A bolt-on replacement intake manifold has an asymmetrical plenum with a first end including an inlet, a closed terminal end, a concave top surface and a convex bottom surface; a flange; and a plurality of runners extending from the bottom surface of the plenum and terminating at the flange. The plenum defines an interior space in flow communication with the runners. The bottom surface of the plenum is wider than the top surface. The plenum initially widens from the inlet to the first runner and then begins to narrow from the first runner toward the last runner adjacent to the closed terminal end. The runners are tapered, curved, and vary in length. The intake manifold causes air to exit each of the plurality of runners at substantially the same angle. The manifold balances airflow across each runner and increases swirl inside the cylinders enhancing fuel economy, power output, and torque.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to components for internal combustion engines and more particularly to an intake manifold for use on high output engines including diesel engines found on semi-trailer trucks.
2. Description of Related Art
It is well established that power and torque output are of utmost importance in the field of semi-trailer and semi-tractor trailer truck engines. Certainly in many instances power and torque are maximized at the expense of fuel economy. However, with the onset of ever-increasing fuel costs, efficiency has been brought to the forefront of tractor-trailer technology. As many tractor-trailers have an average operational life expectancy exceeding ten (10) years, there is a definite need to find ways to increase the efficiency of existing engine designs. Indeed, newer and more efficient engine designs are always in the pipeline, but it is not always the most economical solution to swap out equipment or send otherwise reliable and durable tractor-trailer engines to end-of-life.
Diesel engines have long been known to provide greater torque and often better fuel efficiency than gasoline engines. Generally speaking, a diesel engine, also known as a compression-ignition engine, is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition and burn the fuel that has been injected into the combustion chamber. This contrasts with spark-ignition engines such as a gasoline engines that use a spark plug to ignite an air-fuel mixture. Ignition inside a diesel engine is achieved when one or more pistons reciprocating inside a cylinder physically compresses air introduced into the cylinder to the point where the air reaches a high enough temperature to ignite vaporized diesel gasoline injected into the cylinders. The vaporized fuel then combusts and drives the piston outward from the cylinder, supplying power to the crankshaft.
Generally speaking, the higher the compression ratio of the engine, i.e. the ratio between the volume of the cylinder at its largest capacity to the volume at its smallest capacity, the more efficient the engine. Because diesel engines do not have fuel in the cylinder before combustion is initiated, a large amount of air can be loaded in the cylinder without pre-ignition and therefore higher compression ratios can be achieved as compared to gasoline engines. As having more air in the cylinders allows more fuel to be burned at a more efficient rate, optimizing the volume of air in the cylinders is the key to unlocking a diesel engine's efficiency and power.
Many solutions for maximizing air flow into the cylinders have been used, such as superchargers and turbochargers (or combinations of the two) but there has not been much thought put into the actual air intake manifolds of the these engines. Traditional intake manifolds for diesel engines, particularly those used on tractor-trailer engines, such as the Volvo D13 motor, comprise a rudimentary "shoe box" design, shown in FIG. 1. These intake manifolds have a basic box-shaped plenum with an air inlet and an open bottom in flow communication with a cylinder head in which the cylinders and cylinder valves are seated. Typically the inlet of the intake manifold is in flow communication with an intercooler that receives compressed or "forced" air from a tuborcharger. Such a design is prone to significant flow and pressure losses and substantial variance in airflow and pressure from one cylinder to the next as inlet air tends to collect at the rear end of the plenum, causing more air to enter the cylinders at the rear leading to a leaner fuel/air ratio as compared to the cylinders toward the front of the plenum, which receive less air and therefore have a richer fuel/air ratio. An imbalance in airflow rates and in turn cylinder pressure causes an uneven distribution of power across the cylinders leading to decreased overall efficiency, power output, and fuel economy as the "richer" cylinders in effect pull the "leaner" cylinders around the crank shaft. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved bolt-on replacement intake manifold design, particularly useful for large diesel engines, that provides measurably increased efficiency and fuel economy by correcting the imbalance of air flow rates and pressure across the cylinders.
Several attempts have been made to design intake manifolds that increase power and output, however none are sufficiently engineered to overcome the existing problems with manifolds for large diesel engines.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,073,473 to Boyes describes a tunable intake manifold for directing a flow of air between a plenum and an internal combustion engine. The tunable intake manifold includes a manifold housing defining an interior. The manifold housing has a plurality of runner walls extending through the interior. The tunable intake manifold also includes a slider having a slider wall having an angled portion separated from a primary portion by a curved portion. The slider wall extends through the interior of the manifold housing. The slider wall cooperates with the runner wall to define a runner having a defined cross sectional area for transporting the flow of air therethrough. The slider is slidably engaged with the manifold housing for moving the slider wall relative to the runner wall to selectively change the defined cross sectional area of the runner, such that the volume of air passing therethrough changes with the movement of the slider. The angled portion of the slider travels parallel to the runner wall at a transmitting end of the runner.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,760 to Kallander describes an intake manifold comprising a first end, an opposing second end with an end wall, and at least a first internal wall, if the body of the air inlet manifold has a circular cross-section. Alternatively, the air inlet manifold body has a rectangular cross-section, with several internal walls. The air inlet manifold extends in a longitudinal direction from the first end to the second end. The air inlet manifold has an air inlet at the first end and at least one distribution chamber for air extending along the longitudinal direction and restricted by at least the first internal wall. The air inlet manifold also has at least one air pipe for each cylinder. The pipes are distributed along the longitudinal direction. The pipes or runners protrude perpendicularly from the manifold. For at least one of the pipes, a profile between the first line and the second line located proximate to the air inlet has different curvature than a profile between the first line and the second line located distant from the air inlet. The profiles may advantageously be in the form of curvatures and the first area is preferably greater than the second area. Preferably, the profile between the first line and the second line located proximate to the air inlet has a greater curvature than the profile between the first line and the second line located distant from the air inlet, and preferably the first area is greater than the second area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,532 to Shillington describes a manifold characterized by a plenum surrounded by runners that spiral around the plenum sidewall to the entrances to the engine cylinders. The circumferential extent of each runner exceeds 360 degrees about a longitudinal axis of the plenum.
Japanese Patent JP2003074357 to Mamisa describes an intake manifold having a plurality of intake branch passages for distributing intake air from an intake collecting part of an intake manifold to the respective cylinders. The branches or runners have bend portions bent toward the centers of the respective related cylinders, on an intake branch passage side of connection portions to intake ports on a the cylinder head. A bend portion connected to a cylinder more distant from an intake-introducing portion of the intake collecting part has a larger curvature. This manifold is designed for gasoline engines and provides two runners per valve in a complex configuration.
It is, therefore, to the effective resolution of the aforementioned problems and shortcomings of the prior art that the present invention is directed. However, in view of the intake manifolds in existence at the time of the present invention, it was not obvious to those persons of ordinary skill in the pertinent art as to how the identified needs could be fulfilled in an advantageous manner.


The length of the bearing surface in the movable portion which moves linearly is larger than the length of the bearing surface in the fixed portion by the stroke of the movement. With this configuration, the bearing surface on the side of the fixed portion always opposes the bearing surface on the side of the movable portion. An air supply source is connected to the fixed portion, and a plurality of air discharge openings through which air is injected are disposed in the bearing surface of the fixed portion to constitute an air bearing. Only the side of the movable portion where the fixed portion is inserted is open. A coil is disposed on the fixed portion and a magnet is disposed on the movable portion so that a linear motor is constituted, thus providing a linear driving device. Cables and the like for supplying compressed air or power are connected to the fixed portion, not to the movable portion, thus no external pressure is applied from the cable and the like, and highly accurate operation is achieved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air bearing structure and a linear driving device which is integrally formed with the air bearing structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In devices such as super precision processing devices which require positioning precision in nanometer order, an air bearing is used in order to eliminate friction during movement of the movable portions. Using the air bearing allows very high precision operations to be realized. However because the air is in the form of compressed liquid, the bearing rigidity deteriorates by one digit or more compared to that of the oil bearing or the rotor bearing.
In an air bearing, compressed air is supplied between bearing surface at the fixed portion side and the bearing surface at the movable portion side so that the movable part is supported by the pressure of this air. In the case of the air bearing in particular, in which the movable portion moves in a linear direction with respect to the fixed portion, the area of bearing surface on the side of the fixed portion, which opposes the bearing surface on the side of the movable portion, changes in accordance with the movement in the linear direction of the movable portion. As a result, if an air discharge opening such as a nozzle or the like is provided on the side of the fixed portion and air is supplied from the fixed portion side, the air from the air discharge opening that is formed in the area of the bearing surface on the side of the fixed portion which does not oppose the bearing surface on the side of the movable portion, is released into the atmosphere and the air pressure between the bearing surfaces is reduced. As a result in the prior art, in the case of the air bearing in which the movable portion moves in the linear direction with respect to the fixed portion, air supply is carried out from the movable portion side.
The prior art example of an air bearing in which air is supplied from the movable portion side and the movable portion moves linearly with respect to the fixed portion is described in the following using FIG. 2A to FIG. 2E.
As shown in FIG. 2B, the fixed portion 11 has a substantially square pillar shape, and the bottom surface thereof is fixed to the surface of the base 13, and extends upward from the surface of the base 13. All of the 4 surfaces of the fixed portion 11 have vertical grooves 11a, 11b, 11c and 11d which have a predetermined width, in the center portion in the width direction, from the bottom area of the fixed portion 11 to the top portion thereof. As a result, at the four corners of the four square pillars of the fixed portion 11, the portion excluding the vertical grooves 11a, 11b, 11c and 11d form protruding portions 11ab, 11bc, 11cd and 11da which protrude outward from the corners of the square pillar. In addition, an air bearing surface is formed at each of the 2 adjoining wall surfaces of the protruding portions 11ab, 11bc, 11cd and 11da.
Meanwhile, a magnet 16 comprising a linear motor is mounted at the bottom surface of one vertical groove 11a and another opposing vertical groove 11c of the fixed portion 11. Furthermore, a scale 18 which is a linear position detector is mounted on the bottom surface of another vertical groove 11d, respectively.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 2C, a through-hole with a substantially square cross-section through which the fixed portion 11 can be inserted is formed in the movable portion 12. On the two opposing wall surfaces from among the four wall surfaces inside the movable portion 12 which surround the through hole, vertical grooves 12a and 12c having a predetermined width are formed at the center portion thereof in the width direction to extend from the bottom of the movable portion 12 to the top thereof. A coil 15 constituting a linear motor is mounted on the bottom surface of the vertical grooves 12a and 12c so that the coil 15 opposes magnet 16 which is mounted on the fixed portion 11. Furthermore, a detection head 17 is mounted on one wall surface which does not have vertical groove formed inside the movable portion 12 so that the detection head 17 opposes the scale 18 mounted on the fixed portion 11.
Furthermore, at the four corners where a wall surfaces meets another wall surface inside the movable portion 12a, a plurality of air discharge openings 14 such as nozzles through which air is injected toward the inside are formed in the vertical direction.
Thus, as shown in FIG. 2D, the fixed portion 11 is inserted into the through-hole of the movable portion 12 so that the magnet 16 of the fixed portion 11 and the coil 15 of the movable portion 12 oppose each other and the scale 18 of the fixed portion 11 and the detection head 17 of the movable portion 12 oppose each other. In this state, each of the two adjacent surfaces in the projecting portions 11ab, 11bc, 11cd and 11da at the four corners of fixed portion 11 oppose the surface of the movable portion 12 on which the air discharge openings are provided, with the result that these opposing surfaces constitute air bearing surfaces F, thereby forming an air bearing.
As shown in FIG. 2E, the vertical length Hs of the air bearing surface on the side of the fixed portion 11, which corresponds to the vertical length of the fixed portion 11, is longer than the vertical length Hm of the air bearing surface on the side of the movable portion 12, which corresponds to the vertical length of the movable portion 12. As shown in FIG. 2A, the movable portion 12 is connected with an air supply tube for supplying air to the air discharge openings 14, a power line for supplying power to the coil 15, and a cable 19 for signal lines and the like to the detection head 17.
By supplying compressed air using the cable 19 and injecting air onto the air bearing surface F using the air discharge openings 14 of the movable portion 12, the movable portion 12 is supported through air between the movable portion 12 and the fixed portion 11 without coming into contact with the fixed portion 11. In addition, if power is supplied to the coil 15 via the cable 19 to drive the linear motor composed of the magnet 16 on the fixed portion 11 and the coil 15 on the movable portion 12, the movable portion 12 is guided by the air bearing surface F of the fixed portion 11, and thus driven vertically in FIG. 2A. The movement amount of the movable portion 12 with respect to the fixed portion 11 is detected by a linear position detector comprising the scale 18 on the fixed portion 11 and the detection head 17 on the movable portion 12.
As shown above, in the linear drive device using the air bearing of the prior art, because the air discharge openings 14 are provided on the side of the movable portion 12, the supply tube for supplying pressurized air must be connected to the movable portion 12. Furthermore, as described above, cables for a power line and a signal line are also connected to the movable portion.
However, as described above, because in the air bearing, the air is a compressed liquid, the rigidity of the bearing is low. As a result, in prior art, each of cables that are attached to the movable portion 12 is disposed such that curvature of the cable is large enough to prevent a load on the cables. However, the effect of the load due to the cables and the like that are attached to the movable portion can not be disregarded, as the air bearing is influenced in nanometer order. Furthermore, because the air bearing surface receives a larger force due to the compressed air, the effect on accuracy of the deformation on mechanical structure cannot be disregarded.

Air bearing structure and linear driving device using said air bearing structure


A multi stage high-altitude data acquisition system comprising a first stage manned lighter-than-air, engine propelled aircraft and a second stage air-buoyant vehicle of stratospheric altitude attaining capability statically sustainable aloft by a sufficient quantity of lighter-than-air gas contained within an expandable envelope balloon to carry the vehicle to a stratospheric float altitude and transportable from ground level to a tropospheric launching altitude by the first stage aircraft from which the air buoyant vehicle and its partially expanded gas containing envelope is releasable at the launching level while the first stage aircraft is established in a flight condition of substantially zero airspeed. The first stage aircraft preferably is a rigid type airship having a silo within an interior bay of the airship of dimensions and configurations as will retain within the airship the air-buoyant vehicle and its lifting gas envelope partially expanded to a volume displaced by the lifting gas at the lower troposphere launching altitude.

This invention relates to a method and a multi stage air-buoyant vehicle system (ABVS) for launching a surveillance platform that ascends into the upper air stratosphere region (above about 7 miles).
Stratospheric altitude platforms from which surveillance and sensor equipment of various types are supported for fulfilling missions such as upper air data acquisition, weather surveillance, outer space data acquisition, communication links, ballistic missile detection and tracking and defense system device actuation, etc. have long been in demand. Air breathing engine aircraft are altitude limited, rocket powered aircraft have limited endurance and satellites are expensive to launch and replace. Light weight balloon envelopes filled with a lighter-than-air gas, such as hydrogen or helium, are capable of ascending to stratospheric heights carrying moderate size payloads. In particular large volume, free balloons of very thin plastic material are relatively inexpensive, their launch time and positions are controllable, are capable of lifting equipment to stratospheric altitudes and have been successfully used at times for high altitude missions. However, high altitude balloons of light plastic fabric are extremely difficult to launch and have a poor record of successful ground launch operations due to their extreme sensitivity to even slight wind conditions. This is due to their very large size, the very light weight of the thin plastic of the envelopes at the top of which the small captive helium bubble is contained at the ground level launching site. The enormous side area of the "loose" envelope presents a large sail area that is easily affected by the lightest of wind gusts, particularly when the gusts come from different directions that is common in calm wind conditions, leading to tearing the thin plastic material so as to completely destroy the envelope at launch.

High altitude multi-stage data acquisition system and method of launching stratospheric altitude air-buoyant vehicles


Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for managing data consistency within a network of computer systems. The method includes, in a network, storing tables of level indicators and associated ownership entities in network systems, generating a data item in a first network system, associating the data item with one of the level indicators, and storing the level indicator with the generated data item.

The present invention relates to data processing by digital computer, and more particularly to managing data consistency.
In collaborative business processes, several different and separate computer based systems are typically involved, such as in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These systems communicate with each other using a network, thus forming a computer system landscape. Within such a system landscape data is exchanged between and replicated in the systems involved, and continual efforts are needed to maintain, for example, consistency of the data across each of the systems within the landscape.

Method and computer program product for managing data consistency


The present disclosure relates to a method of converting an audio signal in an intermediate signal format to a set of speaker feeds suitable for playback by an array of speakers. The audio signal in the intermediate signal format is obtainable from an input audio signal by means of a spatial panning function. The method comprises determining a discrete panning function for the array of speakers, determining a target panning function based on the discrete panning function, wherein determining the target panning function involves smoothing the discrete panning function, and determining a rendering operation for converting the audio signal in the intermediate signal format to the set of speaker feeds, based on the target panning function and the spatial panning function. The present disclosure further relates to a corresponding apparatus and a corresponding computer-readable storage medium.

An audio scene may be considered to be an aggregate of one or more component audio signals, each of which is incident at a listener from a respective direction of arrival. For example, some or all component audio signals may correspond to audio objects. For real-world audio scenes, there may be a large number of such component audio signals. Panning an audio signal representing such an audio scene to an array of speakers may impose considerable computational load on the rendering component (e.g., at a decoder) and may consume considerable resources, since panning needs to be performed for each component audio signal individually.
In order to reduce the computational load on the rendering component, the audio signal representing the audio scene may be first panned to an intermediate (e.g., spatial) signal format (intermediate audio format), such as a spatial audio format, that has a predetermined number of components (e.g., channels). Examples of such spatial audio formats include Ambisonics, Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA), and two-dimensional Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA2D). Panning to the intermediate signal format may be referred to as spatial panning. The audio signal in the intermediate signal format can then be rendered to the array of speakers using a rendering operation (i.e., a speaker panning operation).
By this approach, the computational load can be split between the spatial panning operation (e.g., at an encoder) from the audio signal representing the audio scene to the intermediate signal format and the rendering operation (e.g., at the decoder). Since the intermediate signal format has a predetermined (and limited) number of components, rendering to the array of speakers may be computationally inexpensive. On the other hand, the spatial panning from the audio signal representing the audio scene to the intermediate signal format may be perfomed offline, so that computational load is not an issue.
Since the intermediate signal format necessarily has limited spatial resolution (due to its limited number of components), a set of speaker panning functions (i.e., a rendering operation) for rendering the audio signal in the intermediate signal format to the array of speakers that would exactly reproduce direct panning from the audio signal representing the audio scene to the array of speakers does not exist in general, and there is no straightforward approach for determining the speaker panning functions (i.e., the rendering operation). Conventional approaches for determining the speaker panning functions (for a given intermediate signal format and a given speaker array) include heuristic approaches, for example. However, these known approaches suffer from audible artifacts that may result from ripple and/or undershoot of the determined speaker panning functions.
In other words, the creation of a rendering operation (e.g., spatial rendering operation) is a process that is made difficult by the requirement that the resulting speaker signals are intended for a human listener, and hence the quality of the resulting spatial rendering is determined by subjective factors.
Conventional numerical optimization methods are capable of determining the coefficients of a rendering matrix that will provide a high-quality result, when evaluated numerically. A human subject will, however, judge a numerically-optimal spatial renderer to be deficient due to a loss of natural timbre and/or a sense of imprecise image locations.
Thus, there is a need for an alternative method and apparatus for determining the rendering operation for panning an audio signal in an intermediate signal format to an array of speakers and for converting the audio signal in the intermediate signal format to a set of speaker feeds. There is further need for such method and apparatus that avoid undesired audible artifacts.

Methods, systems and apparatus for conversion of spatial audio format(s) to speaker signals

Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation


Embodiments of the present invention are methods for selecting, out of a lineup of IPTV channels, a subset of channels for caching. The methods take into account viewers' tendency to walk through the channels that lie between their current channel and their desired channel if that walking distance is short, and, alternatively, viewers' tendency to jump to a distant channel. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention include any channel selection method which selects for caching any number of channels less than the entire lineup, and where at least two of those channels form a segment of adjacent channels. Other embodiments include methods which rely upon specific extrinsic data, e.g., IGMP and EPG information, for selecting a subset of channels to be cached.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronics, specifically the proactive caching of electronic information for quick delivery to users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet Protocol Television
IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is a protocol for the delivery of digital information over a network infrastructure using the Internet Protocol (IP). IPTV does not follow the typical unicast model of Internet communications. In the unicast model, a single requesting party requests a particular piece of information (e.g., an HTML page), and a serving party serves up that specific information in response to the request. Both requesting party and serving party possess unique IP addresses which allow the Internet hardware and software that connects those two parties (e.g., routers, switches, hubs, etc.) to route information between those two and only those two parties. Thus, going to www.youtube.com, selecting and watching a particular video is unicast streaming video, not IPTV.
In contrast, IPTV is based on a multicast model similar to broadcast technologies such as radio and TV. Like a TV transmitter or DBS satellite, an IPTV source (such as an IPTV server) continuously outputs one or more channels of TV programming as IP streams, and does so according to a pre-defined schedule, instead of serving up specific information in response to a request. Furthermore, intermediate routers and other Internet hardware do not deliver the IPTV channel streams to specific IP addresses, but instead multicast those streams to one or more multicast groups on a more-or-less continuous basis.
Although IPTV's delivery mechanism differs from delivery mechanism of traditional TV, the user interface is similar. IGMP streams are presented as numbered channels. The set of all the numbered channels is a lineup. Users can switch to a channel via the same methods present in traditional TV, e.g., entering a channel number directly (i.e., jumping), selecting a channel from an Electronic Program Guide (EPG), surfing (i.e., walking to) an adjacent channel by hitting a channel increment or decrement button, etc. Adjacent channels can be but need not be represented by consecutive channel numbers.
Users wishing to view a particular IPTV channel typically must join a multicast group to receive the IPTV channel, and leave the multicast group when they wish to view another IPTV channel. Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is a protocol commonly used in IPTV systems for the management of multicast groups. IGMP performs group join/leave operations, and IPTV operators typically record information about these operations in the form of an IGMP log file. An IGMP log typically comprises any number of entries, where each entry represents an individual join/leave activity. IGMP log entries are typically in the form <user, time, channel (i.e., group), join/leave>.
IGMP takes a certain amount of time to perform a join/leave operation. Additionally, in IPTV, joining a multicast group often entails consulting an authentication server to verify that a subscriber is in fact entitled to join the requested multicast group (i.e., view the IPTV channel), an additional operation which takes a further amount of time.
Telephone companies (telcos), among others, deploy IPTV technology in order to deliver television programming to subscribers over digital subscriber line (DSL) infrastructure. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a typical IPTV network 100. At the topmost level are Super Head-End Offices (SHO) 102. SHOs are computer facilities that acquire and aggregate content from multiple national content providers (e.g., Viacom, Time Warner, etc.). A typical telco will have two to four SHOs for the entire U.S.
SHOs 102 distribute the aggregated content to Video Head-End Offices (VHO) 106 over high-capacity core network 104. A typical aggregated-content stream will be a 10 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) signal. A typical telco will have approximately forty VHOs, with each one located in major metropolitan areas. VHOs are typically responsible for the acquisition and insertion of local programming and advertising. A VHO might contain multiple distribution servers (D-Servers) 108 that buffer current video streams at the video source for speeding up user channel-change operations.
VHOs 106 relay content to Central Offices (CO) 110 over high-capacity metro ring 108. In a typical implementation, there are approximately 5-25 COs per VHO, and each CO is responsible for serving approximately 25,000 households.
COs 110 relay content to Digital Subscriber Line Access Modules (DSLAM) 112 over 1 Gb/s connections. In a typical implementation, there are no more than 80 DSLAMs per CO, and each DSLAM is responsible for serving approximately 400 households.
DSLAMs 112 relay content to end-user Set-Top Boxes (STB) 114 over 20 megabit-per-second (Mb/s) DSL connections. STBs connect to user television sets. In a typical implementation, there are two STBs per household, and thus each DSLAM is responsible for serving content to 800 STBs.
The content streamed over an IPTV network is typically video content encoded into digital data using a video encoder program which employs various data compression methods. A widely-used standard for video encoding is the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) standard. MPEG encoding achieves significant reductions in the size of the resulting digital data through, inter alia, the elimination of redundant inter-frame data. Most video content consists of a linear sequence of images, or frames. For example, films are typically recorded at 25-30 frames per second. Often, much of the information contained in adjacent frames is redundant, i.e., the picture element at coordinates x, y in frame N is approximately the same value as the picture element at those same coordinates in frame N+1 or N−1. Thus, instead of always sending complete frames, MPEG sends a complete frame (also known as an intra-coded frame or I-frame), and then sends one or more frames (known as P-frames and B-frames) which contain only the differences from immediately preceding or following frames.
At the receiving end, a typical MPEG decoder requires an I-frame before it can begin outputting a viewable signal. The number of I-frames encoded per second is specified by the entity performing the encoding, and typically ranges from one I-frame every half-second to one I-frame every second. Thus, if an IPTV channel has been encoded with an I-frame every second, it is possible that a subscriber selecting that channel may have to wait a second for the MPEG decoder to begin outputting a viewable signal.
Furthermore, the viewable output signal of an MPEG decoder is typically buffered so that intermittent and brief interruptions in the input signal of the decoder do not result in interruptions in the viewable signal. Typically, this buffer must be filled with viewable signal before the buffer begins transmitting viewable signal. Hence, there is a delay between when the buffer first receives viewable signal, and when that buffer begins outputting viewable signal.
The Problem of Channel-Change Latency in IPTV
Channel-change latency is the total time from the moment a viewing user selects a new/different channel, to the moment when that new channel's output appears on the screen. In IPTV systems, channel-change latency becomes a major challenge for providing satisfactory quality of experience to broadcast TV users. Viewers of analog, cable, and satellite TV have become accustomed to extremely low (e.g., sub-second) channel-change latency times, while IPTV channel-change latency is significantly larger (e.g., three seconds) due to IGMP join/leave operations, decoding the first available I-frame, and filling of the user buffer, among others.
Typically, obtaining and decoding the first available I-frame is the largest component of IPTV channel-change latency. One solution to this problem is to allow network elements close to the user to cache the most recent x seconds of channel programming as independently decodable frames, i.e., a rolling window cache of fully decoded video. When the user does selects a cached channel, the cached (independently decodable) frames are sent to the user video buffer while the STB performs the IGMP operations, receives the first I-frame, and fills its buffer.
Ideally, all channels would be cached, insuring lowest channel-change latency regardless of the channel chosen However, bandwidth and other resource constraints often make the caching of all channels in a lineup impractical or wasteful. Thus, a typical implementation of a caching solution requires the operator to decide which channels are to be cached, and which are not. That decision directly impacts the effectiveness of channel caching on reducing channel-change latency, and the bandwidth consumption due to channel caching. Complicating this decision is the diversity and dynamics of user interests and TV program lineup settings.
Popularity is one method for selecting which channels are to be cached. If VC is the number of viewers that viewed a channel C during time T, and MC is the average number of minutes viewers VC viewed channel C, then popularity PC of channel C may be represented by VC×MC. Those channels with the largest PC values are cached. An alternative method for determining PC is to use third-party polling data, e.g., Nielsen.
However, just because a channel is unpopular does not necessarily mean it is not visited often. Users often walk through the channels adjacent to the currently watched channel for various reasons, e.g., to go to a destination channel not far from the current channel, to see what's on nearby channels during a commercial break, etc. In contrast, a user will often jump directly from one popular channel to another if the distance between those two channels is sufficiently large. Thus, there may be unpopular channels (i.e., channels with low PC values) that are nevertheless visited often (i.e., have high IGMP join counts) because they are close to a popular channel.

Creating channel sequence segments for fast channel change in IPTV


According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method by which a terminal configured to have two or more processing times transmits a hybrid automatic repeat request-acknowledgment (HARQ-ACK) in a wireless communication system comprises the steps of: receiving, from a base station, a downlink control channel for indicating a downlink data channel, and the downlink data channel in one or more downlink subframes; and transmitting, to the base station, HARQ-ACK information on the downlink data channel in an uplink subframe corresponding to the one or more downlink subframes, wherein the HARQ-ACK information transmitted in the uplink subframe includes HARQ-ACK information on a downlink data channel in accordance with only one processing time among the two or more processing times, and cannot include HARQ-ACK information on a downlink data channel in accordance with the rest processing times.

Latency of packet data is one of the important performance metrics. Providing faster access to the Internet for the end users may be one of the important challenges not only to LTE but also to the design of a next-generation mobile communication system, which is called new RAT.
The present invention deals with uplink transmission such as HARQ feedback or uplink data transmission in a wireless communication system supporting reduction of latency.

Method for uplink transmission in wireless communication system, and device therefor


The administration of gaseous nitric oxide as a biocidal moiety is proffered as a de novo treatment in the control and eradication of biofilms. The present invention relates to the use or methods of application of exogenous nitric oxide gas (gNO) as a stand alone biocidal agent or in cohort with any or all adjunct vehicles in the control of biofilms generated by microbial organisms, i.e., bacteria, protozoa, amoeba, fungi etc. Further, the present invention introduces the concept of utilization and methods of application of gaseous nitric oxide in control and eradication of biofilm forming microorganisms. Noteworthy areas of application are offered as examples. They include, and are not limited to, air and/or water heating/cooling distribution systems in facilities such as hospitals and laboratories, surfaces of medical devices, household surfaces, dental plaque, dental and/or medical water treatment lines, industrial pipelines, water treatment and distribution facilities and fluids sterilization. Various specialized delivery apparatus will be designed to facilitate nitric oxide gas administration to each specific unique application.

Microbial organisms are capable of adhering to a surface aggregate in a polymer-like matrix. This is referred to as a biofilm and is synthesized endogenously by the microbe(s). Biofilms are ubiquitous in nature and are commonly found in a wide range of environments including domestic and industrial water systems. Biofilms are also etiologic agents for a number of disease states in mammals. Otitis media, dental plaque, bacterial endocarditis, cystic fibrosis and Legionnair's disease along with a broad array of hospital acquired, dental and medical clinic infections are examples of its pathology. Bacteria growing in biofilms display increased resistance to antibiotics. Commonly surveyed microbial organisms that form biofilms are Burkholderia cenocepacia, Staphlococcus, Steptococccus, Pseudomonas, and Legionnella and their subtypes.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,880, Igo taught that adding nitric oxide to blood within an extracorporeal system is known to inhibit platelet activation. Our summary of Igo's '880 reference is based on Igo's teaching which is as follows (bracketed material is added and underlining was added for emphasis):                Referring to FIG. 1, a typical CPB circuit is indicated generally by reference numeral 10. The patient is shown by numeral 12. A venous cannula 13 inserted into the patient is connected into a fluid inlet tube 14 that directs blood from the patient to a venous reservoir 18. Another cannula 15 inserted in the patient is connected to another fluid inlet 16 that also leads from the patient to venous reservoir 18. Reservoir 18 may be a pole mounted unit or may be located on the heart-lung machine table, but in either case normally is the first fixed point in the circuit, lines 14 and 16 normally being flexible and long enough to allow surgeon and surgical assistants room to maneuver around the surgical table. The purpose of venous reservoir 18 is to accumulate the admitted blood for feeding the balance of the CPB circuit. The accumulator eliminates pump starvation and cessation of pump prime by providing a buffer from ebb and flow of blood from the patient.        From the venous reservoir, plastic tubing 20 leads to the inlet side of a roller pump 22. Roller pump 22 has a hub 24 from which protrude two arms 26. These arms impinge on the tubing 20 collapsing it. Rotation of the pump hub 24 in the direction indicated by reference numeral 28 provides the desired flow direction and flow rate. The blood leaves the roller pump 22 through tubing 30 to the inlet of the oxygenator 32. The blood can be thermally adjusted by passing it from the oxygenator 32 through tubing 34 into a heat exchanger 36 for heating or cooling before returning to the oxygenator 32 by tubing 38. Upon oxygenation, the blood exits the oxygenator in two ways. The first way is through tubing 40 to another roller pump 42, from there pumped through tubing 44 to a cardioplegia system 46, then to the patient 12 through outlet tubing 47 and a cannula 48. The other mechanism with which the blood leaves the oxygenator 32 is through tubing 50. A filter 52 is located on a side branch of this portion of the circuit. When it is desired to use the filter 52, tubing 50 is clamped in the area noted by numeral 54 and the blood travels through the filter 52 before returning to the patient through outlet tubing 57 and a cannula 56. The venous return reservoir 18 is the juncture of all blood removed from the patient. It is at this location where the improvement according to this invention suitably may be added to the CPB circuit, prior to the pump 22 and the blood treatment oxygenator 32.        FIG. 2 depicts an extracorporeal blood treatment circuit in general, designated by reference numeral 11, and in which reference numerals are the same for the like elements found in the specific CPB circuit shown in FIG. 1. Reference numeral 41 represents a blood treatment component. In the case of a CPB apparatus as in FIG. 1, blood treatment component 41 comprises at least oxygenator 32 and optionally also heat exchanger 36 with connecting tubing 34, 38 and either or both of (1) the cardioplegia system 46 with associated second pump 42 and connecting tubing 40, 44, 47 and (2) the filter 52 with associated tubing 50. Numeral 17 indicates a blood fluid inlet generally and numeral 49 indicates a fluid outlet for blood return generally to the patient in FIG. 2. In accordance with this invention, blood treatment component 41 of the fluid circuit of the apparatus 11, instead of being an oxygenation system as in FIG. 1, suitably may be a heat exchange system 36, a renal dialysis component for exchange of urea and other blood chemicals with a dialysate solution across an exchange membrane, or an organ perfusion component such as an ex vivo liver and perfusion support system tying into circuit interconnects 30 and 49.        In accordance with this invention, one of more feeds of nitric oxide are employed, as necessary in the particular circuit, to maintain the concentration of nitric oxide in the circulating extracorporeal blood at a dosage effective to produce the desired inhibition of platelet activation over a period of time sufficient for the journey through the extracorporeal circulation apparatus yet insufficient to sustain the inhibition after the blood is returned to the patient and desired dosages. FIG. 3 depicts one such feed at the initial (venous inlet) portion of the circuit illustrated in FIG. 1. In this preferred embodiment of the invention, a gas permeable membrane 60 is located within a conduit 62 of the blood circuit located immediately downstream from the reservoir 18. The gas permeable membrane 60 is elongated and tubular in form and is disposed longitudinally within conduit 62 adapted to come into contact with blood flowing through conduit 62. A gaseous source, a mixture of nitric oxide and a carrier gas such as nitrogen, is housed in container 68 under high pressure. Regulator 66 controls the output gas pressure to periodic driver 69. The purpose of the periodic driver 69 is to induce a sinusoidal shaped pressure curve to the gas much like a "pulse". The gas leaves the driver through tubing 64 and flows into the interior of gas permeable membrane 60. Due to the permeability of this membrane 60 to nitric oxide gas, the gas will diffuse through the membrane and dissolve in the blood plasma where it will come into contact with platelets. The membrane is selected to be impermeable to nitrogen and the nitrogen carrier gas will not diffuse through the membrane. Coupled to the outlet of the membrane 60 is outlet tubing 61, which is connected to valve 63. Valve 63 adjusts the back pressure of the system. From the valve 63 the carrier gas and any residual nitric oxide gas is carried through tube 65 into container 67, which is filled with a scavenger liquid such as methylene blue. The gas mixture is allowed to bubble up through the container containing the scavenger liquid. The scavenger liquid absorbs any residual nitric oxide so that the only gas that escapes into the atmosphere is the carrier gas.        Blood guarded by dissolved nitric oxide exits conduit 62 and into tubing 20 where is passes by a conventional blood flow measuring device 90. Signals from blood flow measuring device 90 are transferred by line 92 to controller feedback logic component 94 which outputs a signal through line 96 to controller driver component 98 for controlling pressure and flow from regulator 66. The controller system comprising units 90, 94 and 98 with connecting lines 92 and 96 controls the flow of gas into membrane 60 in relation to the flow of blood through tubing 20. In this manner, when the flow rate of the blood is low, the nitric oxide introduction is correspondingly and automatically reduced. Conversely, in cases of high flow the nitric oxide introduction is correspondingly and automatically raised.        The gas permeable membrane 62 has a gas permeable rate K which is dependent on the material of construction and the molecular characteristics of the gas. For nitric oxide, the gaseous release rate from membrane 60 is proportional to K, the exposed surface of the membrane to the blood, the internal gaseous pressure within the membrane and the hydraulic pressure of and gas tension of nitric oxide (if any) in the blood flowing by it. Delivered molecular concentrations to the blood is [sic] calculated knowing the above plus the absorption coefficient of the blood to the nitric oxide. Thus the controller controls the gas flow and at a level which, for the characteristics of membrane 60 and the absorption coefficient of nitric oxide gas at the temperature of the blood in the apparatus (before thermal adjustment, if any), is sufficient to provide an actual concentration of nitric oxide in solution effective in the presence of venous red blood cell blood hemoglobin to inhibit platelet activation.        FIG. 4 illustrates a longitudinal sectional view of the conduit 62, the gas permeable membrane 60 and the tubing 64. Nitric oxide gas flows into the membrane 60 at location 70. As the gas pressure inside the gas permeable membrane 60 exceeds the pressure of the blood within conduit 62, nitric oxide gas will diffuse from the membrane into the blood stream as indicated by arrows 74. The nitric oxide will be absorbed by the blood cellular components which will mediate the inflammatory response as described earlier.        Referring to FIG. 5, which illustrates a cross section of FIG. 3 along the line A-A, the relationship between the geometry's of the conduit 62 and gas permeable membrane 60 is as follows. The cross sectional area of the inside of conduit 62 minus the sectional area of the gas permeable membrane 60 (such difference being referenced by numeral 76) is approximately equivalent to the cross section of the tubing elsewhere in the CPB circuit, (i.e. the cross section of tubing element 20). With this relationship the blood is not subjected to an adverse pressure gradient in conduit 62. Longitudinally, the shape of the gas permeable membrane 60 follows that of the conduit 62, again so that adverse pressure gradients are not imparted into the circuit.        FIG. 6 illustrates another preferred embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment a carrier gas is not used so that container 68 holds a 100% concentration of nitric oxide. A pulse drive generator 69 is not shown but may be present. In this embodiment, there is no outlet conduit of membrane 60. As pressure builds up in conduit 60, the nitric oxide diffuses into the bloodstream as previously described. Because there are no residual carrier gas molecules, there is no need for a return. Simply stated, components 61, 63, 65, and 67 of the embodiment depicted in FIG. 2 are absent at the distal end of membrane 60 and the tube 62 in this configuration. As in the embodiment depicted in FIG. 3, a controller comprising components 90, 94 and 98 with connections 92 and 96 controls the concentration of nitric oxide in solution in the blood. FIG. 8 illustrates a cross sectional view B-B of FIG. 7 with the same numbers used in the same way as in FIG. 5.        The above embodiments illustrate an optimal configuration of the invention in which the blood flows around the external portion of a gas permeable membrane 60. While it is within the scope of this invention that the system can be configured so that the gas is on the external portion of the membrane and blood is flowed within the membrane, in low gas pressure conditions some membranes dilate, increasing the cross sectional area of the membrane and lowering blood flow through that portion of the apparatus, and in high gas pressure conditions, some membranes might collapse, reducing blood flow. In the preferred embodiments, if gas flow is zero, the membrane might collapse but it would not occlude or preclude blood flow.        FIG. 9 depicts another embodiment of the [Igo] invention. In this embodiment the nitric oxide feed is to reservoir 18. The feed comprises a diffuser 100 for diffusing nitric oxide gas into the reservoir, and comprises a regulator 66 for controlling gas pressure and rate of flow into the reservoir and a driver 69 for delivering the nitric oxide gas into reservoir 18 through inlet 64 in a pulsatile manner. Suitably diffuser 100 comprises a membrane or filter 80 that is not permeable to blood and is permeable to nitric oxide gas through which nitric oxide gas is introduced into the reservoir. As in the embodiment depicted in FIGS. 3 and 6, a controller comprising components 90, 94 and 98 with connections 92 and 96 controls the concentration of nitric oxide in solution in the blood.        It is important that the location of the nitric oxide feed be close to the patient cannulation point as possible in the extracorporeal circuit to reduce so much as practicable the period of exposure of platelets to non-endothelial surfaces. At least one feed location is described generally as upstream of the pump that is needed to circulate the blood extracorporeally through the system and back to the patient. With reference to the FIG. 2, that point is anywhere in line 15. In FIGS. 3-9, which involve a CPB circuit where blood from two inlets 14 and 16 is pooled in reservoir 18, either the reservoir or the tubing immediately past the reservoir is selected for initial introduction of the nitric oxide, for the practical reason that these are the closest stationary locations in the system to the patient source of blood and also because control of nitric oxide introduction is most readily accomplished in the reservoir or in the blood filled lines in the immediately downstream tubing under the influence of a pump as opposed to in the blood inlet lines where lines are mobile to allow access to the surgical field, and especially in the case of blood suctioned from the operative field where intermittent blood and air flow occurs. The closest stationary location will vary according to the blood treatment component 41 involved in the use of this invention. Because of the very short half life of nitric oxide in the blood, additional feeds may be used further downstream to maintain the desired nitric oxide concentration in the blood without overdosing the blood in but one location.
In other words, Igo teaches away from adding nitric oxide to blood to combat pathogens.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,077, Stenzler teaches that topical application of nitric oxide to wounds and/or skin of mammals is beneficial to wound healing because it decreases further infection. No where does Stenzler teach, disclose or suggest exposing nitric oxide to blood to combat pathogens. Our summary of Stenzler is based on his disclosure, which reads as follows:                The treatment of infected surface or subsurface lesions in patients has typically involved the topical or systemic administration of anti-infective agents to a patient. Antibiotics are one such class of anti-infective agents that are commonly used to treat an infected abscess, lesion, wound, or the like. Unfortunately, an increasingly number of infective agents such as bacteria have become resistant to conventional antibiotic therapy. Indeed, the increased use of antibiotics by the medical community has led to a commensurate increase in resistant strains of bacteria that do not respond to traditional or even newly developed anti-bacterial agents. Even when new anti-infective agents are developed, these agents are extremely expensive and available only to a limited patient population.        Another problem with conventional anti-infective agents is that some patients are allergic to the very compounds necessary to their treat their infection. For these patients, only few drugs might be available to treat the infection. If the patient is infected with a strain of bacteria that does not respond well to substitute therapies, the patient's life can be in danger.        A separate problem related to conventional treatment of surface or subsurface infections is that the infective agent interferes with the circulation of blood within the infected region. It is sometimes the case that the infective agent causes constriction of the capillaries or other small blood vessels in the infected region which reduces bloodflow. When bloodflow is reduced, a lower level of anti-infective agent can be delivered to the infected region. In addition, the infection can take a much longer time to heal when bloodflow is restricted to the infected area.        This increases the total amount of drug that must be administered to the patient, thereby increasing the cost of using such drugs. Topical agents may sometimes be applied over the infected region. However, topical anti-infective agents do not penetrate deep within the skin where a significant portion of the bacteria often reside. Topical treatments of anti-infective agents are often less effective at eliminating infection than systemic administration (i.e., oral administration) of an anti-infective pharmaceutical.        In the 1980's, it was discovered by researchers that the endothelium tissue of the human body produced nitric oxide (NO), and that NO is an endogenous vasodilator, namely, and agent that widens the internal diameter of blood vessels. NO is most commonly known as an environmental pollutant that is produced as a byproduct of combustion. At high concentrations, NO is toxic to humans. At low concentrations, researchers have discovered that inhaled NO can be used to treat various pulmonary diseases in patients. For example, NO has been investigated for the treatment of patients with increased airway resistance as a result of emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).        NO has also been investigated for its use as a sterilizing agent. It has been discovered that NO will interfere with or kill the growth of bacteria grown in vitro. PCT International Application No. PCT/CA99/01123 published Jun. 2, 2000 discloses a method and apparatus for the treatment of respiratory infections by NO inhalation. NO has been found to have either an inhibitory and/or a cidal effect on pathogenic cells.        While NO has shown promise with respect to certain medical applications, delivery methods and devices must cope with certain problems inherent with gaseous NO delivery. First, exposure to high concentrations of NO is toxic, especially exposure to NO in concentrations over 1000 ppm. Even lower levels of NO, however, can be harmful if the time of exposure is relatively high.        For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set exposure limits for NO in the workplace at 25 ppm time-weighted averaged for eight (8) hours. It is extremely important that any device or system for delivering NO include features that prevent the leaking of NO into the surrounding environment. If the device is used within a closed space, such as a hospital room or at home, dangerously high levels of NO can build up in a short period of time.        Another problem with the delivery of NO is that NO rapidly oxidizes in the presence of oxygen to form NO2, which is highly toxic, even at low levels. If the delivery device contains a leak, unacceptably high levels NO2 of can develop. In addition, to the extent that NO oxides to form NO2, there is less NO available for the desired therapeutic effect. The rate of oxidation of NO to NO2 is dependent on numerous factors, including the concentration of NO, the concentration of O2, and the time available for reaction. Since NO will react with the oxygen in the air to convert to NO2, it is desirable to have minimal contact between the NO gas and the outside environment.        Accordingly, there is a need for a device and method for the treatment of surface and subsurface infections by the topical application of NO. The device is preferably leak proof to the largest extent possible to avoid a dangerous build up of NO and NO2 concentrations. In addition, the device should deliver NO to the infected region of the patient without allowing the introduction of air that would otherwise react with NO to produce NO2. The application of NO to the infected region preferably decreases the time required to heal the infected area by reducing pathogen levels. The device preferably includes a NO and NO2 absorber or scrubber that will remove or chemically alter NO and NO2 prior to discharge of the air from the delivery device.        In a first aspect of the [Stenzler] invention, a device for the topical delivery of nitric oxide gas to an infected area of skin includes a source of nitric oxide gas, a bathing unit, a flow control valve, and a vacuum unit. The bathing unit is in fluid communication with the source of nitric oxide gas and is adapted for surrounding the area of infected skin and forming a substantially air-tight seal with the skin surface. The flow control valve is positioned downstream of the source of nitric oxide and upstream of the bathing unit for controlling the amount of nitric oxide gas that is delivered to the bathing unit.        The vacuum unit is positioned downstream of the bathing unit for withdrawing gas from the bathing unit.        In a second aspect of the [Stenzler] invention, the device according to the first aspect of the invention includes a controller for controlling the operation of the flow control valve and the vacuum unit.        In a third aspect of the [Stenzler] invention, the device according to the first aspect of the invention further includes a source of dilutent gas and a gas blender. The dilutent gas and the nitric oxide gas are mixed by the gas blender. The device also includes a nitric oxide gas absorber unit that is positioned upstream of the vacuum unit. The device also includes a controller for controlling the operation of the flow control valve and the vacuum unit.        In a fourth aspect of the [Stenzler] invention, a method of delivering an effective amount of nitric oxide to an infected area of skin includes the steps of providing a bathing unit around the infected area of skin, the bathing unit forming a substantially air-tight seal with the skin. Gas containing nitric oxide is then transported to the bathing unit so as to bathe the infected area of skin with gaseous nitric oxide.        Finally, at least a portion of the nitric oxide gas is evacuated from the bathing unit.        It is an object of the [Stenzler] invention to provide a delivery device for the topical delivery of a NO-containing gas to an infected area of skin. It is a further object of the device to prevent the NO-containing gas from leaking from the delivery device. The method of delivering an effective amount of nitric oxide gas to the infected area of skin kills bacteria and other pathogens and promotes the healing process.
As clearly illustrated, Stenzler never taught, suggested, nor disclosed exposing blood to NO to destroy pathogens.
In 1989 it was discovered that nitric oxide was produced by the endothelium tissue of mammals. It has since been demonstrated that endogenous nitric oxide is a potent modulator for a number of systemic functions in mammals including selective pulmonary vasodilatation, neurotransmission and cytoxic activity over a wide range of microorganisms including bacteria and viruses. Nitric oxide has been known for years as an environmental pollutant and is toxic to mammals at high doses. At minimal concentrations however exogenously supplied (eg. <100 ppm) nitric oxide has selectively been used to treat human patients with a wide range of pulmonary diseases including, but not limited to, chronic bronchitis, asthma, ARDS (Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome) etc. Nitric oxide has also found utility in its application as both a sterilizing agent and as a bactericidal agent for pathogenic organisms.
Septicemia is a serious, rapidly progressive, life-threatening infection that can arise from infections throughout the body, including infections in the lungs, abdomen, and urinary tract. It may precede or coincide with infections of the bone (osteomyelitis), central nervous system (meningitis), or other tissues. Septicemia can rapidly lead to septic shock and death. Septicemia associated with some organisms such as meningococci can lead to shock, adrenal collapse and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy.
In all examples referenced there is a dosage range of nitric oxide application that needs to be maintained in order to establish efficacy. Accordingly the employment of nitric oxide as a dissolved gas or through selective nitric oxide donors in an extracorporeal circuit allows for the titration of exogenously administered nitric oxide levels required to optimize the therapeutic antimicrobial and bactericidal benefits.
The impact from lost industrial productivity along with its significant impact on the public health sector makes the eradication of biofilms a major goal.

Use of exogenous gaseous nitric oxide in the treatment and disinfection of biofilms


A method and apparatus prioritizing video information during coding and decoding. Video information is received and an element of the video information, such as a visual object, video object layer, video object plane or keyregion, is identified. A priority is assigned to the identified element and the video information is encoded into a bitstream, such as a visual bitstream encoded using the MPEG-4 standard, including an indication of the priority of the element. The priority information can then be used when decoding the bitstream to reconstruct the video information.

Audiovisual information, such as a video of a person speaking, can be converted into a digital signal and transmitted over a communications network. The digital signal can then be converted back into audiovisual information for display. At the time of this writing, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) is developing a new standard, known as MPEG-4, for the encoding of audiovisual information that will be sent over a communications network at a low transmission rate, or "bitrate." When complete, MPEG-4 is expected to enable interactive mobile multimedia communications, video phone conferences and a host of other applications.
These applications will be achieved by coding visual objects, which include natural or synthetic video objects, into a generalized coded bitstream representing video information, referred to as a "visual" bitstream. A bitstream that contains both visual and audio information is also referred to as a "systems" bitstream.
A video object is a specific type of natural visual object, and is further composed of layers called Video Object Layers (VOLs). Each VOL is composed of Video Object Planes (VOPs), which can be thought of as snapshots in time of a VOL. The advent of video objects and VOPs in video coding permits significant coding savings by selectively apportioning bits among parts of the frame that require a relatively large number of bits and other parts that require a relatively small number of bits. VOPs also permit additional functionality, such as object manipulation.
As an example, FIG. 1 illustrates a frame 100 for coding that includes the head and shoulders of a narrator 110, a logo 120 suspended within the frame 100 and a background 130. The logo 120 may be static, having no motion and no animation. In such a case, bit savings may be realized by coding the logo 120 only once. For display, the coded logo 120 could be decoded and displayed continuously from the single coded representation. Similarly, it may be desirable to allocate fewer bits for coding a semi-static or slowly moving background 130. Bit savings realized by coding the logo 120 and background 130 at lower rates may permit coding of the narrator 110 at a higher rate, where the perceptual significance of the image may reside. VOPs are suited to such applications. FIG. 1 also illustrates the frame 100 broken into three VOPs. By convention, a background 130 is generally assigned VOPO. The narrator 110 and logo 120 may be assigned VOP1 and VOP2, respectively. Of course, other number schemes can also be used to label these regions.
Note that not all elements within a VOP will merit identical treatment. For example, certain areas within a VOP may require animation, whereas others may be relatively static.
Consider the example of VOP 1 in FIG. 1. The perceptually significant areas of VOP 1 center around the facial features of the figure. The clothes and hair of the narrator 110 may not require animation to the same extent that the facial features do. Accordingly, as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/986,118 entitled "Video Objects Coded by Keyregions," keyregions may be used to emphasize certain areas of a VOP over others.
The object based organization of MPEG-4 video, in principle, will provide a number of benefits in error robustness, quality tradeoffs and scene composition. The current MPEG-4 standards, however, lack a number of tools, and their associated syntax and semantics, to fully and flexibly exploit this object based organization. In particular, there is no way to identify an element, such as a visual object, VOL or keyregion, as more important than other elements of the same type.
For example, a higher degree of error robustness would be achieved if a higher priority could be assigned to the foreground speaker object as compared to a less relevant background object. If an encoder or decoder can only process a limited number or objects, it would be helpful to have the encoder or decoder know which objects should be processed first.
Moreover, because the MPEG-4 system will offer scene description and composition flexibility, reconstructed scenes would remain meaningful even when low priority objects are only partially available, or even totally unavailable. Low priority objects could become unavailable, for example, due to data loss or corruption.
Finally, in the event of channel congestion, identifying important video data would be very useful because such data could be scheduled for delivery ahead of less important video data. The remaining video data could be scheduled later, or even discarded. Prioritization would also be useful for graceful degradation when bandwidth, memory or computational resources become limited.
In view of the foregoing, it can be appreciated that a substantial need exists for a method and apparatus to prioritize video objects when they are coded, and solving the other problems discussed above.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus to prioritize video information during coding and decoding


Speech presence is detected by first bandpass filtering (141, 143, 145) the speech to split it into banks of sub-bands. A matrix of shift registers (150) store each sub-band of speech. A power determining circuit (259) then determines individual power measurements of the speech stored in each shift register element. A variance combining circuit (160) combines the individual power measurements to provide a variance for the individual shift registers. A comparator circuit (170) finally compares the variance with at least one threshold to indicate whether speech is detected.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to speech detection and, more particularly, relates to improved approaches to efficiently detect speech presence in a noisy environment by way of frequency and temporal considerations.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some applications, automatic speech recognition needs to be activated by uttering a particular word sequence such as keywords. For example, if a desktop personal computer has a speech recognizer for dictation or command control, it is desirable to activate the recognizer in the middle of the conversations in his or her office by uttering a keyword. This process of recognizing the keyword from continuous speech waveform is called keyword scanning. This would require the recognizer constantly recognizing the incoming speech and spotting those keywords. Nevertheless, the recognizer cannot be used to constantly monitor the incoming speech because it takes huge computational resources. Some other techniques that demand much less computations and memories have to be utilized to reduce the burden of speech recognizer. It is known that speech detection techniques are ways of eliminating silence segments from speech utterances so that speech recognizer can be speed up and do not wasting a lot of time on those silences or even misrecognize silence as speech. Speech detection techniques are often based on the speech waveform and utilize features such as short-time energy, zero crossing and etc. The same can be used to hypothesize keyword if some other features such as pitch, duration and voicing can be used in junction with word end-pointing techniques. Although the keyword hypothesis will be over generated, it still can reduce a large proportion of computations since the recognizer will only process these hypotheses.
Most speech recognition applications today face the challenging task of segmenting speech based on voice, unvoice & silence detection. A conventional approach is detecting short-term energy and zero crossings of a speech signal. These approaches are not reliable for noisy telephone speech signals due, in part, to the greater noise in a background environment of most telephone conversations. For example, stationary noise such as motor or wind noise and non-stationary noise such as door openings, closing or respiratory exhalation are present in telephone speech.
Accurate speech presence detection also conserves power and processing time for portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones. When reliable speech detection approaches are used, a speech recognition algorithm must find the utterances to determine if they are in fact language. This places a burden on computational complexity of processors and is a resource drain on portable electronic devices. A speech detection approach having computational efficiency as well as accuracy is needed.

Method and apparatus for speech detection using time-frequency variance


An image processing method and device include parsing a code stream to obtain a first quantization parameter of a current image area in an original resolution coding scheme, a second quantization parameter of the current image area in a downsampling coding scheme, a coding scheme of a current image block in the current image area, a quantization coefficient of the current image block, and a prediction signal of the current image block, determining a quantization parameter of the current image block according to the coding scheme, and reconstructing the current image block based on the quantization parameter, the quantization coefficient, and the prediction signal to obtain a current reconstructed image block.

A digital video is a video recorded in a digital form. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a digital video according to this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 1, the digital video includes a plurality of frames of digital images. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a digital image according to this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 2, the image includes 12×16 pixels. Each pixel is referred to as one pixel, and 12×16 represents an image resolution. For example, an image resolution of a 2K video is 1920×1080, and an image resolution of a 4K video is 3840×2160. An original video usually includes a relatively large amount of data, which is not suitable for storage and transmission. Therefore, a high-efficiency video compression coding technology needs to be used to compress original data.
Further, FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of coding performed by an encoder side according to this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 3, the coding procedure performed by the encoder side includes after receiving a video, the encoder side divides each frame of image that constitutes the video into a plurality of to-be-coded image blocks. For a current to-be-coded image block, the current to-be-coded image block is first predicted using a reference reconstructed image block (the reference reconstructed image block is configured to provide a reference pixel required by the current to-be-coded image block, and the reference pixel is used to predict the current to-be-coded image block) to obtain a prediction signal of the current to-be-coded image block. The prediction signal is subtracted from an original signal of the current to-be-coded image block to obtain a residual signal. After the prediction, an amplitude of the residual signal is far less than that of the original signal. A transform operation (the transform operation is an optional operation) and a quantization operation are performed on the residual signal. A quantization coefficient is obtained after the transform and quantization, and then the quantization coefficient and another indication information that is used during coding are coded using an entropy coding technology to obtain a code stream. Further, the encoder side needs to reconstruct the current to-be-coded image block to provide a reference pixel for coding a subsequent to-be-coded image block. Further, after obtaining the quantization coefficient of the current to-be-coded image block, the encoder side needs to perform dequantization and inverse transform on the quantization coefficient of the current to-be-coded image block to obtain a reconstructed residual signal, add the reconstructed residual signal and the prediction signal corresponding to the current to-be-coded image block to obtain a reconstruction signal of the current to-be-coded image block, and obtain a reconstructed image block based on the reconstruction signal. The reconstructed image block may be used to predict the subsequently to-be-coded image block. Optionally, a transform coefficient is obtained after the residual signal is transformed, an information loss occurs after the transform coefficient is quantized, and the information loss is irreversible. That is, a distortion occurs after the transform coefficient is dequantized, and consequently the reconstruction signal is inconsistent with the original signal. Such a compression manner is lossy compression. Therefore, for the lossy compression, after the reconstructed image block is obtained, filtering needs to be performed on the reconstructed image block to eliminate some distortions caused by the lossy compression, for example, blocking artifacts and a ringing effect. The blocking artifacts may be eliminated using a Deblocking (DBK) filter in the H.264 or H.265 standard, and the ringing effect may be eliminated using a sample adaptive offset (SAO) filter in H.265, an Alfa Laval Filter (ALF) filter in a next generation standard, or the like. A lossless compression method also exists. To be specific, a lossless transform operation is performed on a residual signal to obtain a transform coefficient, and entropy coding is performed on the transform coefficient without performing a quantization operation. For the lossless compression, a filtering operation is usually not performed. Further, a reconstructed image is obtained after all image blocks of a current image are reconstructed, and the reconstructed image may be used to subsequently predict another frame of image.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of decoding performed by a decoder side according to this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 4, after obtaining the code stream, the decoder side first performs entropy decoding on the code stream to obtain a quantization coefficient of a current to-be-reconstructed image block, and then performs dequantization and inverse transform on the quantization coefficient to obtain a reconstructed residual signal of the current to-be-reconstructed image block. The current to-be-reconstructed image block is predicted using a reference reconstructed image block of the current to-be-reconstructed image block to obtain a prediction signal of the current to-be-reconstructed image block. The prediction signal and the reconstructed residual signal are added to obtain a reconstruction signal of the current to-be-reconstructed image block. A current reconstructed image block corresponding to the current to-be-reconstructed image block is obtained based on the reconstruction signal. The current reconstructed image block may be used to subsequently predict another to-be-reconstructed image block. This is similar to the foregoing case of the encoder side. Optionally, the decoder side needs to perform filtering on the current reconstructed image block. Further, a reconstructed image is obtained after all image blocks of a current image are reconstructed, and the reconstructed image may be used to subsequently predict another frame of image.
To make coding and decoding easier, the encoder side first performs downsampling processing on each frame of image. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of coding performed by an encoder side according to this disclosure. As shown in FIG. 5, the encoder side performs downsampling processing on an entire image, and then codes each to-be-coded image block in an image obtained after the downsampling processing to obtain a code stream. A resolution of a reconstructed image block corresponding to each to-be-coded image block is a downsampling resolution. Correspondingly, the decoder side parses the code stream. A resolution of each to-be-reconstructed image block is a downsampling resolution, and a corresponding resolution of an obtained reconstructed image block is also a downsampling resolution. The decoder side needs to perform upsampling processing on the reconstructed image block to obtain a reconstructed image block of an original resolution.
In the other approaches, the encoder side performs downsampling processing on the entire image. However, all image blocks included in the entire image may have different features. For example, some image blocks may be relatively flat. In this case, the encoder side can perform downsampling processing on the image blocks. Some image blocks may have many details. In this case, these details are lost if downsampling processing is performed. Consequently, an effect of coding performed by the encoder side is poor, and correspondingly some reconstructed image blocks obtained by the decoder side are relatively blur. That is, an effect of a reconstructed image block obtained by the decoder side is poor.

Image processing method, device, and system


A method for real-time video processing for changing features of an object in a video is presented. The method comprises providing an object in the video, where the object is at least partially and at least occasionally presented in frames of the video. The method detects the object in the video and generates a list of at least one element of the object. The list is based on the object's features to be changed according to a request for modification. The at least one element of the object is detected and tracked. The method transforms the frames of the video such that the at least one element of the object is modified according to the request for modification.

Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate generally to the field of real-time video processing. In particular, the disclosed embodiments relate to a computerized system and a method for real-time video processing that involves changing features of an object in a video.
Description of the Related Art
At the present time some programs can provide processing of still images. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2007268312, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method of replacing face elements by some components that is made by users for real-time video. However, it is not possible to process real time video in such a way that an object shown in real time video can be modified in real time naturally with some effects. In case of a human's face such effects can include making a face younger/older and etc.
Thus, new and improved systems and methods are needed that would enable real time video stream processing that involves changing features of an object in the video stream.

Method for real-time video processing involving changing features of an object in the video


A device for cell culture, in particular of neuronal cells, including: a substrate defining a first microfluidic chamber to be seeded with a first cell culture, and at least a second microfluidic chamber, a fluidic interconnection system connecting the first and second chambers and enabling cellular extensions, in particular axons, to extend from one chamber to the other, wherein the interconnection system of the device is made so as to promote the progression of at least one first type of cellular extension, the first and second types of extension being different either due to the microfluidic chamber from which they originate, or due to the type of cell of which they constitute an extension.

The present invention relates to devices and methods for cell culture, in particular of neuronal cells.
The brain is an extremely complex structure composed of several neuronal areas connected to one another. Experimental studies in vivo preserve this overall structure, but are not suitable for cell-scale study.
Cultures of disassociated cells make it possible to describe in much greater detail the system studied. For this reason, many laboratories perform neuronal cultures. Traditionally, these cultures of neurons are carried out in Petri dishes or culture wells. These cell cultures find applications as a reductionist model in the study of neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, etc.), but also in developmental biology for the understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal differentiation.
However, in these systems, the neuronal connections are made randomly and it is impossible to reconstitute therein an architecture similar to those that are found in vivo.
The network structure of the central nervous system (CNS) is completely absent, and does not make it possible to study how the various neuronal layers interact.
Another method consists in using slices of various parts of the brain, cultured ex vivo.
Even though the integrity of the neuronal layers is preserved by this method, the complexity of the tissues sampled quickly poses a problem. In order to understand more clearly the propagation of neuronal death and the mechanisms of development in the various layers of the brain, it is advisable to develop new experimental devices which make it possible to control the architecture of the networks of neurons cultured in vitro.
Microfluidics is a tool of choice for cell biology, and in particular for neurosciences.
In WO200434016, Jeon et al., inspired by the studies by Campenot [Campenot, R. B. Local control of neurite development by nerve growth factor, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1977, 74(10), 4516-4519], propose a microfluidic circuit configuration which makes it possible to isolate the soma of neurons from their axon.
This configuration is suitable for the neurons of the central nervous system (CNS).
The "somatic" compartment is the channel into which the freshly dissected neurons are introduced.
The distal channel is that toward which the axons head in passing through the microchannels. The soma of the neurons cannot pass through the microchannels. This is because the microchannels are too thin to allow the soma to pass through.
This device is a first step toward the control of CNS neuronal cultures in vitro. The diffusion times in the microchannels are long, which makes it possible to treat the distal and somatic compartments separately. The diffusion of what is contained in one of the compartments toward the other is compensated for by imposing a pressure differential. For this, it is sufficient to place a larger volume of liquid in one of the reservoirs of one of the compartments, so as to impose a hydrostatic pressure differential between different compartments.
However, this device also has many limitations. Firstly, while it makes it possible to separate the cell compartments, it does not make it possible to induce any directed axonal connection between two neuron populations, since the axons can travel through the microchannels in both directions.
The publications WO 2006/037033 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,419,822, which are incorporated by way of reference, also relate to cell culture devices suitable for the culture of neurons.
The present invention aims, inter alia, to remedy these various limitations, and to thus allow studies, methods and screenings that are impossible with the current prior art devices.