephones. Often only voices, and not visual images, are distributed. Some collaborative applications provide for the delivery of audio and video information over the same computer network used for the collaborative work. This leads to a much more "real" experience for the participants.
However, there remains a need for a solution that provides for scalable delivery of audio/video information, capable of adapting the a/v streams to the bandwidth available to each participant.

Method and software for enabling N-way collaborative work over a network of computers


A nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus which does not cause any unnecessary mental disturbances in the object, and which is capable of taking images with patient's postures other than lying flat. The apparatus includes a main magnet having two separated poles arranged in parallel for generating a static magnetic field in an open space between the two poles; and a carrier for carrying an object to be examined into the static magnetic field, capable of supporting the object at arbitrary angles with respect to a floor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus for taking arbitrary tomographic images of an object to be examined by utilizing a nuclear magnetic resonance phenomena.
2. Description of the Background Art
As is well known, a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus obtains arbitrary tomographic images of an object to be examined by detecting nuclear magnetic resonance signals induced by applying high-frequency excitation magnetic field (referred hereafter as RF-pulse) on the object placed in a static magnetic field, under a presence of gradient magnetic fields, and then analyzing the detected nuclear magnetic resonance signals to derive information on distributions of densities of particular nuclei and longitudinal and transverse relaxation times, from which arbitrary tomographic images are constructed by methods of image reconstruction processing.
A typical conventional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus is shown in FIG. 1. In this nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, a patient 101 is placed on a bed 102 extending into a bore 104 of a main magnet 103 in which a static magnetic field is generated by the main magnet 103. This main magnet 103 can be any one of a superconductive magnet, a normal temperature electromagnet, and a permanent magnet. Except when the main magnet 103 is a permanent magnet, this main magnet is magnetized and de-magnetized by a main magnet power source 105 through a lead cable 106. When the main magnet 103 is a superconductive magnet, this lead cable 106 will be removed after the magnetization in order to minimize consumption of liquid helium coolant, which is possible because the superconductive magnet can operate in a permanent current mode once magnetized.
The bore 104 is further inside equipped with a transceiver coil 107 for producing Rf-pulses and receiving nuclear magnetic resonance signals, a shim coil 108 for fine-adjustment for magnetic fields inside the bore 104, and a gradient coil 109 for producing gradient magnetic fields. The transceiver coil 107 comprises a transmitter coil and a receiver coil which are connected to a nuclear magnetic resonance signal receiving unit 110 and an RF-pulse producing unit 111, respectively. The gradient coil 109 comprises an X-coil, Y-coil, and Z-coil which are connected to X-power source 112, y-power source 113, and z-power source 114, respectively. All of the nuclear magnetic resonance signal receiving unit 110, RF-pulse producing unit 111, X-power source 112, Y-power source 113, and Z-power source 114 are controlled by a central processing unit 115 which also carries out all the analysis of the detected nuclear magnetic resonance signals. This central processing unit 115 is also connected to a display and operation unit 116 at which the obtained tomographic images are displayed and from which it is operated.
In such a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, a imaging takes place in an uniform magnetic field region 200. In order to obtain a tomographic image for a complete slice of the patient 101, it is necessary for this uniform magnetic field region 200 to be a sphere wtih a diameter of 40 to 50 cm and less than 50 ppm field fluctuation. To meet such requirements, the main magnet 103 becomes as large as 2.4 m in length, 2 m in width, 2.4 m in height, and 5 to 6 tons in weight, when the main magnet 103 is a superconductive magnet. Moreover, since the main magnet 103 alone can produce a sphere of 40 to 50 cm diameter with only about few hundreds ppm field fluctuation at best, the additional use of the shim coil 108 is indispensable in achieving the required less than 50 ppm field fluctuation.
As briefly mentioned above, the imaging is carried out by detecting with the transceiver coil 107. The nuclear magnetic resonance signals are induced from a portion of the patient 101 placed within the uniform magnetic field region 200 by applying RF-pulses from the transceiver coil 107 along with the gradient magnetic fields from the gradient coil 109, which is under the control by the central processing unit 115. The central processing unit 115 then analyze the detected nuclear magnetic resonance signals to derive information on distributions of densities of particular nuclei and longitudinal and transverse relaxation times, from which arbitrary tomographic images to be displayed at the display and operation unit 116 are contructed by methods of image reconstruction processing.
Such a conventional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus presents the following problems.
First, it is necessary, because of the configuration described above, to insert the patient 101 into a narrow bore 104, which in a practical medical circumstances causes an unnecessary mental disturbances in the patient 101.
Secondly, it is necessary, again because of the configuration described above, to lay the patient 101 flat on the bed 102. However, in a case of a patient suffering from spinal hernia caused by excessive pressure on spine and spinal chord in a standing posture for instance, it is actually preferred to have an image taken in a standing posture. However, imaging in such a posture other than lying flat is not possible in the conventional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus described above.

Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus for arbitrary patient posture


Methods, systems, apparatus and computer-readable media are disclosed for creating and using self describing events in automation. A first exemplary method is disclosed that includes querying a plurality of managed components, receiving a response, and processing each response to select event types as triggers for steps in an automated workflow using attributes of events as arguments to workflow steps. This method further discloses the monitoring, detection, and processing of events defined in the workflow. Processing of an event includes creating a machine readable data payload containing event information including the event type, event attributes, and a grammar to which the event conforms. Using the provided grammar, components in the automated workflow can interpret the data payload and perform the actions defined in the automated workflow. Other methods, apparatus, systems and computer readable media are disclosed for presenting event information.

Events are ubiquitous in the world of Infrastructure Management, described herein as including Enterprise Management, Security Management and Storage Management. Events typically have several attributes such as timestamp, severity, source, and action. One of the main attributes of an event is the Message attribute. As an example, a message could be the following: "E1005 Backup Job (JobID=5643) failed due on server." Textual messages are amenable to human consumption, allowing a human operator, for instance to visually inspect, sort, and filter events. However, events are also consumed by automation engines, referred to herein as "machine consumption." Machine consumption may include parsing the information inside the message attribute. As an example, in order to trigger an automated workflow process in response to a "backup job failed" event, the JobID parameter is extracted from the textual message. This extraction or parsing has the draw back of being subject to changes in the formatting of the message due to regular software updates or due to other circumstances. Each time the human readable text message format for the event is changed through updates to the system, the parsing routine must also be changed to allow the data to be extracted.
Simple Network Management Protocol ("SNMP") traps can be used to relay a condition or an event. However, it is problematic to determine if a network or storage component is capable of producing an event via SNMP, and if so, the categories and types of events produced. This limitation, combined with a lack of machine-readable event data, makes it difficult to employ SNMP in storage management automation. Products such as Unicenter, developed by Computer Associates ("CA"), the assignee of the present application, provide capabilities to receive events from remote agents. However, in many instances the event management component has no way of establishing the possible events that can be received, making it difficult to create automated management workflows and practices.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method to generate and use events suitable for machine consumption to facilitate automated workflow management.

System and method for creating and using self describing events in automation


A DC-AC converter for igniting and supplying a gas discharge lamp comprises a converter control circuit including a starter circuit containing first, second and third switching elements; a load circuit including at least one gas discharge lamp; and an igniting circuit including a fourth switching element, wherein the converter control circuit controls a current through the lamp via a current sensor resistor during a pre-heating stage; the igniting circuit disenables the third switching element and thereby isolates the converter control circuit during an igniting stage; and the converter control circuit controls the current through the lamp via the current sensor resistor during normal operation.

This invention relates to a DC-AC converter for igniting and supplying a gas discharge lamp, e.g. a fluorescent lamp, the converter having two input terminals intended to be connected to a d.c. voltage source, the input terminals being connected together in series by an arrangement of at least a first semiconductor switching element, a capacitor and a load circuit comprising at least an induction coil and the gas discharge lamp. The capacitor and load circuit are shunted by a second semiconductor switching element provided with a control circuit comprising at least a starter circuit and a resonant circuit. The resonant circuit includes the parallel arrangement of the transformer primary winding and a capacitor in one branch and the gas discharge lamp in the other branch.
A DC-AC converter of this type is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,838 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,383. The undimmed lamp situation is concerned in this case. In this known converter a transformer is present in the load circuit (in which the lamp is incorporated). This transformer has two secondary windings which form part of the control circuits of the semiconductor switching elements. The switching elements are rendered alternatively conducting and non-conducting by means of the transformer and the control circuits respectively. This known converter is designed for an electrodeless low-pressure gas discharge lamp.
However, a drawback of the known circuit is that in order to start a gas discharge lamp, e.g. a fluorescent lamp, a much higher voltage needs to be supplied to the lamp and hence the voltage across the resonant circuit which is incorporated in the series arrangement is much higher than the operating voltage. This results in a potential risk to the semiconductor switching elements. It has also been found that when the above mentioned arrangement is used for running multiple lamps with the same DC-AC converter a high current through one induction coil which is incorporated in the series arrangement with the resonant circuit and the lamps is needed to be able to supply enough power for the lamps. This is a drawback because such circuits cannot easily be used universally with lamps having different power ratings. The known circuit doesn't allow the current supplied to the lamp to be set to a predetermined value during operation of the lamp, this would offer a longer lamp life because the current through the lamp increases due to ageing, or in the case of a low pressure vapour discharge lamp, operation at a relatively hot location.

Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research


An appratus and method for manufacturing a pulley having a generally V-shaped groove therein is provided. The apparatus includes a press section and a molding section. The starting material for forming the pulley is a ring-shaped workpiece which is preferably composed of a bendable metal. The apparatus clamps the workpiece about a central annular portion thereof. Other parts of the apparatus bend upper and lower annular portions of the workpiece radially outwardly, thereby forming a V-shaped groove. The pulley is formed by a single thrusting motion of the press section. The bottom portion of the V-shaped groove has a uniform thickness which is not thinned by the action of the press.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for making a pulley which may be used to transmit dynamic power. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for making a pulley having a V-shaped groove in an outer surface thereof. Pulleys of this type are typically used with a belt having a trapezoidally-shaped cross section, for example as an electromagnetic clutch of a compressor in an automobile air conditioning system. The pulley made according to the method and apparatus of the present invention has an annular generally V-shaped groove in the outer surface thereof. The groove has a size and shape adapted to accommodate a transmission or other type of belt. The pulley is adapted to be attached, such as by welding, to a rotor or similar rotating device. Pulleys of this type will be referred to hereinafter as a "V-pulley".
2. Description of the Prior Art
Two alternative prior art methods for manufacturing V-pulleys are illustrated in FIGS. 1-4 and FIGS. 1, 5-7, respectively. In both of these prior art methods, a circular plate 10 is initially cut from a metal sheet 11 using a cutting punch 12 as shown in FIG. 1. Referring to the prior art method illustrated in FIGS. 1-4, the circular plate 10 is first formed into a cup 13a using a drawing die 14a. Cup 13a has a bottom portion 132a and a cylindrical portion 131a. Drawing with the drawing die 14a causes some thinning, primarily in the cylindrical portion 131a of cup 13a. Thus, the thickness t.sub.2 of cylindrical portion 131a is less than the original thickness t.sub.1 of plate 10. In a third manufacturing step, shown in FIG. 3, the cup 13a is further shaped by roller 16 which forms a generally V-shaped groove 153a in the cylindrical portion 131a. The V-shaped groove 153a comprises a bottom portion 152a and leg portions 151a. The action of the shaping roller 16 along the cylindrical portion 131a causes further thinning of the sheet material primarily in the vicinity of bottom portion 152a. Thus, the thickness t.sub.3 of portion 152a is less than thickness t.sub.2. In the final step of manufacturing, as shown in FIG. 4, a central portion of the V-pulley 15a is punched out by cutting punch 18. The V-pulley 15a is thus adapted to be mounted on a rotor or other type of rotatable shaft by extending the rotor or shaft into the punched out opening.
An alternate prior art manufacturing method is illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 5-7. In this method, the circular plate 10 is drawn with a drawing die 14b as shown in FIG. 5. Similar to the operation illustrated in FIG. 2, the drawing die 14b forms circular plate 10 into a cup 13b having a bottom portion 132b and a cylindrical portion 131b. However, the diameter of drawing die 14b is less than the diameter of drawing die 14a. Drawing with the smaller diameter die 14b causes a significant reduction in the thickness of the sheet material. Accordingly, the thickness t.sub.4 of cylindrical portion 131b is less than either the thickness t.sub.1 of the circular plate 10 or the thickness t.sub.2 of cylindrical portion 131a. As shown in FIG. 6, cup 13b is formed into a V-pulley 15b by the press 17. The press 17 forms a generally V-shaped groove 153b in the cylindrical portion 131b. The V-shaped groove 153b includes a bottom portion 152b and two leg portions 151b. In the last manufacturing step illustrated in FIG. 7, a central portion of the V-pulley 15b is cut using a cutting punch 18.
There are several disadvantages to the above-described prior art manufacturing methods. One disadvantage is the waste material 19 which remains after the initial cutting of the circular plate 10. This results in higher material costs.
Another disadvantage to the prior art manufacturing methods is that they require at least four separate manufacturing steps ((1) cutting, (2) drawing, (3) groove shaping and (4) punching) in order to form the V-pulley.
A still further disadvantage of the prior art manufacturing methods is the thinning of the sheet material in the vicinity of the bottom of the V-shaped groove. The bottom of the V-shaped groove must be able to withstand the tension of a belt wrapped around the pulley and carried within the V-shaped groove. Thinning of the bottom portion of the V-shaped groove leads to a reduction in the strength of the pulley which can lead in extreme cases to V-pulley failure.

Method and apparatus for manufacturing a pulley


Aspects of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for establishing an assistance output that takes into account client device latency information and sending the assistance output from the server to the client device. Client device information or the assistance output may include a stream of encrypted data packets.

With the increasing prevalence of digital streaming services and various cloud-based computing solutions, the ability to quickly and accurately transfer large amounts of data between remote devices is a critical task. Sending digital data to a destination system through shared resources of a network, such as the internet, a wide area network (WAN), or local area network (LAN), typically involves the arrangement of data into formatted blocks, known as packets, which may have fixed or variable length. Each data packet typically includes a payload, or body, which has the fundamental client data being delivered to the destination, as well as certain supplemental information used for routing and control purposes, which commonly contained at least partially within a header of the data packet. Broadly speaking, the network, sending systems, and receiving systems may use this supplemental information to ensure proper routing and delivery of the payload to the intended destination.
However, digital streaming services and cloud-based computing solutions may experience limitations in the quality and bandwidth of networks established or used during the transfer of data between remote devices when utilizing applications that are sensitive to latencies, such as video games. These limitations may lead to delays in the data transmission and can thus cause latency, which typically creates inconsistencies during the use of an application. While client devices will attempt to achieve the lowest latency through a variety of methods, inevitably, each client device will experience a different amount of latency due to differences in factors such as the decode speed of transmitted data, render rates, input polling, or even the client's network connection.
Additionally, an often unavoidable consequence of transporting data over a packet switched network is packet loss, which occurs when one or more data packets fail to properly reach their destination. Packet loss can arise due to a variety of factors, including channel congestion, signal degradation, and other reasons. In order to prevent certain network conditions which cause packet loss to occur, while also efficiently using the available bandwidth in a network channel, a variety of congestion control techniques have been developed. Moreover, there are a range of transport protocols which may incorporate tools to handle packet loss, and the particular method used to handle packet loss when it does occur depends on the particular transport protocol used during data transfer. Generally speaking, these transport protocols can be classified under two types, reliable protocols and unreliable protocols, which each present certain tradeoffs, and the particular choice of protocol used in any instance may depend on the nature of the data transfer.
Reliable protocols incorporate guarantees that each data packet is delivered to its destination in sequence, retransmitting dropped packets in the event of packet loss. Reliable protocols are often, but not always, connection-oriented protocols and delivery guarantees are typically accomplished by establishing a backchannel from the recipient back to the sender for a particular communication session, which the recipient may use to send some type of acknowledgement receipts to verify that packets were delivered properly. The sender may use these acknowledgments to guide the retransmission process when it is indicated that data packets failed to properly reach their destination. A prevalent and well-known example of a reliable protocol is Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which is also connection-oriented. Reliable protocols, such as TCP, are well suited to tasks where accurate transfer of data is a chief concern and some amount of delay can be tolerated in the interests of verifying data packets are delivered properly, such as sending text based emails, digital content downloads, and media streaming services in which audio/video can be buffered at the destination system. Unfortunately, the data verification properties and retransmission of data introduces a comparatively large overhead, rendering many reliable protocols undesirable for time-critical applications, including real-time data transfer, such as live audio and/or video streaming, online video gaming, and internet telephony.
Unreliable protocols, by contrast, generally forgo the type of data delivery verifications for particular packets as described above, and are generally characterized by the fact that they do not guarantee that each packet reaches its destination, nor do they ensure that the packets are delivered in the proper sequence. Unreliable protocols are often, but not always, connectionless, and typically do not establish a fixed channel during any particular communication session. Each data packet may instead be routed independently based on the supplemental information contained in each data packet. A prevalent and well-known example of an unreliable protocol is User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is also connectionless. Since unreliable protocols like UDP have comparatively reduced overhead by forgoing the reliability properties mentioned above, they are better suited for time sensitive applications where minimizing latency is a chief concern, such as the real-time applications mentioned above.
Importantly, network conditions often vary over time, causing the maximum bitrate available to a sender over a network channel to vary based on present load on the channel. When a sender system attempts to send data packets at a bitrate that exceeds the current available bandwidth of the channel, it can cause congested conditions which trigger severe packet loss in response. This might be tolerable in less time-sensitive applications involving reliable data transport such as TCP, since retransmission of the lost data is guaranteed; however, this may be unacceptable in many real-time applications and other applications involving unreliable transport, as the packet loss may be to such an extent that the recipient is unable to reconstruct the loss data, causing undesirable consequences such as dropout of the signal. On the other hand, when the maximum available bitrate instead far exceeds the bitrate offered by the sender, this is also undesirable, as the full transmission capabilities of the network channel are inefficiently utilized, and the quality of the signal at the recipient side may be unnecessarily poor as a result.
Unfortunately, it is a significant challenge to transfer data using an unreliable protocol in a way that efficiently utilizes the available bandwidth of a network channel without causing congested conditions that result in unacceptable packet loss. Traditional congestion control techniques are often only suitable for reliable protocols, such as TCP, which have feedback to the sender built in to the transport layer, but are ineffective for many unreliable protocols, such as UDP, which typically lack the needed feedback unless independently added over the transport layer by the client. Moreover, congestion control or congestion avoidance algorithms designed for TCP or other reliable protocols are generally not fast real-time streaming applications or and may be unsuitable for many data transfer applications involving unreliable protocols, as the exponential reduction in bitrate in response to congestion may cause the quality of a real-time signal to suffer too much as a result. Moreover, while packet loss resulting from increasing the bitrate to the point of congestion might be tolerable in less time-sensitive applications, which use TCP or other reliable protocols to retransmit the data, it may be unacceptable in many realtime applications due to a resulting inability of the recipient to reconstruct the data.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to find alternative means for reducing a client's unique latency constraints, which are also suitable for use with UDP and other unreliable transport protocols when the data being transferred is encrypted. It is within this context that aspects of the present disclosure arise.

Latency-dependent cloud input channel management


A multi-piece door assembly including a first door portion and a second door portion, which are removable to create a partially open-air experience or fully open-air experience. A pin pocket design is provided for selectively attaching the first door portion to a variety of different types of second door portions. A blow-out tab is provided to keep the multi-piece door assembly from blowing outwardly away from the vehicle with the increase of internal pressures at high speeds or crosswind situations.

A typical UTV lower half door assembly is known which requires a robust method of attaching an upper half door wire frame or composite cassette with sliding tempered or soft zip polyvinyl chloride (PVC) glass to complete the door enclosure. The enclosure needs to be robust enough to handle rollover protective structure(s) (ROPs) preload and internal pressure traveling at speeds of over 100 mph.
Typical vehicle doors are 1-piece and do not require the same fastening mechanism or design.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for a door design that is multi-piece with a robust design and quick attachment features as well as incorporating a mechanism to prevent the door from pulling away from the ROP of the vehicle.