An apparatus for a tracking device enclosure is disclosed. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus includes an enclosure that holds a motion tracking device to a shipping container. Further, the enclosure includes one or more first flaps that secure a first motion tracking device within the enclosure such that the first motion tracking device does not move in relation to the enclosure. The one or more first flaps secure the first motion tracking device based on a shape of the first motion tracking device. Also, the enclosure includes one or more second flaps that secure a second motion tracking device within the enclosure such that the second motion tracking device does not move in relation to the enclosure. The one or more second flaps secure the second motion tracking device based on a shape of the second motion tracking device.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to packaging and more particularly relates to packaging for tracking devices.
In the commerce of today, goods are shipped between different locations. Sometimes, when shipments arrive at the intended destination, the goods may arrive in a damaged condition. When shipments are damaged in transit, the parties to the shipment may desire to identify how and where the shipment was damaged. Accordingly, tracking devices may be used to monitor the movement of the shipment.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


Wireless audio headset systems and methods for automatically activating target application programs on an attached processor-based host are disclosed. The system generally includes a headset base to communicate with the host executing a headset integrator application, a wireless headset in wireless communication with the headset base and configured to transmit audio signals to and from the headset integrator application via the headset base, and a program activation mechanism provided by the wireless headset that, upon activation of the mechanism, activates a target application program on the processor-based host via the headset base and the headset integrator application.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless headsets for use with applications running on personal computers or other processor-based hosts. More specifically, wireless audio headset systems and methods for automatically launching a software program on an attached processor-based host are disclosed.
2. Description of Related Art
Audio headsets such as communication headsets are used in numerous applications. Communication headsets are particularly effective for telephone operators, customer service agents such as in call centers, radio operators, aircraft personnel, and/or any user who frequently use telephones or computer telephony applications and/or for whom it is desirable to have hands free operation of communication systems. Accordingly, a wide variety of communication headsets are available. For example, communication headsets may be adapted for use with corded and cordless conventional telephones, soft phones, cellular or mobile telephones, and the like.
The headset is typically in communication with a base unit, e.g., a base telephone, a computer (or other processor-based host), or a headset base which may in turn be in communication with the computer. The headset may be wired or wireless. A wireless headset provides added convenience and operability that is free of wires or cables. A wired headset may be connected to the base unit via a connector such as a Quick Disconnect™ (QD) connector so as to provide added convenience and operability. The QD connector may be a mechanical interconnect positioned between the headset and the base unit or between the headset and a telephone headset adapter connected to the base unit. The user may simply and quickly disconnect the headset at the QD connector rather than at the base unit so that the headset user does need not to remove the headset and, instead, can keep the headset on even when the user moves away from the base unit.

Wireless headset systems and methods for activating application programs on processor-based host


A new and distinct cultivar of Campsis plant named ‘HOCH128’ is disclosed, characterized by red flowers, and long internodes. Plants are vining produce new flowers and flower buds throughout Summer. The new variety is a Campsis, normally used for outdoor ornamental purposes.

The new Campsis cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, in Moshav Bitzaron, Israel. The objective of the breeding program was to develop new Campsis plants for ornamental purposes. The cross resulting in this new variety was made during September of 2012.
The seed parent is an unnamed, unpatented proprietary variety of Campsis tagliabuana. The pollen parent is a different unnamed, unpatented proprietary variety of Campsis tagliabuana. The new variety was selected in July of 2014 by the inventor in a group of seedlings resulting from the 2012 crossing, in a nursery in Moshav Bitzaron, Israel.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar was performed by grafted softwood cuttings. This was first performed at the same nursery in Moshav Bitzaron, Israel during January of 2015, and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in multiple successive generations.


A shift tower housing for a vehicle transmission that can receive either a push button selector or a lever selector at a comfortable and ergonomic location. The surfaces of both the push button and the lever selectors are at about 15% to the horizontal, which renders surface indicia on the selectors in a comfortable vision range for the operator. The inclined upper surfaces of the selectors also places lever and push buttons at comfortable ergonomic position for the operator. Replacing a single mounting part can make a conversion from a push button selector unit to a push button selector unit. The shift tower also includes mounting mechanism upon which a stand-alone electronic control unit is mounted, that is compatible with either the push button selector or the lever selector control. The vibrations of the shift tower are minimized as a result of mounting it directly to vehicle floor support member.

This invention relates generally to a control tower for a gear select transmission shifter and, more particularly, to a control tower that can be used for either a lever selector or a push button selector. The control tower of this invention has been developed for use with a transmission (part number HD-4560P) and gear selectors (part numbers AS07-113 & AS07-114) manufactured by Allison Transmissions, of XXXX. However, it could be used for other transmissions and gear selectors of comparable size and design. Either the lever selector (part number AS07-114) or the push button selector (part number AS07-114) can shift the same transmission, for example, part number HD-4560P manufactured by Allison Transmissions. In the past, Allison Transmissions offered a lever type gear selector with an integral electronic control unit and a push button type gear selector with an integral electronic control unit. Control towers to accommodate those combined units required additional mounting parts to receive one or the other selectors. Also, when the control tower was used for the push button selector, it was mounted such that it extended from the cab floor at an angle, which resulted in locating the selector at an uncomfortable position for the operator of the vehicle. The special mounting parts increased the complexity and cost of assembly as well as the number of repair parts that must be inventoried. Also, a defective selector unit required replacing the entire selector-electronic control unit combination, which increased considerably the cost of repairing a gear selector, as well as requiring very expensive units to be carried in the replacement parts inventory.

Automatic transmission shifter control tower


A light homogenization method for multi-source large-scale surface exposure 3D printing, comprising the following steps: projecting pure-color images of a first color and a second color having identical attributes capturing an image of an overlapping portion and calculating height and width information of the overlapping portion; splitting a pre-processed slice and respectively recording width and height information of two slices resulting from the splitting and generating two grayscale images having identical attributes thereto; counting power values of identical positions of slices in different grayscale values, performing a further calculation to obtain a projection mapping function, using the projection mapping function as a basis for performing optimization on grayscale interpolation of the generated images; and fusing the processed grayscale images and the originally split two slices to obtain a surface exposure 3D printing slice having a uniform brightness in final shaping.

3D printers were born in the mid 1980s, and were first invented by American scientists. A 3D printer is an apparatus that uses 3D printing technology to produce a device of the real object. The basic principle for 3D printing is using special materials (resin or powder, etc.) to manufacture real 3D models that are designed in computer, and by aggradation of the binder, each layer of printing material are bobbed to form the designed shape, and the 3D objects are finally printed out. The rapid prototype manufacturing technology is widely applied in the model manufacture in the stage of product development because of the fast manufacturing and low cost. 3D printing is a kind of rapid prototyping technology. It first transfers the objects into 3D data, and then uses the adhesive materials such as powdered metal, plastic and so on to print them layer by layer. The model manufacturing and industrial design are used to build models. They are now becoming product manufacturing and forming "Direct Digital Manufacturing." A variety of the rapid manufacturing technologies have been developed such as the Stereo Lithography Appearance (SLA), the Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM), the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), the Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP), and the Digital Light Procession (DLP) etc. However, in the current situation, the accuracy of FDM is poor, and it is necessary to continuously melt the material wire and wait for the material to cure, and the overall molding speed is slow. The SLA technology is limited by the optical characteristics of galvanometers. Generally, the galvanometer-type printing surface is less than 300 mm*300 mm. Area dynamic focusing system is required if the size of the printing area is more than 300 mm*300 mm. and it will greatly raise the cost. The principle of the galvanometer system determines that the larger the printing area, the longer the focal length, and the larger the spot, the more laser energy is wasted. The DLP technology is similar to a projector's principle, in which the most important component is the DMD chip. The biggest advantage of DLP is that it can be exposed layer by layer. Theoretically, it is very fast. However, if a larger printing area is required and the high power density of the curing light is required simultaneously, the light intensity must be greatly increased, but the DMD cannot withstand the high light intensity, and the heat dissipation of the system becomes a serious problem if the light intensity increases. Therefore, 3D printing based on DLP technology developed slowly in the direction of large printing area.
Because the energy radiated from each DLP projector is non-uniform light energy, using multiple projectors will inevitably cause uneven distribution of the illumination intensity on each projectors, and it will also affect the overlapped area on the printing area, and aggravate the non-uniformity of the energy.

Light homogenization method for multi-source large-scale surface exposure 3D printing


xe2x80x9cAn image processing system, in which bit shuffling is done in order to maintain image quality, stores digitized video data bits stream in a conventional memory, such as a DRAM. The image processing system is suitable for widely-used image compression standards that integrate various algorithms into a compression system, such as the standards specified in the Digital Video Standard (the DV-SD standard, or xe2x80x9cBlue Bookxe2x80x9d). The image processing system receives a number of blocks associated with a first video frame and stores these blocks in the DRAM. The image processing system receives and stores blocks associated with a second video frame in the DRAM. The image processing system, processes the blocks of the first video frame while storing the blocks of the second video fame.xe2x80x9d

The present invention relates to the field of image processing. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for storing a bitstream of digitized video data. Moreover, the present invention is capable of performing such storage using standard dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). This technique is especially suited to digital video applications, where such shuffling is done in order to maintain acceptable image quality. This implementation is suitable for widely-used image compression standards that integrate various algorithms into a compression system, such as the standards specified in the Digital Video Standard (the DV-SD standard, or xe2x80x9cBlue Bookxe2x80x9d), which is included herein by reference in its entirety.
The DV-SD digital video standard outlines the breakdown of a video frame into superblocks and further, into macroblocks (and yet further, into blocks). This is shown in FIGS. 1, 2, 3, and 4. The data is received on a frame-by-frame basis. This data is stored in a frame buffer memory. Compressed video data is transferred in a staggered order, in order to avoid picture degradation. This is done by processing and transmitting the compressed video data in an out-of-order sequence, sending superblock from varied locations in the picture. Thus, if noise is encountered, it appears at several different locations in the picture, rather than clumped together in one area. The former is much more difficult for the human eye to detect, and so picture quality is improved, from a subjective viewpoint.
To simplify the reading and writing of such data, a memory system would normally have enough storage to hold two (or more) frames, and write one while the other was being written. However, due to the size of the video frames and the storage schemes that may be employed, the data for a single video frame requires an odd amount of storage space. One possible solution is to use special purpose memory chips. Such chips would have the proper amount of storage space and addressing to allow whole video frames to be dealt with. Unfortunately, such a solution is expensive. Moreover, such a solution is likely incompatible with other such solutions.
Alternatively, enough standard memory (e.g., DRAM memory) could be used to store two (or more) frames. However, this would result in a large amount of wasted space. While this might be more economical than the use of specialized memories, it would nonetheless cost more than necessary.
What is therefore required is a technique which allows the use of standard memory (e.g., DRAM memory) that uses a minimal amount of-memory while providing the requisite processing throughput.
The present invention solves the problems associated with the prior art by providing methods and apparatus for efficiently and accurately compressing video data.
In one embodiment, a circuit is disclosed for processing audio and video data utilizing conventional DRAMs.

Method and apparatus for bit-shuffling video data


A multi-beam polling based transmission method and apparatus, and a communications device and an electronic device readable storage medium based on the method are disclosed. An access point AP broadcasts a beacon message, where the beacon message is used to indicate duration of a beacon period; and sends a data packet that includes channel use duration to a station STA, where the channel use duration is used to indicate a target slot at which the AP communicates with the STA within a duration range of the beacon period, so that the AP can communicate with the STA at the target slot.

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) based on an 802.11 protocol has been rapidly developed in recent years due to advantages such as a low device cost, a free frequency band, easy deployment, and the like.
Communication manufacturers hope to use a mature WLAN industry chain to transform the existing WLAN communications technology into one that can be used for outdoor long-distance transmission. The existing WLAN communications technology uses a contention transmission mechanism, whose transmission sequence is shown in FIG. 1. The work procedure is: Before sending data, a node first listens to a channel in a period of time (for example, distributed inter-frame space, "DIFS" shown in FIG. 1); if the channel is idle, the node transmits data; and if the channel is busy, the node performs random backoff and performs re-contention. The node includes time information (for example, a Duration field) of an occupied channel in the data, and other nodes start a timer to enter a waiting state, and re-contends for the channel after the timer stops. In addition, for a problem that a "hidden terminal" is introduced into the contention transmission mechanism in the 802.11 protocol, refer to FIG. 2. To be specific, a station (Station, "STA") STA 1 and a station STA 2 cannot sense each other and are "hidden terminals" for each other. Because of the existence of the "hidden terminal", the two do not know the existence of the other and a collision occurs when the two transmit data to an access point (AP) simultaneously, resulting in decreasing air interface utilization.
When the WLAN is used for outdoor long-distance transmission, a narrow beam high-gain antenna is required to be used to increase a working distance. The narrow beam antenna refers to an antenna with a small beam width of a radiation pattern. The difference between the high-gain antenna and an ordinary antenna lies in that the high-gain antenna has a higher again, and the distance may be longer, but a lobe width is sacrificed; while the ordinary antenna has a lower gain, the distance is shorter, but the lobe width, that is, a coverage range is larger. However, when the contention access mechanism is applied to the narrow beam high-gain antenna, the following problems may exist. (1) If omnidirectional listening is used, that is, the AP listens to every STA, an antenna gain is reduced, a system gain is lost, and a transmission distance is decreased. Moreover, because a narrow beam is used during normal communication, for an outdoor long-distance transmission scenario, there is usually a relatively long distance between the STA 1 and the STA 2, and the two cannot sense each other and are "hidden terminals" for each other. As a quantity of hidden terminals increases, network performance will seriously degrade. (2) If directional listening is used, because of not knowing when the STA 1 and the STA 2 need to transmit data, the AP cannot synchronize with the two (that is, the AP does not know when to align the narrow beam to directions of the STA 1 and the STA 2), resulting in a decrease in capacity and low transmission efficiency.

Multi-beam polling based transmission method and communications device


Biomass combustion processes may be controlled to intentionally generate a carbon-containing ash, from which activated carbon is produced according to the methods disclosed. Some variations provide an economically attractive process for producing an activated carbon product, the process comprising combusting a carbon-containing feedstock to generate energy, combustion products, and ash, wherein the ash contains at least 10 wt % carbon; separating and recovering carbon contained in said ash; and further activating or treating the separated carbon, to generate an activated carbon product. Many process variations are disclosed, and uses for the activated carbon product are disclosed.

Activated carbon is a commonly used form of carbon and has traditionally been produced from fossil fuel. More recent developments have examined processes for producing activated carbon from renewable resources, such as biomass. Generally, best practices for combusting carbonaceous materials, e.g., for production of energy, include maximizing combustion (energy output) while minimizing residual waste, such as ash. Products for acid gas (e.g., H2S) control are typically produced by combusting carbon-containing feedstock, followed by incorporation of one or more metal species such as calcium, potassium and/or magnesium by way of an additive.

Methods and apparatus for producing activated carbon from biomass through carbonized ash intermediates


A system for conducting a lottery draw, the system including: (a) a database of pre-recorded video files of one or more humans, (b) a lottery number drawing means for randomly selecting one or more lottery numbers to determine one or more winning numbers for a game draw, and (c) display means for displaying one or more of the video files from the database based upon either (1) a predetermined characteristic of the game draw or (2) a number which is selected by the drawing means.

Traditional public lottery drawings, including but not limited to those operated by governmental agencies to generate revenue, have been conducted traditionally using a device which enables a substantially random selection of lottery numbers and a display of the numbers selected. The display of the numbers selected has typically involved a video display of the numbers themselves in a more or less clerical or sterile fashion to determine and announce the winning number(s). While systems have been devised to automate or to make "virtual" the lottery number drawing process to a certain extent and to televise graphical representations of the lottery numbers drawn, a need still exists for a way to engage the public in the lottery process to increase the public's awareness, interest and participation in the drawings.


A curtain airbag device and a guide unit allow for quick deployment of a curtain airbag by smoothly guiding a link strap that connects a curtain airbag and a guide element into the space between a side edge of a pillar garnish and a vehicle member at the early stage of the deployment of the curtain airbag. When an inflator is activated, a curtain airbag is deployed downward along the cabin-side of a pillar garnish. During the deployment, the rear portion of the curtain airbag is guided by a guide rod via a link strap. The link strap starts moving downward along the guide rod when the curtain airbag begins to be deployed. At this moment the link strap is guided into the space between the pillar garnish and a weather strip by a guide member.

The present invention relates generally to guide units for guiding curtain airbags that are deployed along inner side surfaces of vehicle cabins. In particular, it relates to guide units provided with link straps protruding from the curtain airbags and guide elements for guiding the link straps. The present invention also relates to curtain airbag devices provided with the guide units,
In a vehicle provided with a curtain airbag device, when the vehicle is involved in, for example, a side-on collision or rollover, the curtain airbags are deployed downward along inner side surfaces (for example, doors and pillars) of the vehicle cabin so as to protect the head of each vehicle occupant and to keep each vehicle occupant inside the vehicle cabin.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,938 (incorporated by reference herein in its entirety) discloses an example in which guide elements are disposed along C pillars, Specifically, such guide elements are for guiding rear portions of curtain airbags, which are inflatable along the inner side surfaces of a vehicle cabin, downward along the pillars.
Moreover, such guide elements each include a track member having a box-shaped cross-section and a slider element that is disposed within the track member and is movable in the longitudinal direction of the track member. The rear portion of each curtain airbag is fixed to the slider element. In order to prevent the rear portion of curtain airbag from being retracted upward after being moved downward, latches are disposed at a regular interval along the track member.
The top and bottom ends of each track member are provided with mounting flanges, and each of the flanges is fixed to the C pillar with a bolt or a screw.

Guide unit for guiding curtain airbag and curtain airbag device


The present invention relates to a process of preparing a safer form of grilled or flame-broiled foods by reducing the presence and formation of known and potential carcinogenic compounds in such foods without sacrificing the flavors and organoleptic properties normally associated with such food. The invention also relates to a grill apparatus for carrying out the grilling of such foods. Both the inventive grilling process and grill apparatus utilize a fractionating medium which is capable of separating the lower boiling point smoke compounds from the higher boiling point smoke compounds, allowing said lower boiling point flavor compounds to contact the food, while retaining said higher boiling point carcinogenic compounds and thereby preventing them from contacting the food.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for preparing safer forms of grilled or flame-broiled foods by reducing the presence and formation of known and suspected carcinogenic compounds in such foods without sacrificing the flavors and organoleptic properties normally associated with such foods. The invention also relates to a grill apparatus for carrying out such a process.
The process and grill apparatus utilize a medium which is capable of separating or fractionating the desired lower boiling point flavor compounds from the undesired higher boiling point carcinogenic compounds due to the temperature differential of the medium. This medium, called a fractionating medium, allows the desired lower boiling point flavor compounds of the smoke produced during grilling to pass through the medium and contact the food, thereby giving it the characteristic grilled or smoked flavor. The higher boiling point carcinogenic compounds contained in the smoke, however, are retained on the fractionating medium, thereby preventing them from contacting the food. The resulting grilled food has the characteristic flavor and organoleptic properties of foods prepared by conventional grilling techniques, but contains reduced amounts of known or potential carcinogenic compounds.
Because of the satisfactory flavor, texture, appearance and other organoleptic properties associated with grilled and flame-broiled foods, they continue to be increasingly popular. Grilled foods have for many years found favor with individuals using small home-style grills and with commercial establishments such as restaurants.
Unfortunately, it is well known that grilled, flame-broiled and barbecued foods contain higher amounts of potential and known carcinogenic compounds than the same foods prepared by alternative cooking methods. For example, conventional grilling results in direct charting of foods and is a major cause of carcinogen formation in grilled foods. Since such foods are increasingly popular both at home and in restaurants, they may present an elevated health risk.
The formation of known and potential carcinogens is known to occur as a result of the cooking of foods. The quantity of these carcinogenic compounds in prepared foods can be traced to the type of cooking preparation method. For example, Lijinsk, W. and Shubik, P., 1964, Benzo(a)pyrene and Other Polynuclear Hydrocarbons in Charcoal-broiled Meat, Science, 145:53, reported the presence of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and related polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in charcoal-broiled beef. They found that the crust of beef contained 8 to 50 micrograms of BaP/kg. Lintas et al., 1979, Determination of Benzo(a)pyrene in Smoked, Cooked and Roasted Food Products. Food Cosmet. Toxicol., 17:325, on the other hand, found a much lower amount of BaP (0.05 micrograms of BaP/kg) in hamburger heated in a pan on an electric grill.
It is also known that the smoke produced during a conventional grilling process contains a variety of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. For example, Lijinsk, W. and Shubik, P., 1964, Benzo(a)pyrene and Other Polynuclear Hydrocarbons in Charcoal-Broiled Meat, Science 145:53, found that a crust of beef, which consisted of the deposited smoke condensate, contained 8 to 50 micrograms of BaP/kg. Nagao et al., 1977, Mutagens in Foods and Especially Pyrolysis Products of Protein, In Progress in Genetic Toxicology, p. 259, Scott, D. Dridges, B.A., and Sobels, F.H. (Eds), Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam, reported that the charred surface of beef (190 g) contained 860 micrograms of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, with the smoke condensates having a much lower level of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons than the tars from the pyrolyzed amino acids.
According to some estimates approximately 40% of cancer incidence is due to food. Wynder, 1983 , Reflections on Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, Cancer Research, 43: 3024 . More recent studies have also come to a similar conclusion. Vuolo, L.L. & Schuessler, G.J. , 1985, Putative Mutagens and Carcinogens in Foods. VI. Protein Pyrolyzate Products. Environ. Mutagen, 7:577-98. Consequently, there is an urgent need for better grilling technology and a safer means of preparing grilled and flame-broiled foods. The numerous prior art attempts to avoid the formation of known and potential carcinogens in cooked foods show the critical need for such technology.
The following recommendations have previously been proposed for reducing the formation of carcinogens in food products during cooking. Lijinsky, W. and Ross, A.E., 1967, Food Cosmet. Toxicol., 5:343, found that the level of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons was influenced by the level of fat in meat and that reducing the amount of fat reduced the formation of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon products. Avoiding direct contact of the food with the flames and thereby preventing charring of the foods has also been recommended. Separating the foods from the heating source, such as cooking in a pan or a skillet, while preventing the direct charring of the meat, causes great changes in the flavor and character of the meat when compared to foods prepared by conventional grilling techniques. It has also been suggested to discard the fat from the food during cooking and to add artificial smoked flavor to the food product. None of the above-mentioned solutions is ideal since none of them renders a product having the character and properties of a conventionally grilled or flame-broiled food. Moreover, it is unlikely that the consuming public will use a grill that produces a food product having a radically altered flavor and appearance.
The present invention accomplishes the same objective of the prior art by lowering the amount of known and potential carcinogens in prepared foods, but does so in a completely different manner, and quite unexpectedly does so without sacrificing the desired flavor and organoleptic properties associated with grilled or flame-broiled foods.

Grill apparatus for reducing carcinogens in grilled foods


Energy conversion devices employing gases and/or liquids as medium, constructed with a hollow, preferably toroidal cylinder having two ports and two, or more, identical ferromagnetic pistons moveably sealing the hollow cylinder. Movements of the pistons are electromagnetically selectable from the outside of the cylinder to either impart varying unidirectional forces on the medium and/or to influence a magnetic circuit placed outside the cylinder for the generation of motive or electromotive forces. In a pump, a compressor and an externally heated engine, the selective movement of the pistons always maintains a piston between the two ports. In an internal-combustion engine, addition is made of more pistons and one piston is selectively stopped and approached by the adjacent piston, compressing a gaseous mixture to effect combustion; electronic detection of the combustion allows the rapid electromagnetic release of the stopped piston and stops the adjacent piston which was compressing prior to the combustion.

This invention in its various forms is directed to the field of pumps, engines and electrical generators. This invention can be implemented for making of various kinds of engines, namely, Stirling, external combustion, internal combustion, and free-piston engines. This invention can also be implemented in electrically driven pumps and compressors.
At present the most common engine is an internal-combustion engine. Research is being done in the field of free-piston engines (U.S. Pat. No. 6,199,519). Current free-piston engines are reciprocating type with a linear alternator integrated with the piston or pistons. Linear alternators are heavier than their rotary counterparts. Scavenging of the burnt fuel is also a problem. Additional mechanical or electromagnetically operated valves have to be used in order to obtain sure scavenging and intake in free-piston linear alternators. Linear free-piston engines are unable to produce mechanical energy in rotary form without the use of a gear-based conversion mechanism. Efforts have been made to augment or actuate reciprocating internal combustion engines by using solenoid-type electromagnets; U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,428 discloses electromagnetic reciprocating engine augmentation, while U.S. Pat. No. 4,345,174 discloses an electromagnetic engine with rotating rectilinear cylinders and reciprocating pistons. Patents RU 2235404, CN 1369951 and CN 1457134 also use solenoid-type electromagnetics to augment and/or run reciprocating cylindrical internal combustion engines.
All the present-day toroidal engines struggle to optimize factors like valve operation, mechanical power extraction and leakage. Free piston engines can easily be made multi-fuel operated. However, due to fixed valve positioning, no toroidal engine of prior art can work as a free-piston engine. Some efforts have been made to use windings or magnets to harness power from a toroidal engine, U.S. Pat. No. 4,242,591 and abandoned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/244,483. The engine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,242,591 is a Rankine-cycle engine or a pump with magnets in the lone piston without explaining sufficiently the placement of windings external to the toroidal cylinder; the toroidal cylinder in this disclosure has a piston-operated radial partition valve inside the cylinder. This engine cannot achieve internal compression of fuel-air mixture. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/244,483 from its title, 'Magnetically coupled, sealed chamber toroidal combustion and steam engine,' reads like having come close to being a simple, ideal engine with very little leakage; but the application seems not to have solved the problems with sufficient clarity.
Prior efforts at devising, either a pump, compressor or an engine using electromagnetic driving techniques made more use of mechanical steps rather than utilizing miniature electronics. For hydraulic circuits and domestic refrigerators, there is an acute need for efficient, high-performance, sealed pumps and compressors. A summary of problems associated with existing engines, pumps and compressors are as follows:    1. Cycles wasted in reciprocating rotary internal combustion engines for exhaust and intake.    2. Excessive lubrication required for cranking and valve structures in reciprocating rotary internal combustion engines.    3. Difficulty in implementing free-piston operation in reciprocating rotary internal combustion engines.    4. Inherently unidirectional rotation in reciprocating rotary internal combustion engines.    5. Increased complexities of valve actuation mechanisms for optimum performance of an internal combustion engine.    6. Incomplete scavenging of exhaust gases in reciprocating internal combustion engines, due to the fact that the piston does not move beyond TDC position. This also results in uneven wear of the cylinder inner surface.    7. Use of a compressor for charging a two-stroke diesel engine increases complexity and lowers the efficiency of the engine.    8. Inability to effect compression of air-fuel mixture in a ratchet-less toroidal rotary engine with non-reciprocating piston or pistons.    9. The separation in the drive motor and the pump or compressor leading to the size and weight of such assemblies finding application in pneumatics, hydraulics and refrigeration.

Relaying piston multiuse valve-less electromagnetically controlled energy conversion devices


A line charge system includes a sock with a series of explosive sections and a detonation cord attached to each explosive section. A pair of spaced tubes made of explosive material are disposed about the line and secured to the explosive material of each section resulting in a hinged connection between each explosive section and the detonation cord.

Line charges can be used to clear buried mines, expose improvised explosive devices, breach walls or fences, or the like. Some line charges are heavy, complex and difficult to manufacture and deploy. Some are deployed by a rocket.
Line charges typically include spaced explosive charges connected via a detonation cord. U.S. Pat. No. 6,439,099, incorporated herein by this reference, discloses spaced cylindrical charges and a detonation cord within a yarn structure.


Compositions for reducing skin aging resulting from oxidative stress and/or photodamage are disclosed herein. The compositions can be topically applied to a skin region to reduce or prevent skin wrinkles, fine lines, thinning skin, sagging skin, skin dryness, and skin itchiness.

The present disclosure relates generally to compositions and methods for enhancing cellular response to oxidative stress and photodamage, and in particular, enhancing cellular response in dermal fibroblasts and epidermal keratinocytes, which can result in signs of skin aging of the face and body. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to compositions including an Undaria extract and/or Bidens extract and methods of topically applying the compositions for enhancing cellular mitochondrial activity and antioxidant cellular response to oxidative stress and UV irradiation, thereby reducing signs of aging of the face and body. Signs of aging that affect the skin of the face and body include, for example, wrinkles, fine lines, thinning skin, sagging skin, skin dryness and skin itchiness.
With respect to skin aging, a distinction is made between so-called "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" aging, a decisive factor for the latter being the exogenous effect, in particular the effect of ultraviolet (UV) radiation ("photoaging"). Mechanistically, oxidative stress plays a major role in both intrinsic and extrinsic aging of the skin since reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated in the process of normal cellular metabolism or by physiological processes and, particularly, are produced by the UVA and UVB components of UV radiation. If not suppressed upon formation, ROS have far-reaching effects on the integrity of all cellular biomolecules such as DNA, proteins and lipids with regard to UV-induced aging of the skin. Particularly, overproduction of ROS can lead to lipid peroxidation, damage to biomolecules, and effects on cellular viability. An immediate consequence of particular importance in photoaging is the ROS induction of matrix metalloproteinases that increases degradation of collagen proteins, creating an imbalance between collagen synthesis and degradation, leading to skin thinning Thus far, strategies for preventing photoaging consist of a reduction in UV-exposure, physical protection from UV-exposure and/or the application of specific vitamins, such as vitamin C or vitamin E.
Particularly, a wide variety of creams and lotions exist that can cosmetically improve the appearance, and sometimes, the structure of the skin on the face and body. Such compositions often employ retinoids, hydroxy acids and/or exfoliants to encourage skin rejuvenation, increase firmness or otherwise cosmetically improve the skin. Many cosmetic products provide moisture and can enhance the skin's appearance by plumping the skin using irritants that cause inflammation. Other cosmetic products are available that claim to rejuvenate and create a more youthful appearance by targeting extracellular matrix proteins such as elastin and collagen, which are produced by fibroblasts to provide skin strength and resilience.
Medical procedures, such as dermal injections and reconstructive surgery, are also available to reduce the signs of aging. Cosmetic surgery has recently grown in popularity to aesthetically enhance the appearance of skin. These procedures, however, are not always desirable options as surgery can be costly, painful and very invasive.
While the cosmetic products and medical procedures described above are suitable for treating aged skin of the face and body, alternative compositions and methods for improving skin are desirable. Accordingly, there exists a need to develop alternative compositions and methods for preventing and/or reducing oxidative stress that can lead to increased signs of skin aging of the face and body. It would be highly advantageous if the compositions and methods could be topically applied such that invasive, painful, and costly medical procedures could be avoided.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Topical compositions and methods for reducing oxidative stress


An image forming apparatus includes: an image forming unit including a rotating member; a rotation position detecting unit that detects a rotation position of the rotating member; an image density detecting unit that detects density of an image; an image information analysis unit that analyzes image information; a density profile management unit that manages a density profile; a correction data generation unit that generates correction data; a density correction unit that performs density correction; and a density correction control unit that sets a density correction level, wherein when the density correction level is set at reference accuracy, the density correction unit corrects density, and when the density correction level is set at accuracy higher than the reference accuracy, the density profile management unit forms a corrective patch image and generates a new density profile, the correction data generation unit updates the correction data, and the density correction unit corrects density.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, and particularly to a technique which eliminates a periodic density variation occurring in a subscanning direction.
Description of the Related Art
Generally, in an image forming apparatus (such as a printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile) using an electrophotographic process technique, a uniformly charged photoconductor (for example, a photoconductor drum) is irradiated with (exposed to) light based on input image data, and thereby an electrostatic latent image is formed on a surface of the photoconductor. By supplying toner to the photoconductor on which the electrostatic latent image has been formed, the electrostatic latent image is visualized to form a toner image. The toner image is transferred to a sheet directly or indirectly through an intermediate transfer member, and subsequently heated and pressurized at a fixing unit, whereby an image is formed on the sheet.
An image forming apparatus includes, as a constituent for image formation, various rotating members such as a photoconductor and a developer holding member. It has been known that a periodic density variation is caused in an image in a subscanning direction thereof by rotation runout of these rotating members. For example, since a gap (development gap) between a photoconductor and a developer holding member is periodically varied based on rotation runout of the photoconductor or the developer holding member, an electric field intensity is periodically varied even if a constant developing bias is applied. As a result, a density variation occurs in an image with the same period as a rotation period of the photoconductor or the developer holding member. Hereinbelow, a periodic density variation occurring in an image in a subscanning direction thereof is referred to as "periodic density unevenness".
In a conventional image forming apparatus, in order to offset periodic density unevenness, correction data is generated which is corresponding to rotational positions (phases obtained by using a home position as a reference) of a photoconductor, based on, for example, a density profile indicating periodic density unevenness. With this correction data, followings are corrected: image forming conditions such as exposure energy (exposure time or exposure output), a charge voltage, a developing bias voltage, rotations of a developer holding member (for example, a developing roller), and a density value (gradation value) of input image data (for example, JP 2007-140402 A).
The density profile is generated, for example, by forming a density-corrective patch image (such as a halftone image with halftone density) on a toner image holding member such as an intermediate transfer belt, and detecting the image density of the corrective patch image. At that time, the corrective patch image is formed such that a length in a subscanning direction thereof is adjusted to be longer than the longest period length (generally, period length of a photoconductor) of period lengths (length corresponding to a rotation period) of rotating members by which periodic density unevenness occurs. The corrective patch image is formed to be longer than a plurality of period lengths of a rotating member, and results of the image density detection are averaged. By doing so, a highly accurate density profile can be obtained.
In order to improve the accuracy of density correction, it is preferable to update the density profile periodically or at a predetermined timing such as when starting a print job. The reason being that the density profile varies in accordance with variations in developability and transferability caused by an environmental and temporal influence.
In JP 2011-170156 A, it is disclosed that in an image forming apparatus, a relationship between a development gap and writing sensitivity is grasped in advance, and image forming conditions such as an exposure amount are corrected according to a rotation position of a rotating member.
However, in a case where the length of the corrective patch image in the subscanning direction thereof is increased, or where the density profile is frequently updated, although the accuracy of density correction is improved, the following problems occur: a load on a cleaning unit is increased when removing the corrective patch image formed on the toner image holding member; consumption of toner required for density correction is increased; and a longer period of time is required for density correction, which results in a decrease in productivity.
In addition, the technique described in JP 2011-170156 A cannot be appropriately applied to a case where the periodicity of a development gap has varied, and there may be a case where image quality is decreased by correcting image forming conditions.


Embodiments are configured to populate one or more virtual channels with accessible video content from disparate sources. Users are oftentimes overwhelmed with an abundance of available video content. Embodiments of the present invention may be utilized to generate an index of all video content to which a user has access from various video content providing systems and cross-match the index of video content with tagged video metadata. The cross-matched video content may be processed through various filters and mapped to one or more classifications. One or more virtual channels may be generated according to the one or more classifications and populated with the cross-matched video content. The virtual channels are customized to the user based on the availability of the content to the user and on user preference data.

In today's modern digital age, an abundance of consumer-facing video content exists in a variety of different delivery systems provided by many different content providers. For example, users may receive video content via various delivery systems including, but not limited to, cable television, Internet, satellite, etc. Manually searching for specific content from the abundance of video content can be overwhelming to a user. Additionally, manually searching through disparate delivery systems separately to find specific content can be inefficient. Presently, a cohesive listing of available video content (e.g., Internet, television, local video, etc.) that is available to a specific user at a given time does not exist.
Current searches for specific content may yield extensive results, creating a situation with too many options from which to choose. Furthermore, refining a search for specific video content based on a specific genre often produces results which may not satisfy a user's desires. Based on variables, such as geographic location, cable or satellite subscriptions, paid-for content, etc., various consumers or sub-groups of consumers may have access to a different variety of potential video content sources from which to choose at a given point in time. Thus, content suggested to a specific customer in general may or may not be relevant to the customer depending on the video content specifically available to the customer. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.


The present application provides a quinolyl-substituted carboxylic acid compound as shown in formula (I) or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, as well as a method for preparing the compound, a use of the compound, and a formulation containing the quinolyl-substituted carboxylic acid compound or the pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. This type of compounds are inhibitors for AXL and/or VEGFR2 protein kinase, and can be used to treat diseases caused by abnormality of the two protein kinases, such as, tumor, etc.

Protein kinases are a class of phosphotransferases that transfer γ-phosphate group of ATP to specific amino acid residues of a substrate to phosphorylate proteins, so as to exert their physiological and biochemical functions. The protein kinases are an important class of kinases. They play a major role in signal transduction in two aspects: one aspect is to regulate activity of proteins through phosphorylation; the other is to amplify the signal cascade through phosphorylation of proteins, so as to initiate a cellular response.
Abnormal protein kinase activity is not only closely related to abnormity in a certain link of a series of signal transduction pathways inside and outside cells, such as proliferation, apoptosis, and metastasis of tumors, etc., but also is a major reason for a series of other human diseases involving inflammation or proliferative response, such as rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular diseases and diseases of nervous system, asthma, psoriasis and the like. More than 400 human diseases are known to be directly or indirectly related to protein kinases, which makes protein kinases become another pivotal class of medicine targets following G-protein coupled receptors.
The protein kinase family consists of more than 500 members and is generally classified into two types, protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) and serine-threonine kinases. According to the position of the kinase in the cell, the protein kinase family also can be classified into receptor kinases and non-receptor kinases (also known as intracellular kinases). The receptor kinases are generally tyrosine kinases, also referred to as receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). The receptor kinases are composed of extracellular, transmembrane, and intracytoplasmic portions, and a catalytically active portion of the kinases is located in the intracytoplasmic portion. Most serine-threonine kinases are located in cells and belong to the non-receptor kinases or cytosolic kinases.
Typical representatives of the RTK family are growth factor receptors, which has at least 19 subfamilies. Several major subfamilies are described as follow:
(a) HER family tyrosine receptor kinases, including epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR), HER2, HER3 and HER4. The EGFR is a target of several synthesized small molecule medicines, such as Tarceva®, Tykerb® and monoclonal antibody Erbitux®, for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.
(b) A family consisting of insulin receptor (IR), insulin-like growth factor I receptor (IGF-1R), and insulin receptor-related receptor (IRR), in which the IGF-1R is a recognized anti-cancer target. However, the IGF-1R is too similar to IR, and especially the intracellular kinase portion of the IGF-1R has an amino acid sequence that is 100% identical to that of IR, so that an inhibition of IGF-1R activity is usually accompanied with an inhibition of IR activity. There is evidence proving that IR is also an effective anti-cancer target. However, it is necessary to find a balance between benefits and safety risks when using IR inhibitors for anticancer due to their risk of elevating blood glucose.
(c) A family of platelet-derived growth factor receptors (PDGFRs), including PDGFR-α, PDGFR-β, CSF1R, c-KIT, and c-fms. c-KIT is also a molecular target of a leukemia therapeutic medicine Gleevec® for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors.
(d) A family of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFRs), including Fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (FLT1) (or VEGFR1), KDR (or VEGFR-2), and FLT4 (or VEGFR3). The members of this subfamily are molecular targets of Sutent® and Naxavar®.
(e) A family of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), including FGFR1, FGFR2, FGFR3 and FGFR4 and seven ligands FGF1, FGF2, FGF3, FGF4, FGF5, FGF6 and FGF7. The members of this subfamily are molecular targets of medicines that are still in clinical trials.
(f) MET family, including c-Met, also known as human hepatocyte growth factor receptor or hHGFR, and RON. c-Met plays a pivotal role in the growth and metastasis of initial tumors. The medicines targeting on c-Met are still in clinical trials.
(g) RET family, RET is a receptor for members of GDNF family, including RET51, RET43 and RET9 isoforms. The medicines targeting on RET are still in clinical trials.
(h) Eph family, which is the largest family of tyrosine receptor kinases, consisting of 16 receptors (EPHA1, EPHA2, EPHA3, EPHA4, EPHA5, EPHA6, EPHA7, EPHA8, EPHA9, EPHA10, EPHB1, EPHB2, EPHB3, EPHB4, EPHB5, EPHB6) and 9 ligands (EFNA1, EFNA2, EFNA3, EFNA4, EFNA5, EFNB1, EFNB2, EFNB3). These members play an important role in the growth of animals, and some members play a role in the development of tumor.
AXL, also known as UFO/ARK/Tyro, is another important tyrosine receptor kinase, whose ligand is the vitamin K-dependent growth promoting factor GAS6. The first discovery of AXL was as a transforming gene for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). An overexpression of AXL can be found in metastatic colon cancer, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and melanoma. Inhibition of AXL activity can inhibit the growth, spreading and metastasis of tumor.
Non-receptor kinases do not have the extracellular portion and the transmembrane portion, i.e., the entire kinase is located in the cytoplasm. At least 24 non-receptor kinases are now known and can be divided into 11 subfamilies: Src, Frk, Btk, CsK, Abl, Zap70, Fes, Fps, Fak, Jak and AcK subfamilies. The Src subfamily is the largest, including Src, Yes, Fyn, Lyn, Lck, Blk, Hck, Fgr, AUR1, AUR2, and Yrk kinases. For more detailed information, see Neet, K.; Hunter, T. Genes to Cells 1996, 1, 147-169 and the literature cited therein. Although there are several non-receptor kinases of tyrosine kinase, most non-receptor kinases belong to the serine-threonine kinases. Several members are molecular targets for the leukemia therapeutic medicines such as Gleevec® and Sprycel®.
As described above, receptor kinases and non-receptor kinases serving as anti-tumor targets have been well demonstrated in clinical and practical applications and multiple anti-tumor medicines have been approved for market and the treatment of patients. In addition to tumor therapy, inhibition of abnormality of receptor kinases and non-receptor kinases can also be used to treat diseases including, but not limited to, psoriasis, cirrhosis, diabetes, diseases involving angiogenesis, diseases involving restenosis, eye diseases, age-related macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammations, immune system diseases such as autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, kidney diseases, and the like. Therefore, it is essential to continue to develop inhibitors of these kinases.

Quinolyl-substituted carboxylic acid compound or pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, pharmaceutical composition of the same, and use of the same

BEIJING KONRUNS PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD.


A jet pump comprising:                a nozzle apparatus having a header portion including, inside, a first pipe member forming a suction fluid passage for introducing suction fluid and the header portion surrounding the first pipe member, for introducing driving fluid, and a nozzle portion connected to the header portion, surrounding the first pipe member and forming an annular ejection outlet for ejecting the driving fluid;        a jet pump body for mixing the driving fluid and the suction fluid sucked by the ejection of the driving fluid, and discharging the mixed fluid; and        a second pipe member having one end connected to the nozzle apparatus, for introducing the driving fluid to the header portion,        wherein the first pipe member is disposed through the one end inside a driving fluid passage formed in the second pipe member, and forms an opening portion of the suction fluid passage opened to the outside of the second pipe member; and        the driving fluid passage is formed so that the driving fluid flowing toward the one end hits the first pipe member diagonally to the axial direction of the first pipe member.

The present invention relates to jet pump and reactor and more particularly, to a jet pump and a nuclear reactor suitable for application in a boiling water reactor.
A conventional boiling water reactor (BWR) has a jet pump installed in its reactor pressure vessel. The jet pump has a nozzle, a bell mouth, a throat, and a diffuser. A recirculation pipe is connected to the reactor pressure vessel. Cooling water pressurized by operation of a recirculation pump provided on the recirculation pipe, passes through the recirculation pipe and is ejected from the nozzle into the jet pump as a driving flow. The nozzle increases the speed of the driving flow. The ejected driving flow causes the cooling water present around the nozzle to flow into the throat as a suction flow. The cooling water discharged from the diffuser is supplied to a core through a lower plenum (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,625,820).
A jet pump disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-89499 has a suction pipe for sucking a conveying object (rainwater, wastewater flowed into a grit pound, solid matter, etc.) and an annular member surrounding the suction pipe. In addition, this jet pump forms a high-pressure water feed chamber between the suction pipe and the annular member, provided around the suction pipe. A plurality of water injection openings opened to the high-pressure water feed chamber are disposed around the suction pipe. High-pressure water supplied into the high-pressure water feed chamber is jetted from those injection openings to suck the conveying object into the suction pipe.
The jet pump disclosed in FIG. 3 of Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-90700 has a venturi pipe and a nozzle for ejecting a driving flow to the upper course of the venturi pipe. This nozzle has an inner cylinder and an outer cylinder surrounding the inner cylinder. A driving flow passage formed between the inner cylinder and the outer cylinder is an annular passage for the driving flow, the cross section of which passage gradually diminishes toward the discharging side of the driving flow. The driving flow supplied to the driving flow passage is ejected from one end of the passage (a discharge outlet) into the venturi pipe. Washing water present around the nozzle is sucked into the venturi pipe due to the driving flow ejected from the nozzle. To be more precise, this washing water flows into the venturi pipe through each of a first coolant suction passage formed between the nozzle and the venturi pipe and a second coolant suction passage formed inside the inner cylinder. The driving flow in a cylindrical form is ejected from the nozzle. The cross sections of the driving flow in a cylindrical form look like continuous rings.


An underwater acoustic communication system provides an operator with adjable frequency diversity so that data rates may be tailored to specific multipath environments. Transmitted messages are sent with precursor transmission/reception synchronization data and transmission parameter data so that the receiving communication end will recognize when message data starts, tone length as-well-as the frequency diversity of the transmitted message. Timing is extracted from the data to compensate for Doppler shift.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains broadly to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the invention pertains to underwater communications. In still greater particularity, the invention relates to underwater acoustic communications in multipath environments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As acoustic engineers know, underwater acoustic communication in shallow operating depths is often hampered by what is known as multipath. Multipath disrupts transmission and reception of acoustic signals sent underwater.
This phenomenon can be generally explained as follows: acoustic propagations from an underwater transmission point may travel directly to an underwater receiver yet, these propagations often reflect from the ocean surface and ocean floor to create cancellation and distortion of the directly propagated transmission. Signal cancellation and distortion due to multipath has been minimized by the use of directional receivers. Further, frequency diversity transmission and reception has been utilized.
In this latter method, transmission of identical signals is done simultaneously over a number of different or diverse frequencies. Depending upon the multipath structure of the environment through which the signals are propagated, some of the transmission frequencies will be more vulnerable to being cancelled or distorted by multipath. Transmitting the same message simultaneously over a broad spectrum of frequency diverse channels improves chances of clear communication, as one or more of the transmitted signals may ultimately be received without severe multipath disruption.
Methods of transmitting a message simultaneously over a number of frequency diverse channels are not new. Yet, heretofore, these methods were not readily adaptable to the environment in which they were used. Simultaneous redundant transmissions appreciably slow data transmission rates. If the efficiency of underwater acoustic communications could be readily observed, an operator could make efforts to tailor a system to provide data rate transmittals commensurate with the multipath environment.

Adjustable frequency diversity acoustic communications system

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


Mobile devices are only as useful as their battery lasts. Unfortunately, the operation and life of a mobile device's battery degrade over time and usage. The state-of-health (SoH) of batteries quantifies their degradation, but mobile devices' support for its estimation is very poor due mainly to the limited hardware and dynamic usage patterns, causing various problems such as shutting off the devices unexpectedly. To remedy this lack of support, a low-cost user-level SoH estimation service is developed for mobile devices based only on their battery voltage, which is already available on all commodity mobile devices. The design of the estimation service is inspired by an empirical observation that the relaxing voltages of a device battery fingerprint its SoH, and is steered by extensive measurements with 13 batteries used for various devices, such as Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Xperia Z5, Galaxy S3, iPhone 6 Plus, etc.

Batteries, the hearts of mobile devices, have recently exhibited serious safety and fiscal risks (e.g., the recent Samsung's Note 7 crisis) due mainly to the continuous push for small-size, fast-charging, and high-energy/power density batteries to meet ever-increasing p/service demands, making their holographic monitoring and diagnosis crucial.
Sadly, we can't even answer confidently a simple question "how long will my phone battery last?", which means the remaining battery life (e.g., relative to the battery warranty period) or remaining device operation time until the battery runs out (i.e., the operation time with a single charge), thus impeding the diagnosis of shortened device operation time and causing unexpected device shut-offs. This is because the answer is grounded on the quantification of battery's capacity fading, which is traditionally captured by its state-of-health (SoH) and defined as the ratio of the battery's full charge capacity to the designed capacity. Unfortunately, mobile devices are not equipped with the capability needed for quantifying its battery's SoH. For example, Android only specifies battery health as good or dead, without any quantified information. FIG. 1 plots measurements for the battery SoH of four Android phones with a battery tester: all of these batteries are tagged as good although their capacities are observed to have faded down by as much as 52%. iOS apps, such as CoconutBattery and iBackupBot, estimate battery SoH for iPhones and MacBooks, but their estimations are known to be unreliable and fluctuating.
The non-existence of quantified battery SoH prevents the comparison of a device's battery life against its warranty period, as users won't know whether the shortened device operation is due to system updates and app installations, or because of battery fading. It also introduces errors when estimating devices' remaining power and thus shutting them off prematurely or unexpectedly, as batteries' state-of-charge (SoC) is grounded on their SoH by definition. For example, mobile devices have been shut off even while showing 10-30% remaining power. Apple has recently announced a free-replacement program of iPhone 6S batteries because of this problem, and concluded faster-than-normal SoH degradation to have caused the problem. Last but not least, this inaccurate SoC easily leads to battery over-charging/deep-discharging, accelerating SoH degradation and thus increasing SoC error, thus forming a positive feedback loop between the two.
The deficiency of health information on mobile devices' batteries stems from the non-existence of compatible methods to estimate their SoH. Most existing SoH estimation methods require either battery parameters, determination of which is beyond mobile devices' capability due to hardware limitation (e.g., impedance and ultrasonic echo), or specific applicable conditions that do not always hold due to devices' dynamic usage patterns (e.g., small current to fully charge and discharge). Moreover, even Coulomb counting—the most widely-deployed SoH estimation method via current integration—is not supported well on mobile devices because (i) not all power management ICs (PMICs) of mobile devices support electric current sensing, making Coulomb counting infeasible; and (ii) the PMIC-provided current information is coarse and lacks real-time capability, even when available. Such unreliable current information on mobile devices is also reported by Ampere, a current sensing app with millions of downloads.
This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.

Method to estimate battery health for mobile devices based on relaxing voltages

The Regents of the University of Michigan


A voice messaging system. The voice messaging system includes a set of geographically distributed devices in which voice messages are stored and logic that causes voice messages to be stored in respective devices in the set of devices from which messages can be efficiently retrieved. The logic may cause voice messages to be stored in a device from the set of devices closest to a location from which the user has retrieved messages. A voice message system comprising logic that receives and stores messages from callers for respective users and logic that selects and plays a message not left by a caller to a user. The message is selected based on information about the user, and the message not left by a caller may comprise an advertisement. A method of storing messages in a voice messaging system that has a plurality of voice mail boxes associated with a plurality of subscribers. An incoming call is received and responded to based on a data field in an incoming call that identifies the subscriber""s telephone number.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to voice messaging systems, in particular to voice messaging systems used in telecommunications.
2. Description of Related Art
The telecommunications industry has enjoyed many advances in the field of voice, data and other message storage and transmission. A simple answering machine such as one with a tape or digital storage mechanism allows for the storage of messages from callers calling a subscriber unavailable or too busy to answer an incoming telephone call. More advanced voice messaging systems may be coupled to a business phone system such as a private branch exchange (PBX), allowing for messages to various subscribers of the business phone system to be stored for those subscribers when they are unavailable or otherwise unable to answer incoming telephone calls. Such a voice messaging system may allow for storage, forwarding, broadcasting and other actions with respect to messages. Such a voice messaging system may be located in the same facilities as the business telephone system and thus provide local users access to voice messaging. Alternatively, voice messaging capability may be provided, for example, in conjunction with the local telephone system.
A voice messaging system typically includes a storage device and logic that causes messages to be stored on the storage device. Subscribers may desire to access the messages remotely and may do so by calling the voice messaging system and accessing the subscriber""s respective account. Such a process may involve a long distance call from the location of the subscriber to the location of the voice messaging system. The subscriber is then typically greeted by a standard system message when calling into the system to access messages. The subscriber then responds by entering information associated with the subscriber""s account.
Subscribers have found various uses of voice messaging systems such as broadcasting messages to various members of groups, taking personal as well as business messages and other uses. It would be desirable to achieve a more capable and efficient voice messaging system in order to meet the ever increasing needs of subscribers.
An embodiment of the invention includes a voice messaging system. The voice messaging system includes a set of geographically distributed devices in which voice messages are stored. Logic causes voice messages to be stored in at least a device in the set of devices. The device is one from which messages can be efficiently retrieved by a user who is in a location from which the user is likely to retrieve messages. In one embodiment of the invention, the logic may cause voice messages to be stored in a device from the set of devices closest to a location from which the user has retrieved messages. In another embodiment of the invention, logic causes voice messages associated with a particular user to be stored in a device from the devices closest to locations from which user has retrieved messages within a particular time period.
According to one embodiment of the invention, one body of the invention is directed to a voice messaging system that includes logic that causes voice messages to be stored in respective devices in a set of devices in a service area in which a user is likely to retrieve messages. Such a service area may be an area in which a local telephone call can be made, an area serviced by a central office or approximately 12 miles in radius.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a voice messaging system comprising logic that receives and stores messages, logic that stores the voice messages for retrieval by individuals who have accounts on the system and logic that causes telephone calls to be made to individuals who do not have accounts on the system and that allows the individuals who do not have accounts on the system to access a message by way of the telephone calls. According to one embodiment of the invention, telephone calls are made only at time periods allowed by government regulations. According to another embodiment of the invention, telephone calls are made between 8 AM and 8 PM.


This invention provides a vector control method for controlling an induction motor that is used to drive an elevator based on secondary time constants, wherein the secondary time constants, which have been corrected for temperature, are determined in a short amount of time and the precision of the determination is improved, by passing a constant current of the same phase as during a similar operation to the excitation side of the induction motor while the elevator is mechanically stopped and then determining the secondary time constants.

Elevators may be driven by induction motors.
By means of vector control of induction motors, the primary current is divided into exciting current and torque current and the vector of the torque current and flux are crossed in order to obtain the same speed variation capability as with direct-current motors or better.
FIG. 3 is a diagram of one example of a vector control device. The numeral 1 in the figure is an induction motor and 2 is a speed detector. A speed computing section 3 is connected to the speed detector 2. Speed W.sub.n that is computed from the detected values by the speed computing section 3 and speed command N are balanced in a summer 3a and the difference into a torque computing section 4. A torque current command (I.sub.t) is determined by a proportional integration (PI) computation. A primary current value (I.sub.1) is determined from this torque current (I.sub.t) and an exciting current set value (I.sub.o) by primary current computing section 5 using I.sub.1 =.sqroot.I.sub.t.sup.2 +I.sub.o.sup.2. On the other hand, the phase angle .phi. of the torque current (I.sub.t) and exciting current (I.sub.o) is computed by phase computing section 6 using, .phi.=tan.sup.-1 (I.sub.t /I.sub.o). Slip frequency computing section 7 determines the slip frequency (W.sub.s) from torque current (I.sub.t), exciting current (I.sub.o), and secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 of the motor as shown below; furthermore, time constant .gamma.2=L2/R2 for secondary auto-inductance L2 and secondary resistance R2. EQU W.sub.2 =I.sub.t (I.sub.o .multidot..tau..sub.2)
This slip frequency (W.sub.s) is added to the speed detected value (W.sub.n) by adding device 8 to obtain the primary frequency (W.sub.o).
The aforementioned primary current (I.sub.1), phase angle .phi. and angular frequency (W.sub.o) are input to a three-phase current computing section 9 to calculate primary currents I.sub.a, I.sub.b, and I.sub.c of motor 1. Using this current as the current command of inverter 10, primary current is fed to motor 1 by inverter 10. Computation by aforementioned three-phase current computing section 9 is performed by the following equations: ##EQU1##
By means of this type of vector control device, secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 for determining slip frequency W.sub.s is determined by constants L2 and R2 of the motor and changes in secondary resistance R2 with temperature of the motor are regarded as changes in secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 and the primary current phase. Therefore, secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 is corrected for temperature by computation from the primary voltage when a constant current is passing to the motor. FIG. 4 shows a graph of changes in primary voltage V.sub.1 (t) when constant current i.sub.l is flowing. Primary voltage V.sub.1 (t) is approximated by
Therefore, secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 is found with the following equation by determining primary voltages V.sub.1 (t.sub.1) and V.sub.1 (t.sub.1) at times t.sub.1 and t.sub.2. ##EQU2##
The effects of temperature can be eliminated by using this secondary time constant .tau..sub.2 in computations of slip frequency.
In the aforementioned conventional method for correction of the secondary time constant, the steady-state values of i.sub.1 and r.sub.1 at primary voltage V.sub.1 (t) are needed for determination of the secondary time constant and it takes a long time until primary voltage V.sub.1 (t) reaches the steady-state level in these determinations. Consequently, there is a problem in that it takes a long time to prepare for operation of the motor and a control device is obtained whose use is off to a bad start.

Vector control method of induction motor


Method and system for determining estimation variance associated with project planning are provided. In one aspect, information associated with a project is obtained and initial estimations for the tasks in the project are determined using available information. The tasks are performed and actual measurements are obtained from the completed tasks. The actual measurements are used to revise the estimates of the remaining tasks. The revised estimates are used to compute a project level estimate and a variance on that estimate, and to enable better project management.

Accurate estimation of project parameters such as cost, schedule, or quality is an invaluable asset to a business. Estimating project parameters fairly accurately saves company's time, money, and enhances the company's goodwill and relationship with its customers. However, it is not an easy task to estimate an overall cost, schedule or quality of a project, especially a complex project involving multiple phases and components that depend on and/or interact with another.
A project life cycle is an ongoing process, in which subtasks complete and new information surfaces. Current approaches (e.g., COCOMO II, SLIM, SEER, Price-S) do not systematically update their estimates based on ongoing availability of information, nor do they actively reflect on the changes in variance that such updates provide. In sum, there is an inability to reflect on or consider the variance in the estimates and manage it effectively using new or updated information that becomes available as the project proceeds.

Determining estimation variance associated with project planning

International Business Machines Corporation


A radio access network (20) comprises a radio network controller (26) and a radio base station (28). The radio network controller (26) is configured to perform admission control and to allocate resources of a cell. The radio base station (28) is configured to determine load/congestion on a high speed shared channel and to generate an indication of the load/congestion for transmission to the radio network controller. In some example embodiments and modes, at least one of the radio network controller and the radio base station is configured to allocate at least some of the resources for the high speed shared channel to support a guaranteed service and also to allocate at least some resources to support a non-guaranteed service. In some example implementations of this aspect, a user(s) of the non-guaranteed service is permitted to use the resources up to a reserved resource level of resources. According to another non-limiting aspect of the technology, the radio base station is further configured to generate a recommended action for dealing with the load/congestion.

I. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to telecommunications, and particularly to determining load and/or congestion on high speed packet access channels.
II. Related Art and Other Considerations
In a typical cellular radio system, mobile terminals (also known as mobile stations and mobile user equipment units (UEs)) communicate via a radio access network (RAN) to one another and/or one or more core networks. The user equipment units (UEs) can be mobile stations such as mobile telephones ("cellular" telephones) and laptops with mobile termination, and thus can be, for example, portable, pocket, hand-held, computer-included, or car-mounted mobile devices which communicate voice and/or data with radio access network.
The radio access network (RAN) covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a base station, e.g., a radio base station or (in UTRAN parlance) "NodeB" (the terms such as radio base station and NodeB being used interchangeably herein). A cell is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the radio base station equipment at a base station site. Each cell is identified by a unique identity, which is broadcast in the cell. The base stations communicate over the air interface (e.g., radio frequencies) with the user equipment units (UE) within range of the base stations. In the radio access network, several base stations are typically connected (e.g., by landlines or microwave) to a radio network controller (RNC). The radio network controller, also sometimes termed a base station controller (BSC), supervises and coordinates various activities of the plural base stations connected thereto. The radio network controllers are typically connected to one or more core networks.
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile communication system, which evolved from the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and is intended to provide improved mobile communication services based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) access technology. The radio access network of the UMTS is often referred to as the "UTRAN".
As technologies advance, various services require higher data rates and higher capacity. Although UMTS has been designed to support multi-media wireless services, in some instances it turns out that the maximum data rate is not enough to satisfy the required quality of services.
In a forum known as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), telecommunications suppliers propose and agree upon standards for third generation networks and UTRAN specifically, and investigate enhanced data rate and radio capacity. One result of the forum's work is the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) for the downlink, which was introduced in 3GPP WCDMA specification Release 5.
Concerning High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) generally, see, e.g., 3GPP TS 25.435 V7.1.0 (Jun. 16, 2006), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; UTRAN Iub Interface User Plane Protocols for Common Transport Channel Data Streams (Release 7), which discusses High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Also incorporated by reference herein as being produced by the forum and having some bearing on High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) or concepts described herein include: 3GPP TS 25.321 V7.1.0 (Jun. 23, 2006), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification (Release 7); 3GPP TS 25.331 V7.1.0 (Jun. 23, 2006), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Radio Resource Control (RRC); Protocol Specification (Release 7); 3GPP TS 25.425 V7.1.0 (Jun. 16, 2006), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; UTRAN Iur interface user plane protocols for Common Transport Channel data streams (Release 7); and 3GPP TS 25.433 V7.1.0 (Jun. 20, 2006), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; UTRAN Iub interface Node B Application Part (NBAP) signaling (Release 7).
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) achieves higher data speeds by, e.g., shifting some of the radio resource coordination and management responsibilities to the base station (RBS) from the radio network controller (RNC). Those responsibilities include one or more of the following: shared channel transmission, higher order modulation, link adaptation, radio channel dependent scheduling, and hybrid-ARQ with soft combining. In terms of fast link adaptation, the link adaptation is done by selecting the best modulation and coding scheme based on channel quality indicator from the mobile terminal (e.g., the user equipment unit (UE)). For fast scheduling, the selection of the user is done in the Node B, which has access to the link quality information, and thus can select the optimal user. Hybrid ARQ from Node B involves having a retransmission mechanism in the base station which allows fast retransmissions and quick recovery of erroneous link adaptation decisions. As a short TTI, a two millisecond (ms) TTI is used for transmissions.
In accordance with the first of the shifted responsibilities, i.e., shared channel transmission, HSDPA multiplexes user information for transmission on the high-speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH) in time-multiplexed intervals (called transmission time intervals (TTI)) over the air interface to the mobile terminal. Three new physical channels are introduced with HSDPA to enable HS-DSCH transmission. The high-speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH) is a downlink control channel that informs mobile devices when HSDPA data is scheduled for them, and how they can receive and decode it. The high-speed dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH) is an uplink control channel used by the mobile to report the downlink channel quality and request retransmissions. The high-speed physical downlink shared channel (HS-PDSCH) is a downlink physical channel that carries the HS-DSCH user data. Several HS-PDSCHs are assigned to a mobile for each transmission. Each HS-PDSCH has a different OVSF channelization code.
HSDPA features a high speed channel (HSC) controller at the radio base station that functions, e.g., as a high speed scheduler, by multiplexing the user information for over the entire HS-DSCH bandwidth in the transmission time intervals (TTI). The HSDPA controller is commonly referred to also as HSDPA scheduler. Since HSDPA uses code multiplexing, several users can be scheduled at the same time.
The High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) was followed by introduction of High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) with its Enhanced Dedicated Channel (E-DCH) in the uplink in 3GPP WCDMA specification Release 6. E-DCH is a dedicated uplink channel (from a user equipment unit (UE) to a Node-B) that has been enhanced. Enhancements include using a short transmission time interval (TTI); fast hybrid ARQ (HARQ) between mobile terminal and the Node-B (with soft combining); scheduling of the transmission rates of mobile terminals from the Node-B. In addition, E-DCH retains a majority of the features characteristic for dedicated channels in the uplink.
Thus, currently WCDMA provides high speed packet access (HSPA) through the common channel HSDPA and the Enhanced Uplink (HSUPA). In their initial phases, typical implementations of HSDPA and Enhanced UL only supported interactive/background traffic, e.g., HSDPA and EUL only allocated any resources remaining after regular (e.g., pre-HSPA) dedicated channels (DCH) had consumed the resources that the dedicated channels required. Downlink control channels for EUL are included in the HSDPA power group, i.e., not in the non-HSDPA group for which DCH belongs.
Generally for WCDMA the radio network controller performs connection admission and resource allocation and scheduling functions for an admitted connection. But with the advent of HSDPA and later with EUL, it was more expedient to let the Node-B undertake (for HSDPA and EUL) some functionalities which previously were performed by the radio network controller. Thus, the Node-B was provided with a scheduler for the HSDPA and a scheduler for EUL to perform resource allocation and scheduling for connections which respectively share in the HSPDA and EUL. Thus, at least where HSDPA and EUL are involved, there is essentially a two tier allocation and scheduling: an upper tier performed by the radio network controller for connections generally, and a lower tier performed by the Node-B for connections using the HSDPA and EUL. The lower tier allocation and scheduling as performed by the Node-B occurs in a time frame of milliseconds, whereas the upper tier allocation and scheduling as performed by the radio network controller occurs with a longer time perspective (e.g., seconds).
The allocation and scheduling of the lower tier as preformed by the Node-B initially did not significantly impact the upper tier allocation and scheduling as performed by the radio network controller. This non-impact resulted, at least in part, from the aforementioned fact that the NodeB schedulers locally adapted the traffic to use the remaining power (or noise rise) resources left over from the guaranteed bit rate (GBR) traffic (e.g., conversational and streaming traffic), the guaranteed bit rate (GBR) traffic having already been admitted by the admission control function of the radio network controller. That is, for HSDPA and EUL the non-GBR traffic uses the remaining power left over from the GBR traffic.
HSDPA and EUL are continuing to evolve. For example, 3GPP Technical Specifications have introduced some basic possibility to report up and down link power consumption of the DCH and the HSDPA with its respective Enhanced Up link. See, e.g., 3GPP TS 25.433 V7.3.0 2006-12), 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; UTRAN Iub interface Node B Application Part (NBAP) signaling, (Release 7), Section 8.2.9 and Section 9.1.21, which are incorporated herein by reference. Using such reports, a radio network controller (RNC) can distinguish between a situation wherein DCH has encountered a power overload situation and a situation wherein high power consumption is due to heavy HSDPA or Enhanced up link traffic. The 3GPP Technical Specifications have also introduced some basic possibility for reporting (to the radio network controller (RNC) from the radio base station) required power per priority class.
In the traditional way the 3GPP has looked at the role of the NodeB, the CRNC has been seen as the controlling node for the NodeB resources. This control is retrieved by providing CRNC with measurements on, or models of, the NodeB resources. Even before the introduction of high speed (HS) shared channels, this was already a problem, e.g., for controlling the NodeB hardware (HW) resources. The simple linear standardized model introduced by 3GPP (credit and consumption laws) cannot provide an accurate model of the available HW (both architecture dependent and NodeB algorithm dependent). Upon introduction of shared channels, it was the intention that the nodeB would allow those channels to use only the remaining resources, and therefore without strict resource control from CRNC (which would be too slow anyway). As HS becomes more and more an alternative for dedicated channels, the need for controlling the nodeB resources for both dedicated and shared channels in a central location (CRNC) becomes clearer.
A "NodeB resource model" was provided to the radio network controller in conjunction with a feature known as "Audit Response". The Audit Response provides information about the status of the NodeB to the RNC. The Audit Response includes a static NodeB resource model to the CRNC and is only intended to be reported when NodeB informs the CRNC about a change (e.g. license or hardware failure), which results in the CRNC requesting an audit from the NodeB. The Audit Response procedure is too slow and inaccurate to provide a proper congestion detection method. Moreover, as several generations of enhanced NodeB circuit boards are being produced and the technical evolution giving different resource consumption models, the present NodeB aggregate resource model becomes increasingly inaccurate.
The current approach of CRNC modeling the nodeB resources and making decisions is not a future-proof way. As mentioned, it will be too slow, inaccurate and not allow vendors to make optimal resource control decisions.
The standard has, until now, only provided some solutions for measuring the NodeB shared channel behavior. There is a required power measurement, allowing the CRNC to balance the DL power resource between dedicated (R99) and shared channels and a provided bitrate measurement. There is no provisioning for a similar power measurement on UL shared channels (i.e. the required headroom to guarantee the GBR scheduled services on E-DCH), nor is there a proper way of monitoring the situation of the non-GBR services mapped on shared channels in UL or DL. Also, as power is not the only limiting resource, there is information missing about the type of resources nodeB requires to satisfy the users (e.g. codes, HW).
A basic problem now exists in view, e.g., of the discrepancies in time perspective between the radio network controller (RNC) and the radio base station (RBS) as these nodes perform their above-summarized responsibilities. A basic problem is that the existing RBS-to-RNC reporting is not sufficient (e.g., not fast enough and/or accurate enough) to enable good resource handling and prioritization by the radio network controller. The basic problem is illustrated by the four following example perplexing scenarios.
First Scenario: If resources are to be reserved for the interactive/background traffic on HSDPA, the existing solution is not able to report when that reservation can not be fulfilled by the radio base station. This inability occurs because the current standard does not provide complete information in the current set of measurements. Summing up the 'required power per priority class' and the 'total non-HS power' and subtracting that from the 'total carrier power' (Pwr_used) respective 'maximum cell power capability' (Pwr_avail) will result in a Pwr_non_interactive estimate. This value will not give the required information, e.g., will not advise about the unhappiness of the non-guaranteed users mapped on HSDPA. First of all Pwr_non_interactive also includes the DL EUL power. Secondly, if Pwr_used is equal to Pwr_avail and Pwr_non_interactive is less than the reserved power level, then the radio network controller (RNC) can not know if the interactive/background traffic could utilize more resources, i.e. cannot know if the interactive/background traffic has so much more data in the buffers that it would really benefit from removing DCH or guaranteed traffic. That knowledge is only available in the RBS.
Second Scenario: The HSDPA channel generally utilizes two types of resource: channelization codes and power. When channelization code may be a limitation it is possible to increase the amount of power per code to increase the rates. Or if the power is limited, increasing the number of channelization codes employed may increase the rate. However, increasing the number of channelization codes is not always possible, because (more) channelization codes may not be available. Moreover, even if it were possible to increase the number of HS-PDSCH codes, in some situations such increase would not be beneficial if there is a limitation or lack of availability of HS-SCCH codes. With the existing solution it is not possible for the RNC to distinguish these situations, it can only receive reports of the used power or the required power per priority class. The RNC does not know when it should need to increase the number of codes to be able to solve the HSDPA overload situation. In other words, the RNC does not know what causes any unhappiness.
Third Scenario: The existing solution does not contemplate that resources could be reserved for the interactive/background traffic on EUL, and therefore the existing solution provides no mechanism for reporting when that reservation can not be fulfilled by the RBS. The current standard does not provided an indication of the required uplink power needed for scheduled GBR users on the E-DCH. Extracting the difference between total_received_power and the total_nonEUL_received power will not give required information. If the total_received_power is equal to the total_nonEUL_received_power it is not possible to know if there is any interactive E-DCH scheduled traffic that could have utilized more resources, i.e., if the interactive/background traffic has more data in the buffers so it would benefit from removing DCH or guaranteed traffic. That knowledge is only available in the radio base station.
Fourth Scenario: In accordance with the existing solution the radio network controller (RNC) does not have appropriate information from the radio base station for the radio network controller (RNC) to know which service/user is suffering, e.g., which service/user cannot have its quality of service (QoS) requirements fulfilled. Therefore the radio network controller (RNC) will never be able to take an intelligent decision of balancing the load between the DCH and the E-DCH traffic. For example, it may be to no avail to remove from the system a user on DCH with low priority who is suffering unfulfilled quality of service (QoS). But if it is a high priority E-DCH user who is having QoS problem, and there also exists a lower priority DCH user, then the RNC should remove the DCH user instead.
What is need therefore, and an object of the present invention, are one or more of apparatus, methods, techniques, and/or systems for improving the resource estimation and reporting from the radio base station to the radio network controller (RNC) to enable accurate and efficient resource control for a high speed packet access channel(s).

Congestion/load indication for high speed packet access