Derivations of new PHY layer diagnostics primitives are based on the normalized error samples collected through G.993.5. The processing uses the ERB and L2 Ethernet packet encapsulation of these ERB data in order to abstract the processing from the PHY layer device dependency, as well as to allow a local and remote processing of the primitives for diagnostics purposes.

New monitoring diagnostics are desirable in a G.993.5 (G.vector) environment, given the increase of rates after self-induced far-end cross talk (self-FEXT) cancellation and the increased susceptibility of the downstream receiver to changing noise and crosstalk conditions, given the higher downstream rates achievable. For example, currently only average per bin estimates of the SNR is available per the G.997.1 (G.ploam) standard for report to diagnostics and monitoring SW modules, limiting the ability of those diagnostic tools to detect and interpret the nature and changes in noise environment.
Furthermore, the SNR per bin primitives derived is the result of an average process which is only valid with the assumption of certain noise characteristics, such as Gaussian and stationary characteristics. Finally, the SNR average process is proprietary and is basically equivalent to a filtering process, which in essence will filter out certain non-ideal characteristics of the noise source.
Accordingly, a need exists for deriving new primitives that allow finer analysis of the nature and changes of the noise sources. These primitives should ideally be derived on a standardized input, enabling diagnostics that are independent of any proprietary implementation as is required today, and that can also be carried out locally on the CPE transceiver or elsewhere remotely.

Diagnostics primitives on L2/ERB normalized error samples


Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for performing a cloud-based authentication of a mesh point are described. A mesh point can send out a probe request that includes information indicating that the mesh point has entered a cloud-based porting mode. Upon receiving the probe request, the mesh portal sends an authentication request to a cloud system. The cloud system returns an authentication response indicating whether the mesh point has been authenticated. If successfully authenticated, the cloud system or a device forming part of the mesh deployment such as a virtual controller pushes the mesh configuration to the mesh point. In this manner, a mesh point can be configured with the correct mesh configuration without having to first push the mesh configuration to the mesh point at a common staging location and then physically move the mesh point to its serving location, as is the case in conventional mesh deployments.

Wireless mesh networks employ a local network topology in which infrastructure nodes (e.g., bridges, switches, routers, access points, etc.) connect directly, dynamically, and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate with one another to route data through the network. In a traditional mesh network deployment, mesh points such as access points are brought to a staging location and connected to the same wired network in order to form a swarm that allows for the mesh point configuration to be synced among the mesh points. Once the configurations are synced, the mesh points are disconnected from the wired network and moved from the staging location to their various serving locations.
The figures are not exhaustive and do not limit the present disclosure to the precise form disclosed.

Mesh configuration porting in a cloud-based mesh deployment

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP


A loop system capable of auto-calibrating an oscillating frequency range includes a frequency error detector, a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), a voltage input unit, and a switch. The frequency error detector includes a rotational frequency detector, a state machine, and an up-down counter. The rotational frequency detector is used for comparing the reference frequency and the feedback frequency. The state machine is used for determining an auto-calibration state. The up-down counter is used for generating the second control signal or the coarse-lock-state signal. The VCO is used for selecting to operate at one of a plurality of frequency operating curves so as to generate an oscillating signal. The voltage input unit is used for providing a fixed voltage to the VCO. The switch is used for switching the VCO to couple to the voltage input unit or to couple to a fine frequency tuner.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a loop system for a voltage-controlled oscillator and related method, and more particularly, to a loop system having a plurality of frequency operating curves capable of auto-calibrating an oscillating frequency range and related method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an electronic device, clock signal synthesis and system synchronization are critical issues influencing accuracy of signal processing. For example, in a mixed signal system, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter demands a low-jitter clock signal for sampling signals. In a wireless communications system, such as a Bluetooth or Global system for mobile communications (GSM) system, a radio frequency (RF) circuit requires a frequency synthesizer to generate carrier signals so as to transmit a baseband signal in a higher frequency band. In general, the foregoing applications adopt a phase-locked loop circuit for a stable and precise clock signal.
A phase-locked loop locks a phase difference between a periodic output signal and a periodic input signal through a feedback mechanism so as to stabilize a clock signal. Please refer to FIG. 1, which depicts a schematic diagram of a phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit 100 according to the prior art. The PLL circuit 100 includes a reference divider 102, a phase/frequency detector (PFD) 104, a charge pump 106, a loop filter 108, a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) 110 and a feedback divider 112. As can be seen from FIG. 1, the reference divider 102 divides a frequency of an input signal FIN to obtain a reference signal FREF. The PFD 104 is responsible for comparing a phase of the reference signal FREF with that of a feedback signal FFB to generate an error signal. When the reference signal FREF leads the feedback signal FFB in phase, the error signal is an up signal; when the reference signal FREF lags the feedback signal FFB in phase, the error signal is a down signal. A pulse width of the error signal indicates a phase difference between the reference signal FREF and the feedback signal FFB. According to the error signal, the charge pump 106 generates a specific electric charge for adjustment of the loop filter 108. When the error signal is outputted as the up signal, the charge pump 106 adds the electric charge to the loop filter 108. On the contrary, when the error signal is outputted as the down signal, the charge pump 106 withdraws the electric charge from the loop filter 108. The loop filter 108 is commonly a simple RC circuit functioning as an integrator, and is used for storing electric charge from the charge pump 106. The VCO 110 generates a periodic output signal FOSC when an output voltage VC of the loop filter 108 is inputted to the VCO 110. The feedback divider 112 performs division on frequency of the output signal FOSC to generate the feedback signal FFB. Thus, a phase-locked loop L1 is established. In general, the VCO 110 outputs a higher frequency range than the input signal FIN does, so that frequency of the output signal FOSC is a mixed fraction or a multiple of frequency of the input signal FIN. Thus, by adjusting a dividing factor of the reference divider 102 and the feedback divider 112, the PFD 104 can operate in a lower frequency range, so that likelihood of phase-comparison errors in the PFD 104, such as dead zone, can be decreased.
As mentioned above, the PLL circuit 100 can adjust an operating frequency of the VCO 110 by comparing the phase of the reference signal FREF with that of the feedback signal FFB continuously. The VCO eventually locks at a resulting frequency, which is extremely close to or right on the target frequency, and the output signal FOSC is regarded as a clock signal. For example, in a GSM 900 system, the physical layer of the network system uses a frequency band centralized at 900 MHz, and bandwidth of every carrier is defined to be as wide as 200 KHz. When a transmitter needs to transmit signals in a higher frequency band, the PLL circuit 100 converts the reference signal FREF to a 200 KHz periodic signal by setting the dividing number of the reference divider 102. And, since 900M is 4500 times 200K, the dividing factor of the feedback divider 112 should be set to 4500. The PLL circuit 100 continuously compares the phase of the reference signal FREF with the phase of the feedback signal FFB. The feedback signal FFB is persistently adjusted by the VCO 110 to increase its frequency to 900 MHz so that the baseband signal is up-converted to the high frequency band.
Generally, the VCO 110 shown in FIG. 1 is designed for applications operating in a large operating frequency range such as a commonly used range from 40 kHz to 400 MHz. However, the larger operating frequency range a frequency operating curve of the VCO 110 covers, the more noise will be generated in the PLL circuit 100. In order to reduce noise in the PLL circuit 100, a gain of the VCO 110 is required to be sufficiently small. That is to say, a slope of the frequency operating curve of the VCO 110 should be gentle. Thus, to achieve both a large operating frequency range and low-noise operation, the VCO 110 is usually designed to have a plurality of operating curves having gentle slopes. Each of the operating curves is a function of input voltages, as shown in FIG. 2. Based on a variety of applications, the PLL circuit 100 has to use different operating frequency ranges, so a specific frequency operating curve is selected for the VCO 110 to operate. Ideally, the VCO 110 designed in the same architecture should have the same central frequency and the same curve slopes in their frequency operating curves. As a result, each PLL 100 just chooses the same, fixed frequency range for the VCO 110 for a specific application. However, in practice, the characteristics (range coverage) of frequency operating curves may vary from VCO 110 to VCO 110 due to potential variations in fabrication of the VCO. For example, the frequency operating curves shown in the FIG. 2 may jointly be shifted up, down, left or right from VCO 110 to VCO 110. Moreover, the frequency operating curves may even have different slopes. As a result, for some applications, the VCO 110 of the PLL 100 needs a control signal to select a frequency range appropriate for the desired output frequency.
Conventionally, every VCO 110 is tested in the factory to characterize the frequency ranges and to predetermine which control signal matches the desired output frequency. As for a specific application for use with the VCO 110, appropriate control settings are permanently burned into the VCO device by blowing fuse links or hard-wiring. Therefore, in the prior art, the factory testing process and hard-wiring of the VCO 110 increase the cost of manufacturing the PLL. The frequency range of the prior art PLL is also limited to a permanently predetermined frequency range.

Loop system capable of auto-calibrating oscillating frequency range and related method


Trim moldings such as crown molding, chair rail molding, base molding and door casing for a building. The trim moldings are made of substantially acrylic or polyester rigid thermoset polymer components. The trim moldings may be manufactured to realistically visually simulate moldings made of natural stone. A method of manufacture of the moldings may utilizes bulk slabs or blocks of rigid thermoset polymer based materials which are then properly shaped for use as a building trim molding with mechanical material removal methods such as sawing, cutting, sanding, and polishing to achieve the desired size, shape and appearance of molding. The thermoset polymer based moldings are structured with grooves in the backside, with the grooves sized and positioned to snap onto spring biased members of mounting fixtures attached to the building for a removable attachment of the moldings.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to decorative and functional trim moldings for buildings. The invention includes the use of rigid thermoset polymer based material and a method of manufacture to shape the moldings. The invention additionally includes a snap-attach method of affixing the moldings to a building.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Materials utilized in the past to form building trim moldings include wood, marble and other stone, plastics, and metal, all of which have various disadvantages. Wood may warp or split, and may need refinishing on a regular basis. Furthermore, the finished appearance of wood is somewhat limited in that multiple color patterns which realistically simulate desirable stone or marble patterns are difficult if not impossible.
Some thermoplastics used to form moldings are U.V. light sensitive and tend to fade in color, while others give off toxic fumes when burned, which could prove a health hazard during a building fire. Also, like wood, the finished appearance of thermoplastic is somewhat limited in that multiple color patterns which realistically simulate desirable stone or marble patterns are difficult if not impossible whether injection or extrusion molding is used as the method of shaping the thermoplastic into a molding. An example of a molding manufactured of extruded plastic which includes plastic injection molded accessories is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,707,061 issued to H. J. Collette et al on Dec. 26, 1972. The Collette et al molding is attachable to a building by way of spring biased brackets and cooperative structuring on the backside of the molding which snaps into the brackets.
I have also seen moldings for sale in the market which appear to be manufactured of foamed extruded plastic. These moldings have a porus or open cell structure in the interior, and a closed or "skinned" outer surface, which would be typical of a foamed product which was extruded through a shaping die while the material was still soft. These foamed extruded plastic moldings all appear to be coated with an outer finish such as paint, or more commonly a wrapping of paper or vinyl printed to appear as wood.
One problem associated with coated or wrapped moldings such as covered wood, or cover plastic moldings lies in that if the coating or wrapping is scratched, nicked or otherwise damaged, the substrate shows through, and is typically fairly unsightly, being a different color than the coating material. Furthermore, if the coating is paint, sometimes the paint adjacent the damaged area has faded with age, and the entire molding may need to be repainted. If a paper or vinyl wrapped molding is damaged in a spot, I am not aware of any suitable method of repairing the damage short of replacing the entire molding strip.
Moldings made of metal can dent quite easily if made of thin sheet metal, which is typically the case, and the dents are relatively difficult to remove. Additionally, a bare or brushed metal finish is also not considered very aesthetically pleasing in residences, having a rather industrial appearance. If the metal moldings are painted, typically a scratched or otherwise damaged area shows the substrate of a different color. Metal moldings, like wood moldings are somewhat limited in appearance, in that multiple color patterns which realistically simulate stone or marble patterns are difficult if not impossible. An example of a trim molding made of metal is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,107,759 issued to R. L. Day et al on Oct. 22, 1963. The Day et al patent shows snap-on attachable metal moldings for use around a door.
Although marble, granite, and other stone products are desirable for reasons such as durability and the availability of a wide variety of colors and color patterns which generally never need refinishing, natural stone products are very often cost prohibitive for those who would otherwise utilizes building materials made of stone. Another drawback of stone in some applications is that it is quite heavy, often requiring a rather substantial and costly support structure for secure installation.
A further disadvantage of the aforementioned types of materials from which moldings have been manufactured, is that it is difficult to predictably guarantee coordination of the texture, and more importantly the color with other structures such as wainscoting or countertops when these structures are made of a different material. It is fairly widely accepted that the best way to color match two items, is to either make both items of the same material and color mix, or to coat both items with the same material and color of outer covering. Furthermore, it is generally accepted the best way to coordinate or match texture between two or more items is to manufacture the items out of the same materials.
In many situations, the ability to precisely match texture and or color is seen to be very important by many interior decorators for aesthetic reasons. A current trend in the designing of kitchens, bathrooms, hallways, and offices of both residences and commercial buildings has resulted in the widening use of non-foamed, non-laminated polymer based thermoset materials for countertops and wainscoting. These rigid, solid, polymer based thermoset materials are often referred to by the general public as cultured marble, and by the related manufacturing industry as "solid surface products", or "solid surfacing materials". These synthetic polymer based solid surfacing materials are manufactured substantially of thermosetting polyester or acrylic resins depending on the manufacturer, and usually contain small percentages of other components both natural and synthetic to form desired color, pattern designs, and other desirable physical and visual characteristics in the plastic.
Polymer based solid surfacing materials are available from several U.S. manufacturers such as E. I. duPont de Nemours & Co., Inc. of Wilmington, Del. 19898 U.S.A., who market their polymer based solid surfacing products under the trademark of "Corian". "Corian" is a trademark of Du Pont which refers to their solid surfacing polymer based material. "Corian" is a substantially rigid, non-foamed, non-laminated or coated solid surfacing material homogeneously composed primarily of thermoset acrylic components. "Corian" is considered to be a "thermoset" acrylic product, however, unlike most other thermoset polymer based solid surfacing materials, "Corian" does possess the quality of being thermoformable to a degree, a quality typically reserved to thermoplastics rather than thermoset plastic.
Another manufacturer of polymer based solid surfacing materials is the Nevamar Corporation located at 8339 Telegraph Rd., Odenton, Md. 21113 U.S.A. The Nevamar Corporation markets their solid surfacing material under the trademark of "Fountainhead". "Fountainhead" is a substantially rigid, non-foamed, non-laminated or coated solid surfacing material homogeneously composed of a thermoset polymer alloy comprised mostly of polyester components having therein a small percentage of acrylic components.
Another manufacturer of polymer based solid surfacing materials is the Formica Corporation, located at 155-T Rte. 46, W., CN-980, Wayne, N.J. 07470 U.S.A. The Formica Corporation sells their solid surfacing material under the trademark name of "Surell". "Surell", like "Corian" and "Fountainhead", is a dense thermoset plastic. "Surell" is a substantially rigid, non-foamed, non-laminated or coated solid surfacing material homogeneously composed substantially of polyester components.
Du Pont, the Nevamar Corporation, and the Formica Corporation, and several other companies not specifically mentioned, who produce very similar polymer solid surfacing products, manufacture and sell polymer based solid surfacing materials in sheet form useful for walling or countertops, and preformed shapes made of the same polymer based materials useful as kitchen and bathroom lavatories. The polymer based sheets are typically available in 1/4" through 3/4" thicknesses, and can be cut to size or otherwise shaped with available mechanical material removal methods using sawing and shaping tools such as router bits, power saws and shapers, and the like.
Some of the recognized advantages of using polymer based solid surfacing materials such as "Corian", "Fountainhead" or "Surell" over other available materials such as wood, metal, and polymer based laminates for countertops and walling, lies in the fact that the material is a solid, polymeric non-laminated structure which the color or decorative patterns extend completely therethrough. Furthermore, solid polymer based materials have a high tensile strength, are quite hard and dense, and are highly resistant to chipping, cracking, warping, burning, staining, and do not give off toxic fumes in a fire, all of which cannot be said about many other materials which could be used as substitutes therefore. If polymer based solid surfacing material does become stained, burned or scratched so deeply that the damage cannot be removed with a common household abrasive cleanser, the damage can be readily removed by light sanding with steel wool or fine sand paper, this due to the fact that the material is solid, and the color or visual patterns extends completely therethrough.
Other attractive qualities associated with polymer based solid surfacing materials such as "Corian", "Surell" or "Fountainhead" include ease of boring holes therein without the splitting often associated with wood, ease of adhesive bonding with available glues and color matched sealants, ease of shaping without chipping and splintering, and ease of cleaning.
Additionally, thermoset polymer based solid surfacing materials such as "Corian", "Surell" or "Fountainhead" may be manufactured at a much lower price to very closely physically feel and visually realistically simulate marble, granite, and other natural stone products which have long been used as building materials due to recognition of the durability and beauty of such natural substances. Furthermore, thermoset polymer based solid surfacing materials are significantly more "workable" as opposed to shaping and cutting stone.

Architectural moldings of rigid thermoset polymer based material


A dental abutment, or a dental implant having an integrated abutment, in which the occlusal part of the abutment to which the dental prosthesis is to be cemented features a shoulder having a reverse margin. At the point where the shoulder meets the outer profile of the gingival part of the abutment, the shoulder is at an acute angle with respect to the longitudinal center axis of the abutment, thereby causing any cement ejected during mounting of the prosthesis to be ejected in a direction away from the gingiva.

Crowns and other dental prostheses are often attached to teeth or implants in the mouth by way of dental cement, i.e. a dental luting agent. A dental implant system for retaining a dental prosthesis typically has a threaded shaft for connection to the bone and an occlusal projection onto which the dental prostheses is to be cemented. This occlusal projection may be termed an abutment. In some cases, the occlusal part of the implant (the abutment) and the sub-gingival portion of dental implant that attaches to the jaw (upper or lower) are a unified piece. In some other cases, the dental implant system has two-parts: a dental implant to be secured to the jaw and an abutment to be later secured to the dental implant.
The prosthesis is cemented with a luting agent/dental cement to the abutment, whether it is an intermediary piece of a two-part implant system or whether it is part of a unified dental implant. The typical dental abutment or integrated implant system has an occlusal portion with a sloped shoulder. The dental prosthesis is seated on the occlusal portion and abuts the sloped shoulder in close alignment. During attachment, cement between the dental prosthesis and the occlusal portion is compressed and extruded through the interface between the prosthesis and the sloped shoulder. The extrusion may cause cement to be injected below the gingiva, which may lead to irritation and inflammation and even loss of the dental implant.
It would be advantageous to provide for dental implants, abutments and prostheses that reduce the injection of luting agent/cement below the gingiva.
Similar reference numerals may have been used in different figures to denote similar components.

Dental prostheses cemented onto implants and/or abutments having a reverse margin

CSD Connection Systems for Dentistry Inc.


Methods, systems, and devices are described for service discovery and connection establishment of a point-to-point (e.g., device-to-device) wireless communication. Wireless devices may initiate point-to-point communication utilizing ultrasonic signals. A user may initiate a scan for one device to detect, select, and establish a connection with another device, where the scan utilizes an ultrasonic signal. Once connected, the device may create a profile with one anther and/or wirelessly communicate with one another to, for example, exchange data.

The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to point-to-point wireless communication between two or more devices. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems (or networks) may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, point-to-point or point-to-multipoint wireless communication involves two or more devices transmitting and/or receiving signals to and from one another without utilizing an intermediary wireless device. Point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication may involve initial service discovery and provisioning (e.g., credential authentication) phases. In some cases, an initial discovery phase involves devices alternating between scanning or broadcasting a signal and anticipating a signal transmitted from another device (anticipating a signal is sometimes referred to as "listening" for a signal). This may result in extended connection initiation times because two devices may simultaneously listen for signals, and thus neither device may send a signal. Or, the reverse may be true: two devices may simultaneously be sending signals and neither device is listening. In some cases, a provisioning phase may include a user entering a code or identification, which may also increase connection initiation times and complicate the connection setting process for the average user. Wired discovery and provisioning may be implemented to avoid lengthy initiation times; but relying on wires tends to contravene the benefits of wireless communication.
Alternatively, technologies such as Near-Field Communication (NFC) may be used to indicate availability of a nearby device needed to be connected. But not all equipment to which a user may want to connect utilizes an NFC radio controller. Furthermore, even where NFC controllers do exist, NFC requires close proximity between the two or more peers seeking to connect.
Typical discovery and provisioning procedures may be unsecure because devices may indiscriminately send signals that could be received by both intended and unintended devices. Additionally or alternatively, provisioning information may be inherently unsecure—e.g., credential authentication may include easily decipherable encryption, which may be received by unintended devices. It therefore may be desirable to more expeditiously and securely initiate point-to-point or point-to-multi-point communication.

Fast service discovery and pairing using ultrasonic communication


A lithographic pellicle comprises a pellicle film (1), a pellicle frame (3), and a PSA layer (4). The pellicle film (1) is stretched across and mounted to the pellicle frame (3) at its top end. The PSA layer (4) is disposed on the bottom end of the frame (3) and is capable of attaching the frame (3) to a substrate (5). An inner PSA layer (8) made of a curable composition comprising a perfluoro compound having a perfluoro structure backbone is disposed on the inner wall of the frame (3).

The current LSI design rule reaches a finer size of the order of sub-quarter micron. Accordingly the light source for exposure becomes of a shorter wavelength. More particularly, the light source experiences a transition from g-line (436 nm) and i-line (365 nm) of a mercury lamp, which was the mainstream in the art, to KrF excimer laser (248 nm), ArF excimer laser (193 nm) or any shorter one.
In the manufacture of semiconductor devices (e.g., LSIs and VLSIs) and LC display panels, patterns are formed by exposing semiconductor wafers or LC glass substrates to light. The exposure step typically uses lithographic masks and reticles, which are collectively referred to as "exposure original plates", hereinafter. Problems arise if debris deposits on the exposure original plate. Since the debris absorbs or deflects light, the transferred pattern may be deformed or provided with rough edges, and the underlying layer may be contaminated black. These adversely impact the size, quality, and appearance of the pattern.
Although lithographic operations are typically performed in a clean room, it is still difficult to always maintain the exposure original plate clean. It is then a common practice to mount a pellicle on the surface of the exposure original plate for dust-proof protection before exposure is carried out. Then foreign particles do not deposit directly on the surface of the exposure original plate, but on the pellicle. The foreign particles on the pellicle do not contribute to the image transfer as long as the focus of lithographic projection is at the pattern on the exposure original plate.
The pellicle is generally constructed of a pellicle frame and a transparent pellicle film. The pellicle film is stretched across and mounted to the frame at its top end, and the frame at its bottom end is attached to an exposure original plate via a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) layer. The pellicle film is formed of nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate, fluoropolymers and similar materials which are fully transmissive to exposure light, for example, g-line (436 nm) and i-line (365 nm) of a mercury lamp, KrF excimer laser (248 nm), and ArF excimer laser (193 nm). The pellicle film is mounted to the frame by applying a good solvent for the pellicle film to the top end of the pellicle frame, placing the pellicle film in contact with the top end, and air drying until a bond is formed, or by adhesively bonding the pellicle film to the top end of the frame using acrylic resin, epoxy resin or fluoro-resin base adhesives. Disposed on the bottom end of the pellicle frame is a PSA layer of polybutene resin, polyvinyl acetate resin, acrylic resin or silicone resin which is capable of attaching the frame to the exposure original plate. If necessary, a liner is attached to the PSA layer for the purpose of protecting the PSA layer.
On use of the pellicle, it is attached to the exposure original plate by forcing them under pressure with the PSA layer sandwiched therebetween, so that the pellicle may enclose the pattern region on the surface of the exposure original plate. The pellicle film, the pellicle frame and the exposure original plate define a closed pellicle space. Since the pellicle is provided for the purpose of preventing debris from depositing on the exposure original plate, the pattern region of the exposure original plate is isolated from the ambient atmosphere outside the pellicle so that dust in the ambient atmosphere may not deposit on the pattern surface. Since the pellicle is provided for the purpose of preventing foreign particles from depositing on the pattern of the exposure original plate, the surfaces of the pellicle defining the closed pellicle space, that is, the lower surface of the pellicle film and the inner wall surface of the pellicle frame must be kept free of foreign particles.
Typically foreign particles on the pellicle film can be detected having a size of down to about 0.3 μm. By contrast, on the inner wall surface of the pellicle frame, only foreign particles with a size of about 10 μm or larger can be detected. This means that even when a pellicle inspection detects no foreign particles on the frame inner wall, there can be present foreign particles with a size of less than 10 μm. Such foreign particles below the detectable level may fall on the exposure original plate during operation.
To avoid such spalling, the inner wall of the pellicle frame is provided with an inner PSA layer as disclosed in JP-A S61-241756. Even when foreign particles of undetectable size are present on the inner wall of the pellicle frame, the inner PSA layer on the inner wall of the pellicle frame holds the foreign particles adhered and prevents them from falling off the frame.


An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display is disclosed. In one aspect, the OLED display includes a lower substrate including a display area and a non-display area surrounding the display area, wherein a plurality of pixels are formed in the display area. The OLED display also includes an embedded circuit formed in the configured to apply a plurality of signals to the pixels, and an initialization wiring formed in the non-display area and configured to apply an initialization voltage to each of the pixels. The initialization circuit is formed in a layer so as to at least partially overlap with the area of the embedded circuit.

Field
The described technology generally relates to an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display and a method of manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Technology
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are widely viewed as next generation displays due to their favorable characteristics such as fast response speeds, self light-emitting characteristics that provide wide viewing angles, and high brightness in comparison to liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that are now commercially available.
The substrate of an OLED display can be divided into a display area, in which an image is displayed, and a non-display area, which is classified as a dead space because images are not displayed therein. Recently, since consumers prefer large screens and narrow bezels, research into reducing such dead space has been actively conducted.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display and method of manufacturing the same


A relevancy ranking and clustering method and system that determines the relevance of a document relative to a user's query using a similarity comparison process. Input queries are parsed into one or more query predicate structures using an ontological parser. The ontological parser parses a set of known documents to generate one or more document predicate structures. A comparison of each query predicate structure with each document predicate structure is performed to determine a matching degree, represented by a real number. A multilevel modifier strategy is implemented to assign different relevance values to the different parts of each predicate structure match to calculate the predicate structure's matching degree. The relevance of a document to a user's query is determined by calculating a similarity coefficient, based on the structures of each pair of query predicates and document predicates. Documents are autonomously clustered using a self-organizing neural network that provides a coordinate system that makes judgments in a non-subjective fashion.

As the volume of information available on the Internet increases, the need for methods to search, filter, and manage such information is increasing. Text categorization has become an important component in many information search and retrieval systems. Conventional search and retrieval systems commonly classified information into several predefined categories. For example, Yahoo!'s topic hierarchy provides a complex tree of directories to help users locate information on the Internet. In many search engine companies, trained text editors manually categorize information. Such manual classification of information is not only a very time-consuming and costly process, but is also plagued by inconsistencies and oversight problems. To overcome such problems, automated methods for categorizing text are becoming more common.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,948 to Turtle discloses an information retrieval system, which stems all input words (as well as removing stopwords), and matches the resulting queries against a table of known phrases in order to convert phrasal inputs into a standardized format. A Bayesian inference network ranks the results, where each document is associated with a set of probabilities for all of the words within the document. These probabilities are calculated with respect to a hierarchy of document-organization categories. Retrieval may be accomplished through two techniques, which can result in different rankings for the same collection of documents.
The first technique used by Turtle is document-based scanning, where each document is evaluated according to the probabilities of each of its attributes in order to determine the probability that it answers the query. After a sufficient number of documents are retrieved, while scanning continues through the collection, documents are only evaluated through a subset of their attributes. This means that after some critical number of documents is reached, documents which are unlikely to rank higher than the lowest-ranking document in the set are not added to the list of results.
The second technique involves so-called concept-based scanning, where all documents containing a query concept (including its synonyms as defined in a thesaurus) are evaluated according to the probability of the query attribute within the document. This means that only a few attributes are examined for each document, but they are the same for all documents. As with document-based scanning, documents are no longer added to the result set when a critical number is reached and the probability of a new document outranking any documents currently within the set is extremely low. The stopping criteria are not identical, and the interpretation of the same attribute probabilities may lead to different rankings for the same documents, even when matched by the same query. In both cases, scoring is calculated by averaging the probabilities for all of the attributes in the query (adding the individual probabilities, then dividing by the number of concepts).
Turtle's system is deficient in several respects. First, by scoring documents according to the relative occurrences of terms within the index, highly relevant documents with low-probability concepts may be missed. Second, periodic recalculation of attribute probabilities is a necessary performance penalty, if new documents will change the probability distribution of the attribute set. Third, the thesaurus-based approach treats synonyms as equally valuable terms in a query. This may expand the result set such that the stopping criteria described above end up filtering out documents containing the exact match in favor of documents containing a higher proportion of synonymous words. It is not clear that this is a desirable result from the standpoint of an end-user who is particularly interested in the exact word used for the query. Turtle's system does not take grammatical structure into account; in fact, it does not take adjacency information into account, since each document is treated as a "bag of words," with no preservation of order information.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,182 to Asija discloses a system for asking free-form, un-preprogrammed, narrative questions. The system of Asija accepts unstructured text from multiple sources and divides the text into logical information units. These logical information units may be sentences, paragraphs, or entire documents; each logical information unit is assigned a unique identification number, and is returned as a whole when it is selected for retrieval. The retrieval system of Asija uses standard keyword-based lookup techniques.
The procedure of Asija only applies to the logical information units, which are ranked as equally relevant at the end of a preceding stage. Both synonyms and searchonyms are considered as equivalent to query words found within the logical information units. The net effect of the ranking and filtering process of Asija is to order documents by maximizing the number of query words matched, followed by the number of instances of query words. Furthermore the Asija system does not take grammatical structure into account. In addition, synonyms are not exact matches for queries, and thus should be ranked lower. The Asija system also only makes use of literal text strings, as all synonyms must be specified by dictionary files that list text strings as equivalent.
A key feature of the present invention is the unique and novel method of representing text in the form of numerical vectors. The vectorization techniques of the present invention offer several advantages over other attempts to represent text in terms of numerical vectors. First, the numbers used are ontologically generated concept representations, with meaningful numerical relationships such that closely related concepts have numerically similar representations while more independent concepts have numerically dissimilar representations. Second, the concepts are represented in the numerical form as part of complete predicate structures, ontological units that form meaningful conceptual units, rather than simple independent words. Third, the vectorization method and system described herein provides a way to represent both large portions of long documents and brief queries with vector representations that have the same dimensionality. This permits rapid, efficient relevancy ranking and clustering by comparing the query vectors with substantial portions of documents, on the order of a page or more at a time, with no loss of accuracy or precision. Furthermore, it permits comparisons of large-scale patterns of concepts across entire documents rather than the small moving windows used in prior systems. These advantages provide the present method and system with unique performance and accuracy improvements over conventional systems.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and system of ranking and clustering for document indexing and retrieval

Science Applications International Corporation


An augmented reality system includes a video source, and a database. The video source resides at a location and produces an image. At least one encoded marker resides within the image. A marker detector is coupled to the video source and is adapted to derive encoded data from the marker residing within the image. A localization processor is adapted to receive data from the marker detector and to generate data regarding location and orientation of the marker. The localization processor retrieves information from the database that is related to the location and orientation of the marker. The localization processor makes the information retrieved from the database available to a user.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that enhances a person's view of the real world with virtual objects such as imagery and textual data. While a virtual reality system places the user in a totally synthetic computer generated environment, an AR system merges computer synthesized objects with the user's space in the real world. In an AR system computer generated graphics enhance the user's interaction with and perception of the real world. For example, in industrial operations different entries in a factory database may need to be accessed depending on the user's location within the factory environment. Real time operational data and maintenance information may be stored on a remote server that is accessible at the factory site. Ideally a user could access and view manuals and current operating parameters of various components and equipment as the user moved through the factory. Similarly, this type of information could be viewed remotely by engineers and technicians when maintenance is being performed by an automated device or in a training scenario. In a particularly large factory the user may also need to be guided to an area of interest. An example of the use of augmented reality in such environments is disclosed in CYLICON: A SOFTWARE PLATFORM FOR THE CREATION AND UPDATE OF VIRTUAL FACTORIES by Navab et al., Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, pp. 459-463, Barcelona, Spain 1999.
A typical augmented reality system includes a display device and a tracking device with associated software housed in a mobile or wearable computer such as the Sony Vaio Picture-Book and the Xybernaut MAIV wearable computer. Such computers can be either worn or hand held and connected to a computer network via wireless communication. The software monitors tracking device events in order to determine the present position of the display in the real world and to retrieve virtual objects for use by the viewer. In order for the display to present the correct virtual objects, the virtual objects and the real world need to be in registration or synchronized in some fashion. A virtual object should appear at its proper place in the real world so that the user can correctly determine spatial relationships. Registration of the computer generated graphics should be dynamically adjusted in response to changes in the user's real world perspective.
Registration implies that the geometry of the virtual camera which is retrieving the augmentation data is known with respect to the real world. To be effective the tracking device must provide extremely accurate data concerning the real world view in order to ensure seamless rendering of the virtual objects as they are superimposed over the real world view. In typical state of the art AR systems, a virtual object often appears to waver or drift as the user moves, and does not appear to rest at the same location as the user views that location from several different positions. These defects in registration are typically due to shortcomings of the tracking system.
Many tracking systems use magnetic trackers, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,262,711, entitled COMPUTERIZED INTERACTOR SYSTEMS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING SAME, issued to Cohen et al. Conventional magnetic trackers may be subject to large amounts of error and jitter and can exhibit errors on the order of ten centimeters, particularly in the presence of magnetic field disturbances such as metal and electrical equipment commonly found in factories. Carefully calibrating a magnetic system typically does not reduce position errors to less than two centimeters.
Other AR tracking systems use image recognition to track movement, and nearly perfect registration can be achieved under certain conditions. An example of an image or vision based system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,330,356, entitled DYNAMIC VISUAL REGISTRATION OF A 3-D OBJECT WITH A GRAPHICAL MODEL, issued to Sundareswaran et al. Under some conditions such image recognition systems can become unstable. Instability usually originates with software embedded assumptions, which may or may not be accurate, that are made about the working environment and the user's movement in order to reduce computation costs.
Numerous attempts have been made to solve the registration problem. U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,749, entitled HYBRID TRACKING FOR AUGMENTED REALITY USING BOTH CAMERA MOTION DETECTION AND LANDMARK TRACKING, issued to Hirota et al., discloses the use of a concentric landmark or marker for use in conjunction with image recognition. The landmark includes a first dot of a first color and a ring concentric to the first dot. The ring is of a second color which is different from the first color. Typically the diameter of the ring is about three times the diameter of the dot. The Hirota et al. device includes an image analyzer that first views an image in search of areas whose color matches the outer ring of a concentric landmark and the attempts to locate the inner colored dot within the identified area. The applicants of the present invention have found through experimentation that the color coding of markers often results in instability of the classification protocol due to frequently changing illumination, such as might occur when moving from place to place within a factory environment.
Hoff et al. at the Colorado School of Mines has also developed an observer pose determination system based on concentric circular markers. See Hoff, W. A.; Lyon, T. and Nguyen, K. "Computer Vision-Based Registration Techniques for Augmented Reality," Proc. of Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XV, vol. 2904, in Intelligent Systems and Advanced Manufacturing, SPIE, Boston, Mass., pp. 538-548 (1996). By processing a video image of the object with the markers in place the markers are isolated. Hoff et al. then uses an estimation algorithm to estimate the pose of the camera. These particular markers are cumbersome and require excessive computational resources.


A reflected fluorescence microscope is used to observe a fluorescent image of a stained specimen by reflected illumination, and includes a light source, an excitation filter for converting light from the light source into a plurality of narrow-band excitation lights, a dichroic mirror for reflecting the narrow-band excitation lights emerging from the excitation filter toward the specimen and transmitting therethrough the light emerging from the specimen, an absorption filter for absorbing an extra wavelength component from light emerging from the dichroic mirror and transmitting therethrough a wavelength component of the fluorescent image, an optical system for forming the fluorescent image of the specimen from the wavelength component transmitted through the absorption filter, and a transmission wavelength shifting filter for adjusting the ratio of the quantities of light in units of fluorochromes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reflected fluorescence microscope which is utilized to observe a living tissue or cell in the fields of medicine, biology, and the like, and which has an excitation filter and an absorption filter and, more particularly, to a reflected fluorescence microscope in which the excitation wavelength and the absorption wavelength can be adjusted.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, reflected fluorescence microscopes are widely used in medicine, biology, and other fields to detect a protein, a gene, and the like marked with a fluorescent label on a living tissue or cell.
In recent years, as various types of fluorochromes have been developed, the reflected fluorescence microscopes are used particularly to study the mutual positional relationship among specific substances and the localization of a specific substance in a cell by means of multiple stain using various types of materials as the fluorescent labels.
When specimens stained with various fluorescent materials are to be observed using a reflected fluorescence microscope of this type, a fluorescent filter set consisting of an excitation filter, a dichroic mirror, and an absorption filter is prepared for each specific fluorochrome, and an optimum combination of the excitation and absorption wavelength regions is obtained by selectively using the fluorescent filter sets, thereby observing the specific fluorochrome.
In this manner, the conventional reflected fluorescence microscope has fixed excitation and absorption wavelength regions for each fluorescent filter set. Therefore, in order to observe various types of specimens stained with fluorochromes with the optimum excitation and absorption wavelength regions, a considerably large number of fluorescent filter sets are needed. Then, the number of components is increased, leading to an increase in manufacturing costs.
When the mutual positional relationship among the multiple fluorochromes that stain the fluorescent specimen is to be studied, the respective fluorescent images of the fluorescent specimen must be recorded on a photograph or a video memory in multiple exposure. Therefore, the conventional reflected fluorescence microscope is not suitable for detection of fluorochromes having high discoloration speeds or detection of the mutual positional relationship among the fluorochromes by using time as a parameter.
When the fluorescent filter sets are selectively used, off-centering of the observation optical system occurs depending on the component precision of the dichroic mirror, the absorption filter, and the like, and an error occurs in the mutual positional relationship detected from the fluorescent image.


A data register file system is provided in a microprocessor having a pipelined execution unit that employs the data register file to store operands and results of its instruction executions. The data register file system includes a plurality of data registers, each of which stores one of the operands and results. A pointer table has a plurality of pointer registers, each storing an address of one of the data registers. A first address generation logic is coupled to the pointer table and the pipelined execution unit for generating a first set of pointer table addresses to access a first group of the pointer registers for the addresses of a first group of the data registers which are required by the execution of a first floating point instruction. The first address generation logic services the first floating point instruction A second address generation logic is coupled to the pointer table and the pipelined execution unit for generating a second set of pointer table addresses to access a second group of the pointer registers for the addresses of a second group of the data registers which are required by the execution of a second instruction. The second address generation logic is provided specifically to facilitate the issue and execution of the second floating point instruction in parallel with the first floating point instruction The second instruction is an exchange instruction that requires an exchange of contents stored in the second group of data registers. A circuit is coupled to the pointer table and the data registers for coupling the addresses of the first group of the data registers to the data registers for accessing the first group of the data registers. A read circuit is coupled to the pointer table for reading the addresses of the second group of the data registers. An exchange circuit is coupled to the read circuit for exchanging the addresses read from the second group of the pointer registers and writing the addresses exchanged back to the second group of the pointer registers. The second instruction is issued and executed in parallel with the first instruction. A method of executing the exchange instruction in parallel with other instructions in the data register file system is also described.

In a prior microprocessor that includes a floating point unit, data for floating point operations is typically stored in a physical data register file. The data register file includes a plurality of registers numbered consecutively. These registers are not addressed directly by instruction opcodes, but rather as a stack. When data is stored in such data register file, all data accesses by the floating point unit can be addressed with respect to the position of the data register in the stack relative to a given register called the stack top register. A top-of-stack (TOS) pointer is employed to point at the data register which is currently chosen as stack top. The TOS pointer is contained in a status word register of the floating point unit. All data operations are performed in connection with the TOS address. Each of the instructions to the data register file always has its first source operand implicitly in the stack top. The address to the second operand, if any, is specified as an offset or index off the stack top. In this way, the actual register address or number to the second operand has to be obtained by adding this offset or index to the register number of the register which is indicated as current stack top.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior data register file 12 that can be addressed as a stack. In FIG. 1, data register file 12 includes eight registers R.sub.0 through R.sub.7. Registers R.sub.0 -R.sub.7 are numbered consecutively (i.e., from 000-111) and are accessed by stack addressing. A TOS (i.e., top of stack) pointer 16 of a status word register provides a three-bit address for data registers R.sub.0 -R.sub.7, indicating which is currently stack top STO. TOS pointer 16 supplies its top of stack address to address generating logic 24.
In addition to the top of stack address from TOS pointer 16, address generating logic 24 also receives stack addresses from a stack address field 18. The stack address field 18 is used to provide logical stack addresses of instruction operands and destination for an instruction. Address generating logic 24 then combines the stack addresses of an instruction with the top of stack address to generate the actual register numbers to data register file 12 via line 20. The stack addresses are offsets or indexes off the top of stack address.
The instructions to data register file 12 each typically has its first source operand implicitly stored in the stack top register. The stack address to the second operand, if any, is specified as a three bit value or index off the stack top. In this way, the actual register number of the register that stores the second operand needs to be obtained by adding the index to the register number of the register which is indicated by the top of stack address as current stack top.
TOS pointer 16 is contained in a TOS update logic 30. TOS update logic 30 updates TOS pointer 16 with a new top of stack address, whenever necessary. TOS update logic 30 is controlled by a microcontrol stack field 26. Stack field 26 contained in some microcontrol vectors provides control directives to TOS update logic 30 for updating TOS pointer 16.
In the data register file as described above, the stack top ST0 is most heavily used. This is because a single operand instruction must operate upon the stack top ST0 and replaces it with a result. A two-operand instruction always uses the stack top ST0 for one of the two operands while the other operand is accessed with an offset added to the top of stack address. The result from the two-operand instruction is then written back to either the stack top ST0 or the other register. A load from memory instruction loads an operand from memory into the stack top ST0. A store to memory instruction reads an operand from the stack top ST0. An FXCH instruction exchanges the content of the stack top register with the content stored in a second register. Therefore, the stack top ST0 is used the most frequently.
Thus, for the prior microprocessor having the prior data register file, a source operand must typically be brought to the stack top ST0 before an instruction can operate upon it. In many cases, this requires an FXCH instruction to bring the desired data to the stack top. The addition of the FXCH instruction directly impacts the efficiency and throughput of the prior microprocessor.
In addition, the execution of the FXCH instruction in the prior art as shown in FIG. 1 is not efficient. The FXCH instruction exchanges the actual data. This typically requires the data to be available before the FXCH can be executed. If the data is unavailable, the FXCH instruction is required to wait for the data to be available. Also, on the prior art, the FXCH instruction (and, in fact, all floating point instructions) is required to wait for all previous instructions to complete.
It is to be noted that the execution of the FXCH instruction in the prior microprocessor is accomplished by exchanging actual data. In this case, an inefficiency will be incurred due to the fact that the FXCH instruction is required to stall until both operands are available. This inefficiency arises regardless of whether the execution hardware is pipelined.
For example, let us examine an FADD instruction that adds the top two operands in the stack and, after the add operation, another FADD instruction needs to be executed. The instruction stream generated to accomplish this task may look like the following:
______________________________________ FADD ST0, ST1 FXCH ST0, ST2 FADD ST0, ST3 ______________________________________
in which the first FADD instruction adds the operands in the ST0 and ST1 registers together and stores the result back to the stack top ST0. The second FXCH instruction then exchanges the operand in the stack top ST0 with the operand in the ST2 register. The third FADD instruction then adds the operands in the stack top ST0 and ST3 register together and stores the result back to the ST0.
As can be seen from FIG. 2, the FADD and the FXCH instructions cannot be overlapped in execution. The FADD instruction begins its execution during clock 1 and finishes execution and returns its result to the stack top ST0 during clock 5. It is not until after clock 5 that the result of the FADD instruction is available in the stack top ST0. Since the stack top ST0 does not have the result until after clock 5, the FXCH exchange instruction cannot be executed until the stack top ST0 receives a value. In this case, the FXCH instruction cannot begin execution at clock 2 as is necessary in a prior pipelined microprocessor. The FXCH instruction, in this case, must wait until clock 6 at which time the stack top ST0 has the result of the preceding FADD instruction. Stalling the FXCH instruction dramatically decreases instruction throughput of the prior pipelined microprocessor. As a matter of fact, the advantages of pipelining the instruction executions are lost in the prior pipelined microprocessor in situations such as described above where a subsequent instruction cannot begin execution until after a prior instruction has completed execution and has released the top of stack register. Note that the throughput in this case is adversely affected not by true data dependencies, but rather by artificial dependencies created by re-use of the same stack top register.

Method and apparauts for parallel exchange operation in a pipelined processor


A synchronous electrical machine having a plurality of phases, a detecting unit arranged to detect a fault in at least one of the phases of the synchronous electrical machine, an isolating unit arranged to isolate the at least one phase of the synchronous electrical machine with the fault, a phase shift unit arranged to produce a controlled phase shift between the voltage and the current within the remaining phases of the synchronous electrical machine to adjust the phase angle and magnitude of the second harmonic powers produced by the remaining phases of the synchronous electrical machine such that the vector sum of the second harmonic power vectors of the remaining phases of the synchronous electrical machine is zero.

In current aerospace applications electrical power is generated using traditional wound-field synchronous electrical machines. These synchronous electrical machines are coupled to a rotor of the gas turbine engine using a complex mechanical transmission system, for example a radial drive shaft from the gas turbine engine rotor and a gearbox. These synchronous electrical machines are mounted on the gas turbine engine in a position where they are readily accessible for maintenance and/or replacement if there is a fault with the synchronous electrical machine.
It is proposed to embed the synchronous electrical machine in the gas turbine engine, for example the rotor of the synchronous electrical machine is coupled to the rotor of the gas turbine engine. The advantage of the embedded synchronous electrical machine is that it allows the complex mechanical transmission system to be removed, or greatly simplified, providing significant operational and efficiency benefits. However, these embedded synchronous electrical machines are difficult to remove and replace if there is a fault/failure. EP0659234B1 discloses the use of coupled synchronous electrical machines and embedded synchronous electrical machines in gas turbine engines.
It is desirable to use the synchronous electrical machine to start the gas turbine engine, as well as to generate electricity, as this removes the reliance on an air starter and provides additional engine design benefits. A power electronic interface is provided with the synchronous electrical machine to enable the synchronous electrical machine to act as a motor rather than a generator. Electrical generator systems utilising power electronic converters enable very high power dense machine technologies, for example permanent magnet designs to be employed in the asynchronous electrical machine, which gives further size and weight benefits compared to traditional synchronous electrical machines.


In described embodiments, a Floating Tap, Feed Forward Equalizer (FT-FFE) achieves performance comparable to a full size, long FFE when equalizing wire line channels in, for example, SerDes receivers. A FT-FFE might be employed as a standalone datapath equalizer, or might be employed in conjunction with other equalization techniques.

In many data communication applications, serializer and de-serializer (SerDes) devices facilitate the transmission between two points of parallel data across a serial link. Data at one point is converted from parallel data to serial data and transmitted through a communications channel to the second point where it received and converted from serial data to parallel data.
At high data rates frequency-dependent signal loss from the communications channel (the signal path between the two end points of a serial link), as well as signal dispersion and distortion, can occur. Ideally, without noise, jitter, and other loss and dispersion effects, a data eye at the receiver will exhibit a relatively ideal shape. In practice, the shape of the data eye changes with noise, jitter, other loss and dispersion effects, and temperature and voltage variations. As such, the communications channel, whether wired, optical, or wireless, acts as a filter and might be modeled in the frequency domain with a transfer function. Correction for frequency dependent losses of the communications channel, and other forms of signal degradation, often requires signal equalization at a receiver of the signal.
Equalization through use of one or more equalizers compensates for the signal degradation to improve communication quality. Equalization may also be employed at the transmit side to pre-condition the signal. Equalization, a form of filtering, generally requires some estimate of the transfer function of the channel to set its filter parameters. However, in many cases, the specific frequency-dependent signal degradation characteristics of a communications channel are unknown, and often vary with time. In such cases, an equalizer with adaptive setting of parameters providing sufficient adjustable range might be employed to mitigate the signal degradation of the signal transmitted through the communications channel. Equalization might be through a front end equalizer, a feedback equalizer, or some combination of both. The shape of the data eye also changes due to equalization applied to input signal of the receiver. In some systems, equalization applied by a transmitter's equalizer further alters the shape of the eye from the ideal.
If a simple, analog front-end equalizer (AFE) is employed, the data eye operating margin improves. However, better performance might be achieved through use of a Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) in combination with an AFE. Classical DFE equalization optimizes for an ISI and opens up the vertical and horizontal data eye opening. DFE filters play an important role in SerDes communication channels. The DFE filtering is employed to cancel post-cursor inter symbol interference (ISI) in the equalized channel's pulse response. The output of a DFE filter is subtracted from an input signal; The DFE filter includes a number of taps, which number determines how well the post-cursor ISI might be cancelled. The longer the filter length (i.e., the more filter taps), the more ISI terms might be cancelled, but at the expense of increasing DFE filter length complexity and power consumption of a given implementation. Typically, the DFE coefficients are automatically adjusted with adaptive algorithms such as least mean square (LMS). In high speed applications the data path equalization components are most often implemented as analog, transistor level circuits and the adaptation is implemented as digital blocks.
An alternative approach implements only an ADC as an analog circuit, and all other processing of the received signal is implemented fully in the digital domain. Such DSP data path offers better reliability, testability and flexibility, but presents implementation challenges due to lower clock speeds available in digital designs, leading to a need for greater parallelization of the DSP processing.
One of the main equalization components, the DFE, is particularly difficult to parallelize due to its inherent feedback structure.
In a fully digital SerDes receiver the equalization data path is fully implemented as digital blocks and typically follows a Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) and an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) at the input. A typical digital data path comprises a Feed Forward Equalizer (FFE), a DFE and adaptation and calibration circuits. For a digital implementation, the clock frequencies available in the receive data path would be an order of magnitude, for example 8-16×, lower that in case of the analog datapath equalization. To maintain the data rate through the receiver, the receiver data path is parallelized by the same factor (8-16×). DFE implementations do not parallelize efficiently due to the need of an immediate feedback from the previous bit to the next bit of processed data. To address this architectural feature in parallel implementations of the DFE, an unrolling technique may be used, but this yields prohibitively large designs for practical applications, scaling exponentially with the number of tap coefficients. For 6-10 DFE taps needed, the size/power cost is prohibitive.
In order to avoid the huge size/power penalty of a large parallelized DFE, a Feed Forward Equalizer (FFE) might be used in place of a traditional DSP-implemented DFE, or in addition to a DFE with fewer taps, making the data path easier to parallelize and implement for very fast data rates. In order to cover all the significant ISI contributing positions in a given channel the delay line of the FFE might typically span several tens of signal samples (symbols) e.g., 40-50 samples). A parallel FFE implementation having several taps on such a long delay line is relatively complex, and has high power consumption.

Sparse and reconfigurable floating tap feed forward equalization


A method and apparatus for stripping electro-deposited metal sheets from a cathode blank. The blank has opposite faces, upstream and downstream ends. At least one sheet is provided on at least one blank face to define upstream and downstream edges. The apparatus comprises a stripping assembly for stripping the electro-deposited metal sheets from the cathode blank, a discharge assembly and a metal sheet out-feed assembly. The discharge assembly is positioned downstream of the stripping assembly and includes opposite guide rollers adapted to engage the metal sheet exiting the stripping assembly. The metal sheet out-feed assembly is positioned downstream the discharge assembly for receiving the metal sheet. When the metal sheet has been stripped from the cathode blank, the guide rollers controllably feed the metal sheet to the out-feed assembly. The method comprises stripping the metal sheets from the cathode and controllably discharging the stripped sheets to an out-feed assembly.

As is well known in the art, electro-winning refers to the technique of extracting a metal from its soluble salt by an electrolytic cell. It is used in recovery of zinc, cobalt, chromium, and manganese, and has recently been applied to copper when in the form of a silicate ore. For any specific metal, the salt in solution is subjected to electrolysis and is electro-deposited on a cathode starter plate. In particular, electro-winning techniques used to produce pure metallic copper from leach/solvent electrolytes consist of applying an electrical potential between inert lead alloy anodes and stainless steel or copper cathodes immersed in a CuSO4—H2SO4—H2O electrolyte. Copper metal is deposited at the cathode and oxygen gas released at the anode. Purity of the refined copper can be maximized by, amongst other factors, providing for straight cathodes fabricated from stainless steel arranged vertically in the electrolytic bath and positioned at uniform distances.
Similarly, electro-refining refers to a technique for purifying metals by electrolysis using an impure metal as anode from which the pure metal is dissolved and subsequently deposited at the cathode. In particular, when electro-refining copper, copper is dissolved from impure copper anodes into a CuSO4—H2SO4—H2O electrolyte. Pure copper without the anode impurities is plated onto the cathodes. Copper refined in this manner is of very high purity, typically with less than 20 ppm impurities plus oxygen which is controlled at about 0.025%.
When another metal, such as stainless steel, is used to fabricate the starter plate the refined metal deposited on the starter plate must be subsequently removed. In order to strip a starter plate covered with refined metal the prior art reveals systems where the plate is moved between a number of stations for washing, stripping, refinishing, etc. One problem with moving the plate is the weight of the deposited metal, which can be in excess of 300 kg., thereby requiring a robust and rugged structure for moving the plates.
Prior art systems include those using a linear conveyer, wherein the cathodes are conveyed, supported on a bottom edge, by a narrow pan-type conveyor, through multiple stripping stations. Other prior art systems, such as the one taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,410 include those based on a rotary, top driven carousel with cathode plates conveyed through multiple stripping stations by the carousel. The cathode plates are suspended by hanger bars from supports mounted to the carousel base. One drawback of these systems is that, once separated from the starter plates, the metal deposit plates drop at least their full length to be removed by a conveyor. Additionally, the high mass with great inertia of the structure requires a heavy duty drive unit with its associated high capital cost.
There thus remains a need for an improved method and apparatus to stripping electro-deposited sheets from permanent cathodes.

Method and apparatus for stripping electrodeposited metal sheets from permanent cathodes


A Fluid turbine flow meter, including a measurement chamber, a turbine body that is displaced axially, as a function of the fluid flow rates, between a high position and a low position in the measurement chamber and having a rotation axis, a centering bearing for the rotation axis in the measurement chamber that has a longitudinal body with a longitudinal passage supporting and passed through by the rotation axis, the rotation axis pivoting by being held axially in the measurement chamber, by a first axial end stop in the high position and by a second axial end stop in the low position, the centering bearing having, in the longitudinal passage, at least two cylindrical longitudinal support centering walls for the rotation axis.

A fluid turbine flow meter has a housing comprising a measurement chamber into which opens an inlet nozzle and an outlet nozzle, a turbine with blades and driven in rotation in the measurement chamber under the effect of the flow of fluid entering through the inlet nozzle and acting on the blades.
The fluid turbine flow meter also has a housing containing a counter for counting the number of revolutions of the turbine with which the latter is coupled, in the case of a dry counter, by a magnetic transmission, and, in the case of a flooded counter, by a mechanical transmission, and a transparent cover covering the counter.
The rotation axis of the turbine is displaced vertically between two axial end stops when the fluid flow rate exceeds a threshold value. The rotation axis of the turbine pivots on a first axial end stop for flow rates below the threshold value and on a second axial end stop for flow rates above the threshold value, which makes it possible to reduce the wear of the axial end stops and thus improve the performance levels of the meter throughout its life.
However, the use of these two axial end stops does not make it possible to reduce the friction on the centering bearing of the rotation axis in the measurement chamber.
There is a need to find a technical solution that makes it possible to reduce the friction of the rotation axis of the turbine on the centering bearing, particularly when the turbine is rotating at high speed, while ensuring that it is held by the axial end stops.

Fluid turbine flow meter with centering bearing


A lens apparatus is capable of adjusting only the inclination of an optical axis in a desired direction. A focus lens frame is movably supported by a first guide shaft and a second guide shaft. The first guide shaft is provided in a lens barrel with both end parts of the first guide shaft being fixed. A front end part of the second guide shaft is swingably supported, a rear end part thereof is fitted into a horizontal elongate hole, and the second guide shaft is movably supported only in a horizontal direction. The second guide shaft is inserted through a first elongate hole formed in a swinging frame, and when the swinging frame is swung, the second guide shaft is horizontally swung. Then, when the second guide shaft is horizontally swung, the focus lens frame is horizontally swung, whereby the horizontal inclination of the optical axis is adjusted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens apparatus, and more particularly, to a lens apparatus having a function of adjusting an optical axis.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known a lens apparatus which uses a linear actuator such as a voice coil motor (VCM) to drive a movable lens such as a focus lens and a zoom lens (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-102106).
In the lens apparatus which uses the linear actuator to drive the lens as described above, generally, a lens frame is slidably supported by a guide shaft provided parallel to an optical axis, and the lens is movably supported. Accordingly, if the guide shaft is not accurately incorporated, the optical axis of the lens is inclined, and desired optical performance cannot be obtained.
In view of the above, there have been proposed various lens apparatuses capable of adjusting the inclination of the optical axis by adjusting the inclination of the guide shaft.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-209647 proposes a configuration in which an eccentric cam part is formed in a guide shaft, and the eccentric cam part is inserted through a lens frame. According to this configuration, when the guide shaft is rotated, the eccentric cam part is eccentrically rotated. As a result, the lens frame through which the eccentric cam part is inserted moves in a direction orthogonal to an optical axis, so that the deviation of the optical axis is adjusted.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-227170 proposes a configuration in which one end of a guide shaft is fixed to a lens barrel, and another end thereof is eccentrically supported by a bearing member which is rotatably provided to the lens barrel. According to this configuration, when the bearing member is rotated, the another end of the guide shaft which is supported by the bearing member is eccentrically rotated. As a result, the guide shaft is swung so as to form a circular arc, so that the inclination of an optical axis is adjusted.


A including a selectively applied bone growth promoting agent is disclosed. The types of spinal fixation systems which may include a selectively applied bone growth promoting agent include systems comprised of rods, plates, screws, and hooks as well as other types of prostheses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to spinal fixation systems and in particular to spinal fixation systems including a selectively applied bone growth promoting agent.
2. Description of Related Art
Spinal fusion implants have been previously proposed and utilized in cervical thorastic, lumbar and sacral regions. Currently, these fixation systems are utilized to hold various segments of the spine together allowing for fusion to occur. These implant systems include plates, screws, rods, hooks and cables utilized for the anterior, posterior as well as lateral portions of the spine. All these systems utilize inert materials, mostly metal, to fix the bone and allow the natural process of healing to occur. None of these systems in use actually encourage the growth of bone to facilitate the fusion or healing. Furthermore, none of these systems utilize healing processes to heal to the actual implant by providing a re-bar effect and better fixation.
One type of spinal fusion implant, the threaded spinal implant (commonly referred to as a spinal screw), may include provisions for promoting bone growth through the cage. This type of prosthesis is disclosed in Michelson (U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,656), the entirety of which is incorporated by reference. The threaded spinal implant is inserted between two adjacent vertebrae and is incorporated into the fusion of the bone along this portion of the spine.
Brantigan (U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,757) discloses plugs, used as spinal fusion implants, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference. The plugs are rectangular with tapered front ends and tool receiving rear ends. Generally, the plugs may be used in a similar manner to the spinal screws of Michelson. As with the spinal screws, the plugs may be inserted between adjacent vertebrae. The plugs may include nubs that behave like teeth, countering any tendency for the plugs to slip between the vertebrae.
While the related art teaches various forms of spinal fusion implants, there are many shortcomings. Related art prostheses lack selectively applied bone growth promoting treatments. The prior art does not teach the selective application of the variety of known bone growth promoting treatments. There is therefore a need in the art for prostheses that incorporate selectively applied bone growth promoting treatments.

Spinal fixation with selectively applied bone growth promoting agent


A locating device to find all hidden utility outlets such as electrical boxes after a wall covering such as gypsum board has been placed there over. The apparatus in one embodiment includes a first body locatable within a junction box proximate a rear surface of a wall covering, said first body having a magnet located therein. A second body locatable proximate a front surface of the wall covering opposite the first body. The second body includes scribing points to mark an indent on the surface of the said wall covering. The apparatus further comprises an elongate member having proximate and distal ends and being pivotally mounted to the second body. The elongate member has a second magnet at the proximate end thereof wherein the distal end is alignable with an alignment indicator when the scribing points on the second body are aligned with the entry point for a cutting tool.

In the field of construction it is frequently necessary to install junction boxes for electrical outlets/light switches/power points and the like. Such junction boxes are frequently located within a wall and may be attached to a wall stud or to the rear surface of the finishing panel. In such construction where the wall is to be finished with a sheeting material such as gypsum board, it is necessary to cut a hole in the gypsum board so as that the interior of the junction box may be accessed so as to install light switches/power points and the like therein thereafter the junction box may be covered with a cover plate as are commonly known.
Present difficulties exist in determining the location of junction boxes and the like behind a sheet of gypsum board also in determining the correct entry point for the cutting tool. These difficulties are typically presented during construction when the gypsum board is installed over the top of the junction boxes and the like. Inaccurate measuring and marking of the junction boxes can result in the holes being cut too big or in the wrong position and not corresponding to the junction box location resulting in the loss of time and money.
Previous attempts to solve these difficulties have located a magnet within the junction box and have detected that magnet on the exterior surface of the wall. Such attempts however have not taken into account the affects of gravity and friction on the magnets causing inaccurate marking, an example of this would be as the thickness of the drywall increases the less accurate they would become. Examples of such may be shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,367,131 Horids and 4,384,396 Smolik. Previous attempts also have limitations in respect to the shape being cut relates to the template that is being used if you required numerous shapes and sizes as in various different outlets you would require numerous different templates, the present invention requires no templates once an entry point has been marked a cutting tool is entered at that point piercing through the wall covering then the junction box itself what ever the size or shape is used to guide the cutting tool.
Conventional methods of locating the necessary hole would be to measure the location of the junction box on the wall and then transfer the said measurement onto the gypsum board giving the corresponding hole location, another method would be to use a drywall square which again requires taking and transferring measurements and allowing for human error.


Provided are abrasive articles comprising a plurality of abrasive particles and a binder wherein the binder comprises a polymer formed by a reaction between a polyisocyanate and a polyoxirane, wherein the resulting binder is substantially free of urethane and urea linkages. Also provided is a method of making such an abrasive article.

Some forms of abrasive articles comprise a plurality of abrasive particles and a binder. Many different types of abrasive articles are available. Among these are: (1) coated abrasive articles, in which a binder make coat bonds the abrasive particles to a backing material (e.g., "sandpaper"); (2) lapping coated abrasive articles, in which the abrasive particles are dispersed in a binder to form an abrasive composite, which is bonded to a backing to form an abrasive article; (3) three-dimensional shaped composite abrasive articles, in which the abrasive particles are dispersed in a binder to form a plurality of abrasive composites, which are bonded to a backing to form an abrasive article; (4) bonded abrasive articles, in which the binder bonds the particles together to form a shaped mass, e.g., a grinding wheel or brush; and (5) nonwoven abrasive articles, in which the binder bonds the abrasive particles onto the fibers of a nonwoven fibrous substrate in either a make coat or dispersed format. The binder in the abrasive article is usually formed by curing a binder precursor. During the preparation of the abrasive article, the binder precursor is exposed to an energy source, which typically results in the polymerization or crosslinking of the polymer or resin to form a solid binder. The energy source can provide thermal energy, or radiation energy, e.g., electron beam, ultraviolet light, or visible light.


A cargo discharge railcar for comprising a generally rectangular base structure, a plurality of walls coupled to the base structure defining an enclosure for carrying cargo, a hopper portion coupled to the base structure, a discharge gate coupled to the hopper portion, a control system coupled to the discharge gate for opening and closing the discharge gate, a central processing unit for controlling the control system, and a global positioning system receiver electrically coupled to the central processing unit for receiving longitude and latitude data from a global positioning system transmitter orbiting the Earth. The discharge gate is adapted to be selectively opened and closed based in part upon the longitude and latitude of the cargo discharge railcar.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to ballast discharge equipment for use in depositing ballast material on a rail bed. In particular, the present invention relates to a computer controlled ballast discharge system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the late 1980""s, the Burlington Northern Railroad Company initiated the development of a new type of automated ballast railcar. These railcars are operated in unit train groups and have improved the efficiency of ballast unloading by allowing workers to unload a 54-car train with only two employees, and which allowed the ballast discharge operation to be conducted at generally walking speed. The trains could unload in approximately 6 to 9 hours of track time over a period of two days. The automated unit train concept improved the cycle time on the cars (which is the time period from load to reload) dramatically from about 20 days to less than 5 days. Furthermore, it allowed operations to be conducted with fewer employees, which is beneficial from a cost and safety standpoint. By 1997, the successor to the Burlington Northern Railroad Company, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (xe2x80x9cBNSFxe2x80x9d) was using automated ballast trains to improve efficiency. This allowed the retiring of old ballast cars from the fleet. There are two types of cars generally used by BNSF. One utilizes an electrical system in which the discharge gates are radio controlled, and the other utilizes a hydraulic system in which the discharge gates are hydraulically controlled. On cars with hydraulic gates, some of the gates may be radio controlled and some may be manually controlled with actuating handles on the side of the car.
Of course, it is always desirable to operate at higher rates and with fewer personnel. The present invention is directed to an improvement to the prior art automated ballast discharge railcars.
There is a need for an improved railroad ballast discharge system that utilizes global position systems (xe2x80x9cGPSxe2x80x9d).
It is one objective of the present invention to utilize GPS in combination with an automatic ballast discharge railcar in order to further improve ballast discharge operations by increasing the speed of operations, by reducing the number of personnel required, and by providing for relatively well controlled predictable depositions of ballast.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide an improved ballast discharge system which allows at least one controller and at least one GPS receiver to receive global position data from global position satellites, to read the global position data, to compare the global position data to global position information recorded in program memory, and to open and close discharge gates of a plurality of ballast railcars in a pre-programmed and pre-determined manner in order to deposit ballasts at pre-selected portions of the rail line and to not deposit ballast in other pre-selected portions of the rail line.

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co.


Pharmaceutical formulations in the form of inhalable dry powder comprising particles of a phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor as active ingredient are useful for the prevention and/or treatment of respiratory diseases, such as asthma and COPD.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dry powder formulations suitable for the inhalatory administration by means of a dry powder inhaler. The present invention also relates to processes for the preparation of such a formulation, and to the use of such a formulation for the prevention and/or treatment of an inflammatory or obstructive airways disease such as asthma and COPD.
2. Discussion of the Background
Airway obstruction characterizes a number of severe respiratory diseases including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Events leading to airway obstruction include edema of airway walls, increased mucous production and inflammation.
Drugs for treating respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD are currently administered through inhalation. One of the advantages of the inhalatory route over the systemic one is the possibility of delivering the drug directly at site of action, avoiding any systemic side-effects, thus providing a more rapid clinical response and a higher therapeutic ratio.
An important class of therapeutic agents which are under investigation in view of its anti-inflammatory effects for the treatment of inflammatory respiratory diseases is represented by the inhibitors of the phosphodiesterase enzymes (PDEs), in particular inhibitors of the phosphodiesterase type 4 (hereinafter referred to as PDE4).
Various compounds acting as PDE4 inhibitors have been disclosed. However, the usefulness of several PDE4 inhibitors of the first-generation such as rolipram and piclamilast has been limited because of their undesirable side effects such as nausea, gastric acid secretion and emesis due to their action on PDE4 in the central nervous system and due to the action on PDE4 in parietal cells in the gut.
The cause of said side effects has been widely investigated. It has been found that PDE4 exists in two distinct forms representing different conformations, that were designated as high affinity rolipram binding site or HPDE4, especially present in the central nervous system and in parietal cells, and low affinity rolipram binding site or LPDE4 (see Jacobitz, S et al., Mol. Pharmacol., 1996, 50, 891-899, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), which is found in the immune and inflammatory cells. While both forms appear to exhibit catalytic activity, they differ with respect to their sensitivity to inhibitors. In particular, compounds with higher affinity for LPDE4 appear less prone to induce side-effects such as nausea, emesis, and increased gastric secretion.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide selective inhibitors of the LPDE4 form, therapeutically effective upon administration by inhalation.
Compounds with selective LPDE4 inhibition activity are disclosed in WO 2009/018909, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Additional PDE4 inhibitors having high potency are an object of the co-pending International Patent Application No. PCT/EP2010/000676 (which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), wherein it has been surprisingly found that the presence of sulphonamido substituents on the benzoate residue markedly improves the potency and that the (−) enantiomers are more potent than the corresponding (+) enantiomers and racemates. Moreover, it has been found that they could act in a synergistic way in combination with long-acting β2-agonists.
Therefore these compounds may provide significant therapeutic benefit in the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD, when administered by inhalation.
Thus, there remains a need for formulations for delivering such compounds by inhalation.

Dry powder formulation comprising a phosphodiesterase inhibitor