A method for controlling operation of an appliance by a user through voice control includes at least the steps of: detecting, by the appliance, a control action performed by the user on the appliance; activating a voice control system by the appliance; capturing, by the voice control system, a voice input from the user as a captured voice input; recognizing, by the voice control system, a piece of information and/or an instruction in the captured voice input from the user as a recognized information and/or instruction; and executing, by the voice control system, a user control action on the appliance in accordance with the recognized information and/or instruction.

The possibilities for voice control of electronic devices are becoming increasingly widespread today. While it has been known for quite some time to use, for example, the telephone function of a single device, such as an automobile, via the user's voice, and to enter the person or number to be called by voice input, in recent years, the market has seen the introduction of voice-controlled personal assistants which are placed in the home and used there to support the occupants generally and in a variety of ways by voice input. Such voice-controlled personal assistants are wirelessly connected to the Internet, e.g. via a home WLAN, and are thus able to access a wealth of information and make it available to the user upon request.
One example of a known voice-controlled personal assistant is "Amazon Echo" of Amazon.com Inc., which can be activated from a standby mode by inputting various wake words, such as "Alexa" or "Echo," into the device by voice, by pressing a button on the device itself, as well as by using a corresponding remote control and pressing a button thereon, and by a voice input into the remote control. The user can then provide a voice input, to which the voice-controlled personal assistant may respond, depending on the particular application. Typically, the voice-controlled personal assistant responds with a voice output to the voice input from the user.
The functionality of the voice-controlled personal assistant can be enhanced by what is known as skill enhancements, so that, for example, music can be played as well. This also makes it possible to control corresponding smart home appliances which are configured to be controlled via a wireless home network, for example. Examples of other voice-controlled personal assistants currently widely used include "Siri" of Apple Inc. as part of an iPhone, as well as "Cortana" of the Microsoft Corporation as a software for computers with Microsoft operating systems.
In general, known voice-controlled personal assistants typically have to be addressed by the user with a wake word such as, for example, "Alexa," "Siri," or "Cortana" so as to be switched from a standby mode to an active mode. Once in the active mode, the voice-controlled personal assistant waits for voice input of instructions and information from the user in order to process the same and generate corresponding outputs or responses. This may be a feedback or an answer by voice to the user. In the case of a smart home application, for example, it is also possible to turn on, dim, or turn off the light in a room.
If such a voice-controlled personal assistant is to be used to control a household appliance and, in particular, a kitchen appliance, such as a cooktop, so as to initiate a cooking process, then this could be accomplished, for example, with the following voice input from the user: "Alexa, tell Miele cooktop rear left to cook potatoes."
This instruction can be divided into separate parts, which each have a specific meaning:
"Alexa"—wake word to activate the voice-controlled personal assistant; the immediately following words represent a voice command
"tell Miele"—selection of a function (skill) of the voice-controlled personal assistant; the following words are to be understood as an instruction to a Miele household appliance
"cooktop"—selection of the appliance to be controlled
"rear left"—the location within the addressed appliance
"cook potatoes"—action of the addressed location.
Thus, the user must create and speak a relatively long sequence of words. It requires some effort from the user to make up this sequence of words. Usually, the order of the parts, as explained above, must be correct in order to achieve the desired operation. Also, the parts must be complete. Furthermore, the user must also speak the made-up sequence of words in this form; i.e., slips of the tongue must be avoided. The sequence of words should also be spoken fluently and without interruption in order to be recognized by the voice-controlled personal assistant as a coherent instruction. This can require quite a bit of concentration from the user and, therefore, may be perceived as uncomfortable and awkward, so the user may refrain from controlling the operation of a household appliance in this way.
Also, the voice-controlled personal assistant must correctly capture the above-mentioned sequence of words. The longer the sequence of words, the more difficult this is to achieve. Furthermore, the voice-controlled personal assistant must correctly process all of the above-mentioned parts of the sequence of words in order to execute the desired operation. This effort, too, as well as the error-proneness of the processing process, increases with the number of words of the sequence of words and with the complexity of the content of the sequence of words. This may result in erroneous operations.
Further, the voice-controlled personal assistant may inform the user that it has not or not completely understood the instruction, so the user must repeat the sequence of words. This may also discourage the user from using this method of controlling the operation of a household appliance.
Overall, such voice-controlled personal assistants have the disadvantage that the wake word or the pressing of a button associated with the device of the voice-controlled personal assistant can only activate the actual voice control and does not provide the voice-controlled personal assistant with any further information regarding the action desired by the user.

Method for controlling the operation of an appliance by a user through voice control


Systems and methods of augmenting objects associated with personal data. A system includes a communication module, a processor, and a memory. The memory stores instructions that, when executed, configure the processor to authenticate a client device based on a credential associated with an account record. The processor receives, from the client device, an indication of a document marker and obtains, from the account record, personal data associated with the document marker. The processor transmits, to the client device, display data based on the personal data. The display data configures the client device to display an augmented reality output based on the personal data and at least one further image of the document. The personal data may include dynamic data varying over time. The display data configuring the client device to display the augmented output may be based on current personal data obtained from the account record.

Augmented reality systems can provide users with interactive experiences, where objects, when viewed via a computing device, in a real-world environment may be augmented with computer-generated information. The computer-generated information may be displayed in combination with representations of objects in the real-world environment. In some examples, the computer-generated information may provide additional information related to respective objects in the real-world environment.
For example, a computing device may include an image capture device and a display output device. The display output device may provide a live-view image of an object while the image capture device captures images of the object. An augmented reality application may supplement the live-view image of the object with computer-generated information. The computer-generated information may be constructively combined with the live-view image of the object or may selectively mask portions of the object provided in the live-view image.
Like reference numerals are used in the drawings to denote like elements and features.


A pixel driving circuit and a driving method therefor are provided. The pixel driving circuit includes a turn-on voltage acquiring device, a compensation device, a light-emitting controller, a data writing device, a driving transistor and a light emitting device. The turn-on voltage acquiring device acquires a turn-on voltage of the light emitting device and generates a compensation signal according to the turn-on voltage; the data writing device provides a data voltage to the gate of the driving transistor; the light-emitting controller provides a first operating voltage to a first electrode of the driving transistor; and the compensation device generates a control signal according to the compensation signal, the data voltage and the threshold voltage of the driving transistor and provides the control signal to the gate of the driving transistor; the driving transistor outputs a driving current to the light emitting device.

Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) panels have been widely used. Pixel display device of AMOLED is an organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Light emitting of AMOLED is realized by driving a thin-film transistor to generate a driving current in a saturation state, and then the driving current drives the OLED to emit light.

Pixel driving circuit and driving method thereof, and display apparatus

HEFEI BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


A combined electrical hand tool having an operating mode selection switch (1) with additional special functions that can be switched using a displaceable linkage (5) that can be displaced by the operating mode selection switch arranged between a lubricated assembly (2a) having a coupling (3a) and the external housing (4), wherein in at least two separate lubricant-tight assemblies (2a, 2b) at least one switchable coupling (3a, 3b) is present, which can be moved over an outwardly extending actuator (6a, 6b) that is mounted lubricant-tight.

The invention relates to a rotary mode selection switch for an at least partially rotating and/or percussive combination electrical hand tool device, in particular a combination hammer.
According to DE 10031050, in combination hammers, some or all of the operating modes are selected using a manually rotatable operating mode switch:  less than  less than rotary drilling greater than  greater than ,  less than  less than percussion drilling greater than  greater than ,  less than  less than chiseling greater than  greater than ,  less than  less than position chisel greater than  greater than  and the driver or percussion mechanism is accordingly combined and mechanically switched. The combination of several switching couplings is made using a switch plate in the lubricated inside of the gearing and percussion assembly.
According to DE 4000822, a rotary operating mode switch with an eccentric pin is sealed to a lubricant between a gearing assembly filled with lubricant grease and the dry outside. All switch functions are done on the inside of the gearing and percussion mechanism assembly.
According to DE 19937767 several operating modes are associated with other electrical and mechanical special functions, which, via a switching linkage arranged between the gearing assembly and the external housing and which is displaceable by the operating mode switch using an eccentric pin, engages in the motor switch, and using a terminal magnet via a Hall sensor, acts upon the control electronics of the drive motor in the motor housing not containing lubricant, which, when in  less than  less than chisel greater than  greater than  operation, locks the motor switch and increases the motor speed. There is only one lubricated gearing and percussion mechanism assembly.
It is the object of the invention to provide an operating mode selection switch for an electrical combination handtool with several switchable couplings in at least two different lubricated lubricant-tight gearing and percussion mechanism assemblies, said switch having other special functions.
This object is achieved, essentially, by an electrical combination hand tool having a preferably rotary operating mode selection switch with other special functions that can be switched using a switching linkage arranged between one lubricated assembly with a coupling and the external housing, wherein at least one switchable coupling is present in each of at least two separate lubricant-tight assemblies, each of the assemblies can be displaced using an outwardly extending actuating means mounted lubricant-tight.
The couplings arranged in different assemblies, lubricated with oil and grease, can be combined and switched by the linkage for special functions arranged in the unlubricated intermediate space by virtue of the at least two outwardly extending, lubricant-tight mounted actuating means, both of which are displaceable using the operating mode selection switch or the linkage.
Advantageously, the actuating means is configured as a rotary, lubricant-tight actuating means mounted in an assembly housing, which can be easily seated using O-rings.
Advantageously, the rotary actuating means has an eccentrically arranged eccentric guide pin, which engages in an elongated opening of the linkage, whereby a movement of the linkage can be transformed into a rotation of the rotary actuating means.
Advantageously, a first lubricant-tight assembly is configured as gearing assembly lubricated with grease and a second lubricant-tight assembly is configured as an assembly lubricated with oil, whereby optimal protection against wear is achieved.
Advantageously, a motor switch mediated via the special functions can be mechanically locked via the linkage and/or the motor speed can be changed electronically, whereby the utility of the combination electrical hand tool is enhanced.

Mode selection switch for a combination electrical hand tool device


Efficient coupling between an optoelectronic device (13) and an optical fiber (15) is obtained by using different monocrystalline elements of different crystallographic orientation for mounting, respectively, the fiber and the optoelectronic device. For example, the crystallographic orientation of an upper monocrystalline element (17) is chosen such that a horizontal groove (20) for supporting the optical fiber and a reflecting surface (19) for directing light into the fiber may both be made by anisotropic etching. The crystallographic orientation of a lower monocrystalline silicon element is chosen such that appropriate etching will yield a mounting surface (23) for the optoelectronic device (13) which is suitable for directing light from the reflecting surface (19) into the optical fiber (15) with maximum efficiency.. In one illustrative embodiment, the upper monocrystalline element (17) is {100} silicon, and the lower monocrystalline element (18) is {112} silicon. As will be expained more fully later, this permits anisotropic etching so as to form a V-groove (20) that supports a horizontally-extending optic fiver, a reflecting surface (19) that extends at 54.74.degree., and a support surface (23) for the optoelectronic device that extends at 19.48.degree. with respect to the horizontal. These relative angles provide for optimum optical coupling between the optoelectronic device and the optical fiber, while providing horizontal surfaces for supporting both electronic circuitry and the optical fiber, as is desired for secure packaging and integration of the package apparatus into a lightwave communications system.

Optical or lightwave communications systems are presently being intensively explored because of their promise for delivering greater quantities of information over a transmission medium than is possible with conventional electrical communications systems. Fundamental to any lightwave system is a lightwave source, such as a laser or an LED; a transmission medium, such as an optical fiber; and a detector, such as a semiconductor photodetector. Optical couplers are commonly used between the source and the detector for operating on the transmission information (e.g., monitoring, amplifying). Devices such as lasers, LEDs and photodetectors that operate both electronically and optically are known as optoelectronic devices.
The co-pending patent application of Blonder et. al. Ser. No. 163,664, filed Mar. 3, 1988 (Blonder-Johnson Case 11-9), now U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,711 and assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated, describes a number of packaging subassemblies for optoelectronic devices that appropriately align an optoelectronic device with various lenses, reflectors, and optical fiber transmission media. The supports for various optoelectronic devices and the reflecting surfaces are defined in monocrystalline silicon by taking advantage of known anisotropic etching properties of silicon. Because silicon etches preferentially along predictable crystallographic planes, various grooves, cavities and alignment detents can be quickly and easily made with great precision by masking and etching various surfaces of monocrystalline silicon support structures.
Semiconductor lasers differ from semiconductor LEDs in that they emit light from a junction periphery in a direction parallel to the junction; whereas, LEDs emit light in a direction transverse to the junction through the "top" of the device. LEDs are commonly used in conjunction with multi-mode optical fibers for providing data communications (e.g., communication between computers); whereas, lasers are commonly used in conjunction with single-mode optical fibers to provide voice and voice-related communications.
Because LEDs emit light in the vertical direction, LED packages are somewhat difficult to make because, for structural reasons, it is preferred that the optical fiber extend from the package in a horizontal direction. Bending the fiber 90.degree. is poor practice for both structural and optical reasons. Thus, it is preferred that the LED package contain a reflector for changing the direction of the emitted light prior to transmission by the optical fiber.
The aforementioned Blonder et al. application shows in FIGS. 8 through 10 a number of optoelectronic device packages for supporting an LED such that its output is reflected into an optical fiber. While the structures shown can be easily made, they do not provide for the most efficient coupling of light into an optical fiber because the light from the LED is directed into the optical fiber at an angle with respect to the fiber axis. The most efficient coupling requires that the light be directed into the optical fiber in a direction that is parallel to the axis of the optical fiber. Accordingly, there is a need for an optical device package that is easy to make with great precision and yet provides for efficient optical coupling between an LED or other optoelectronic device and an optical fiber.


A plastic reel or spool for fine magnet wire or the like is formed of two molded plastic pieces, preferably identical. Each piece preferably has a flange and a section of the core. The core sections have internal transverse lips which abut when the two pieces are assembled. The flanges have openings which permit the introduction of an appropriately dimensioned ultrasonic welding tool head to weld the abutting lip surfaces together.

The invention relates to reels or spools, and more particularly to improved plastic reels or spools for storing fine magnet wire or monofilament, although other uses are contemplated. Such reels or spools typically comprise a core provided with a pair of axially spaced annular flanges. It is common in the industry to prepare such reels by molding identical half sections which can be joined to provide a complete reel. The most convenient method of joining such half sections is by securing together mating core sections. In commercial practice these mating core sections are usually joined by use of a solvent adhesive. A typical such prior art spool is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,139 (Terpak, June 29, 1976) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,741 (Hussar et al, Mar. 9, 1976). While some efforts have been made to avoid use of adhesives and to employ welding, particularly ultrasonic welding, in assembling such reels, this has not achieved any commercial success due to the difficulty in transmitting the ultrasonic welding energy to the parting line of the mating core sections. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,806, (Yealy, Aug. 26, 1986) shows a welder head welding the end of a core to a reel flange. However, Yealy does not involve two identical plastic core sections which are joined adjacent the center of the core connecting the two ends of the reel. U.S. Pat. No. 3,334,841, (Burhop, Aug. 8, 1967) also mentions welding but does not describe how the welding is achieved.


The disclosed embodiments relates to methods and systems for performing a content verification in a video content. The method includes identification of one or more random access points in the video content. Thereafter, one or more work units are created based on the identified one or more random access points. The method further includes processing of the one or more work units by one or more processing units simultaneously, and determining one or more errors in each of the one or more work units while the decoding. The one or more determined errors in each of processed one or more work units are then merged with each other. A verification report is generated based on at least the merging.

Today, media content is used in a variety of applications. The examples of the media content can be both audio and video contents. There are certain features associated with the production and broadcasting of the media content. Currently, due to the use of new technologies, evolving industry standards and the use of open architecture in the development of the media content, verification of the features associated with the production and broadcasting of the media content is essential for ensuring a quality broadcasting of the media content. As a result, the media content developers, providers, broadcasters and operators need to carry out quality checks to verify the media content.
The media content developers, providers, broadcasters and operators apply various media content verification methods known in the art on the media content. However, such methods are generally limited in their performance since the quantity of the media content is generally very large and is to be verified for quality checks 24*7, however the content verification occurs on a single core which makes the verification process considerably slow as it takes a substantial amount of time for verification due to presence of large quantity of media content.
In order to address this problem of slowness in verification process, media content verification methods have been developed in which at least the portion of the verification process is performed on the multiple cores. One of the known methods for verifying the media content is a slice-based method. In the slice-based method, a frame of a plurality of frames of the media content is broken into multiple slices. The parsing of each of the multiple slices of the frame of the plurality of the frames of the media content is performed on a single core; however the decoding of each of the multiple slices of the frame of the plurality of frames of the media content is performed simultaneously on different cores. The slice-based method is limited by the factor that the improvement in the performance of the verification process is dependent on the number of slices. Thus, the gain (dependent on the performance) is not able to increase linearly with respect to the number of cores. Another limitation is that the slice-based method is only applicable to the media content having selected video formats (e.g. MPEG-2, H.264) and not all the existing video formats.
Another known method for verifying the media content is an alternate parse decode method. In the alternate parse-decode method, the parsing of a current frame of the media content, and the decoding of a preceding frame of the current frame of the media content occurs simultaneously on the different cores. The alternate parse decode method is limited by the fact that it cannot scale beyond the two cores.
It has also been found out that in both the slice-based method and the alternate parse-decode method, the scaling is limited and applicable only for decoding of the plurality of frames of the media content while the video quality analysis of the media content occurs only in the single core. Based on the above, there is need for common methods and systems that will efficiently verify the media content with various formats.

Methods and systems for file based content verification using multicore architecture


A photo mask for detecting misalignment of stepper blades and undesirable pattern array on an wafer comprises: a number of highest limit alignment marks 5 to 8 located in the outside of a field pattern area for forming product dies on the wafer and indicating the highest limits in setting positions of the stepper blades respectively and a number of lowest alignment marks 9,10 and 11 located respectively in three corners of the said outside of the field pattern area and indicating the lowest limits in setting positions of the stepper blades respectively, and forming a predetermined geometrical shape together.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photo mask having alignment marks and more particularly to a photomask having alignment marks for detecting undesirable location of stepper blades and undesirable mask pattern array on a wafer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional type of a photomask will be described, in referring to FIG.1.
FIG.1 shows an arrangement view of a photomask in company with stepper blades which consist of top stepper blade 3a, bottom stepper blade 3b, left stepper blade 3c, right stepper blade 3d.
Each stepper blade making a right angle moves left and right toward pattern area 1 and remains the necessary part, that is, pattern area 1, according to a shape of a photomask 12 and cuts off ultraviolet rays from the unnecessary part of photo mask.
However, when the stepper blades are inaccurately located because of input errors, a photo mask is more open or covered.
So, if a photo mask is more open, an unnecessary pattern and a unintended peripheral area of wafer is exposed and a product die of wafer is inferior if a photo mask is more covered, a necessary pair of pattern and wafer is not exposed and a product die of wafer is inferior
Furthermore, the prior art have one or more collateral difficulties detecting misalignment of stepper blades and the array of product dies on the wafer when the first pattern is formed,
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a photomask having alignment marks for detecting undesirable location of stepper blades and undesirable mask pattern array on a wafer.

Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd.


An apparatus for a wireless power transfer (“WPT”) pad heat management system includes a ferrite structure positioned adjacent to a coil configured to wirelessly transfer power. The apparatus includes a plurality of heat spreaders positioned along a length of a component of the ferrite structure. Each of the plurality of heat spreaders is non-metallic. The apparatus includes a trough shaped to surround at least a portion of each of the plurality of heat spreaders, wherein the trough is non-metallic. The apparatus includes a phase change material (“PCM”) in the trough where at least a portion of the heat spreaders extend into the PCM. The ferrite structure, coil, plurality of heat spreaders, trough and PCM are encased in a solid material, and each of the plurality of heat spreaders comprises a material that transfers heat from the component of the ferrite structure to the PCM.

Wireless power transfer is a way to transfer power from a transmitter, which may be called a primary pad, to a receiver. The receiver may be a vehicle that is moving or stationary. For wireless power transfer to a vehicle, often a large amount of power is transmitted to minimize charging time. Some heat is typically lost during the wireless power transfer and typically is manifest as core loss in a ferrite structure of the primary pad. Transmitting a large amount of power during wireless power transfer requires heat dissipation in the primary pad, which is challenging.

Static heat exchanger for wireless power transfer pad


Method for determining the ice concentration in a liquid ice mixture (binary ice fluid), with the steps:. separating a partial flow of the fluid and introducing and heating the partial flow into a heat exchange (16) until complete melting takes place, accompanied by the measurement of the inlet temperature t.sub.A and outlet temperature t.sub.B, PA0 further heating of the fluid flow by an external heat source and return of the partial flow through the heat exchanger (16), accompanied by the measurement of the inlet temperature t.sub.C and outlet temperature t.sub.O of the return partial flow and PA0 calculating the ice concentration according to the equation EQU X.sub.ice =(t.sub.C -t.sub.O -t.sub.B +t.sub.A).multidot.(cp.sub.fluid /h.sub.ice),. in which. cp.sub.fluid is the specific heat capacity of the binary ice fluid and PA1 h.sub.ice is the enthalpy of fusion of the binary ice.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining the concentration of a liquid ice mixture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Liquid ice mixtures comprise suspensions or mixtures of ice crystals or ice fragments in liquid (hereinafter called "binary ice fluid"). Such two-phase fluids are used for cold transport, storage and use. With respect to such fluids it is important to precisely know the ice concentration in order to maintain and/or determine all the process parameters in installations where such liquid ice mixtures are used. It is difficult to precisely determine the ice concentration in a binary ice fluid. The determination of the ice concentration by measuring the electrical conductivity, as known from DE 43 25 793 C2, is not very accurate and cannot be used for any random liquid. Viscosity measurements are difficult to perform even when possible. The pressure drop over a fixed distance is also not a suitable signal, because the viscosity of the liquid is based on the temperature, quantity and quality of additives.
The reason for the use of a binary ice fluid is the latent energy (enthalpy of fusion) of the ice contained in the fluid. This makes it possible to reduce pipeline cross-sections, reduce pumping energy and reduce the size of energy storage devices and heat exchanger surfaces.
The latent energy of binary ice cannot be determined with temperature sensors, because the temperature of the binary ice in the melting range does not or only just changes. Thus, another way for determining the ice concentration is required.
Normally the ice concentration of binary ice is determined by the "calorimetric" method. A volume of binary ice is weighed and its temperature determined. A second volume of sufficiently warm fluid (e.g. water) is weighed and its temperature determined. The two volumes are then mixed and it is then possible by means of the mixture temperature to back-calculate the ice concentration, provided that the mixture no longer contains ice.
However, this method is discontinuous, time-consuming and is only suitable for manual utilization on a laboratory scale.
It is known from DE 43 25 794 C1 to determine the ice concentration in a fluid mixture by measuring the pressure exerted by it.
The problem of the invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for determining the concentration of a liquid mixture, which is applied to a pipeline and which can determine the concentration at least in short intervals.

Method and apparatus for determining the concentration of a liquid ice mixture


An electronic ballast includes a ballast control circuit controlling an inverter circuit to supply a rectangular wave AC power to a high-pressure discharge lamp. The ballast control circuit includes a load voltage detection circuit adapted to detect load voltages of both positive and negative polarities applied to the lamp, a comparison and selection circuit adapted to compare the detected load voltages of the positive and negative polarities and select one of the positive and negative polarities, and a switching control circuit adapted to use the load voltage of the polarity selected by the comparison and selection circuit for controlling load current in one cycle after a period of detecting the load voltages of both the positive and negative polarities.

The present invention relates to electronic ballasts for powering high-intensity and a high-pressure discharge (HID) lamps such as high-pressure mercury and metal halide lamps, and to lamp fixtures using the same.
More particularly, the present invention pertains to electronic ballasts for HID lamps with circuitry for controlling power provided to the lamp.
FIG. 12 is a schematic of a conventional electronic ballast. The details of the circuit configuration and operation thereof are described later referring to FIG. 1 and the following is merely a summary thereof. In the ballast of FIG. 12, when the output power provided to an HID lamp DL is determined, the load voltage to the lamp DL through is detected by a load voltage detecting circuit 21 as part of a ballast control circuit 2, and is used to provide a prescribed load current according to the monitored value of the load voltage. For example, data according to voltage-current (V-I) characteristic table as shown in FIG. 10 may be stored in a memory 22 in the control circuit 2 so that a load current I is provided according to the detected value of the load voltage V. When determining the load current in this configuration, if the load current values for positive and negative polarities are different in a rectangular wave, this may result in flickering of the discharge lamp DL. Therefore, the detection period of the load voltage is fixed in one of the positive and negative half cycles, so that the load current to be provided in one cycle thereafter is determined according to the detected value of the load voltage.
FIG. 13 conceptually shows waveforms according to conventional detection (reading) of load voltage and a reflection thereof on control of the load current. The detection of the load voltage is fixed in a prescribed period of a positive or negative polarity. In the example shown in FIG. 13, the load voltage detection (reading) operation is fixed in a positive half cycle and the load current to be provided in one cycle thereafter is determined according to the detected value of the load voltage.
In a case where the load voltage is detected in a half cycle of a positive or negative polarity to thereby determine the load current to be provided in one cycle thereafter, as in the conventional example shown in FIG. 13, the ballast is normally operated when the load voltage values of both positive and negative polarities are generally equal. However, when the load voltage values of positive and negative polarities are largely different (for example, in a half-wave discharge or lamp rectification state), the target values of the load currents are different in the positive and negative polarity periods, and therefore a deviation is inevitably caused with respect to a target value of the load current in any one of the polarities. This is due to whether the polarity of the load current to be determined is the same as, or inverse to, the polarity of the monitored or measured load voltage.
As shown in FIG. 14, for example, in the case where the load voltage is detected in a polarity period of lower voltage, the load current in a polarity period thereafter is equal to or greater than a suited value, resulting in that the output power obtained (multiplying load voltage and load current) exceeds a prescribed value. Accordingly, there is concern for failure of the ballast or reduction in life of the lamp.
FIG. 4 shows waveforms of load voltage and load current when power being equal to or greater than prescribed value is actually provided by a ballast for powering a 150 W HID lamp. In FIG. 4, Vla denotes load voltage and Ila denotes load current. In this example, the load voltage is always detected in a positive polarity period and the target value of the load current is determined in the next both positive and negative polarity periods. Thus, the output power is generally equal to the prescribed value in the positive polarity period but is equal to or greater than the prescribed value in the negative polarity period.
In a configuration as disclosed Japanese Patent Publication No. 2815230), a circuit is adapted to disable operation of the ballast when the load current is largely different from a prescribed target value due to lamp rectification. However, in the case of an HID lamp, lamp rectification (a half-wave discharge state) is usually caused at the beginning of a lamp starting operation. In addition, after the lamp is started, it may take several minutes or longer to restart the lamp due to an increase of a gas pressure inside the lamp.

Electronic ballast for HID lamps with active lamp power control


Agrochemical formulations for treating plants, which formulations comprise, as cosolvent, polyethylene glycol (average molecular weights ranging from 200 to 400) or polypropylene glycol (average molecular weights ranging from 300 to 400) or mixtures, and, if appropriate, further additives, a process for preparing these formulations, their use for treating plants and/or their habitat and for increasing the efficacy and plant compatibility of these formulations, and for reducing volatile emission potential of these formulations.

Field
Disclosed herein are agrochemical formulations for treating plants, processes for preparing these formulations and processes for their use for treating plants and/or their habitat.
Description of Related Art
Agrochemical active components (sometimes referred to as agrochemical active ingredients) are often solid particles, crystal-like particles or oily liquids, which do not disperse in water, or disperse only with difficulty, but which are to be brought into aqueous suspension for their final use. These agrochemical active ingredients, such as herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, and the like are sometimes first dissolved in a water immiscible solvent. Such an agrochemical active ingredient when dissolved in a water immiscible solvent is referred to as an Emulsifiable Concentrate (EC).
Optionally, surfactants are added before the solution is emulsified in water. The solution of the active ingredient in the water immiscible solvent is also used for the convenience of e.g. transportation, storage, and/or dosing with water.
Sometimes, some water is already added to the formulation, pre-forming an emulsion in water (EW). A special type of EW are so-called micro-emulsions (ME), where the droplets of water immiscible solvent with active components are so small that light is not scattered, providing a water-clear or translucent liquid.
These EC or EW formulations comprise, for example, emulsifiers and/or dispersants, solvents and, additionally the cosolvent such as VOCs. In general, the efficacy of these agrochemical active compound formulations is very good.
Solvents often used to provide EC or EW include aromatic hydrocarbons, such as SOLVESSO® solvents of Exxon Mobil, paraffinic hydrocarbons such as EXXSOL® solvents of Exxon Mobil, cyclic hydrocarbons such as cyclo-hexanone and isophorone, pyrrolidone solvents such as N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and ester solvents such as methyl-oleate and EXXATE® solvents of ExxonMobil. These solvents often have the disadvantages that they exhibit significant toxicity to the users exposed to them, they are highly volatile, and/or they have a flash point causing them to be considered highly flammable.
As a result, the United States Environmental Protection Agency reviews ingredients in pesticidal formulations in addition to the active ingredients present. In Europe, the E.E.C. Council is at an advanced stage of introducing legislation for regulating the use of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and will shortly require an eco-labelling of formulations which contain such VOCs. Further, Canada and Germany already have a system of labelling.

Agrochemical formulation, method making, and method of using

ROTAM AGROCHEM INTERNATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED


An image processing apparatus for performing filter processing on a decoded image that is obtained by decoding compressed data obtained by coding a multi-valued image by the block of M×N pixels so as to eliminate noises and generating a reconstructed image. The image processing apparatus includes: a differential value calculation unit operable to calculate a differential value between a pixel value of a current pixel and each one of pixel values of peripheral pixels in a filter processing area that is predetermined for each pixel that forms the decoded image, a distribution coefficient calculation unit operable to calculate distribution coefficients as to the pixel values of the pixels, a filter coefficient calculation unit operable to calculate the filter coefficients as to the peripheral pixels based on the differential values calculated by the differential value calculation unit and the distribution coefficients calculated by the distribution coefficient calculation unit, a filter processing unit operable to perform filter processing as to the pixel value of the current pixel in the decoded image using the filter coefficient that is calculated by the filter coefficient calculation unit and calculate the pixel value of the current pixel in the reconstructed image.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method for generating a reconstructed image where mosquito noises that occurred as a result of block coding are effectively eliminated without blurring the edges and textures in an image by performing filter processing on the decoded image.
(2) Description of the Related Art
It is becoming popular to take an image (still image) such as a scenic shot or a people photograph using a digital still camera that has become widespread in recent years. However, the data amount of a digitized image is huge. Storing the image with huge data amount on a storage medium such as an IC memory as it is or transmitting it using a transmission medium such as the Internet or LAN causes the result that only a few images can be barely stored on a storage medium or the transmission time in a transmission medium becomes longer. Therefore, image compression technique is necessary in handling images.
When there is a need to compress image data at a high ratio, an irreversible compression method where the decoded image does not completely match the original image is generally used. Most irreversible compression methods employ a coding method of dividing an image data into blocks of M×N pixels, performing an orthogonal transform on the respective blocks, and then quantizing the orthogonal transform coefficient. One of these representative methods is JPEG that is widespread as a color still image compression method.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the functional structure of the JPEG coding apparatus and the JPEG decoding apparatus. The coding apparatus 60 compresses the original image into the JPEG-compressed data, and it comprises a pre-processing unit 61, a DCT (discrete cosine transform) transformation unit 62, a quantization unit 63, a quantization table 64, and an entropy coding unit 65 as shown in FIG. 1. The decoding apparatus 70 decompresses the JPEG-compressed data to a decoded image, and it comprises an entropy decoding unit 71, a dequantization unit 72, a dequantization table 73, an IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) transformation unit 74, and a post-processing unit 75 as shown in FIG. 1.
When the JPEG coding processing is performed in the coding apparatus 60, the pre-processing unit 61 transforms each pixel data made of multi-valued data of R (Red), G (Green) and B (Blue) of the original image into data of Y (luminance component) and Cr and Cb (color difference components) first.
Next, the DCT transformation unit 62 performs the DCT on each 8×8 pixel block of YCbCr data, and calculates the DCT coefficient.
Next, the quantization unit 63 performs quantization of the DCT coefficient. Each component of the DCT coefficients is quantized using a different step width according to the quantization table 64 at this time.
Lastly, the entropy coding unit 65 performs coding of the quantized DCT coefficient and generates the JPEG-compressed data. The JPEG standard method employs the Huffman coding as an entropy coding.
The above-mentioned processing is the outline of the coding processing from image data to the JPEG-compressed data. The JPEG-compressed data generated in this way is delivered to the decoding apparatus 70 via a storage medium (such as an SD card) or a transmission medium.
Next, processes of the decoding processing from the JPEG-compressed data to a decoded image will be explained.
When the JPEG decoding processing is performed in the decoding apparatus 70, the entropy decoding unit 71 performs entropy decoding on the JPEG-compressed data first.
Next, the dequantization unit 72 performs dequantization. At that time, the dequantization unit 72 reads out the information on the quantization table 64 used at the time of coding from the JPEG-compressed data and uses it as the dequantization table 73.
Next, the IDCT transformation unit 74 performs the IDCT and transforms the DCT coefficient into a decoded image of YCbCr data.
Lastly, the post-processing unit 75 obtains a decoded image by performing a transformation processing from the YCbCr data to RGB data.
The above-mentioned processing is the outline of the coding processing and the decoding processing concerning the JPEG.
As mentioned above, quantization of the DCT coefficient is included in the process of the JPEG coding processing. Therefore, data degradation is caused by the quantization errors. As a result of this, this degradation appears as noises on a decoded image when reproducing the decoded image on a paper using a printer or the like as it is. Even small noises on a still image can be obtrusive because still images can be viewed for a longer time, and these noises are also obtrusive in the case of moving image compression for performing block coding.
There is a kind of noise that exerts bad visual influence on a decoded image. This kind of noise is called mosquito noise. Mosquito noise means fuzzy dots that occur around the edges of decoded images. This results from the incapability of reproducing strong edges which existed on the original image to be reproduced accurately because a lot of high-frequency components are lost by quantization of the DCT coefficient.
In order to eliminate this kind of noise, a filtering processing is performed on the decoded image, and the image processing apparatus 100 for generating a reconstructed image where mosquito noises are eliminated has been conventionally considered as shown in FIG. 2. A lot of filter processing is proposed as a filter processing method, and the SUSAN filter shown in formula (1) is one of the new filters capable of keeping edges sharp and eliminating noises (for example, refer to the non-patent literature 1). Note that this technique is also called "the first prior art" from here.
                              g                                (                          x              ,              y                        )                          =                                            ∑                              i                ,                j                                                                {                                                f                                                        (                                                                  x                        +                        i                                            ,                                              y                        +                        j                                                              )                                                  ·                                                      α                                          x                      ,                      y                                                                                (                                          i                      ,                      j                                        )                                                              }                                                          ∑                              i                ,                j                                                                {                                                α                                      x                    ,                    y                                                                                (                                      i                    ,                    j                                    )                                            }                                                          (        1        )
whereαx,y(i,j)=α1x,y(i,j)·α2x,y(i,j)  (2)α1x,y(i,j)=exp [−(i2+j2)/(2σ2)]  (3)α2x,y(i,j)=exp [−{f(x+i,y+j)−f(x,y)}2/t2]  (4)
Here, in the formulas (1)˜(4), (x, y) shows the position of the current pixel, (i, j) shows the relative position of each peripheral pixel to the current pixel, f (x, y) shows the pixel value of the current pixel in the decoded image, f (x+i, y+j) shows the pixel value of each peripheral pixel in a decoded image, and g(x, y) shows the pixel value of the current pixel after filtering processing. Also, αx, y (i, j) shows the filter coefficient of each peripheral pixel (i, j) to the current pixel (x, y), and the filter coefficient is determined by the product of the first filter coefficient α1x, y (i, j) and the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j). Here, the first filter coefficient α1x, y (i, j) is designed so that the filter coefficient of a peripheral pixel increases in response to getting nearer to the current pixel, and the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j) is designed so that the filter coefficient of a peripheral pixel increases in response to its pixel value getting nearer to the pixel value of the current pixel.
Note that σ is a parameter for adjusting the influence of the distance from the current pixel to each peripheral pixel on the first filter coefficient α1x, y (i, j), and t is a parameter for adjusting the influence of the differential value between the pixel value of the current pixel and the pixel value of each peripheral pixel on the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j).
The biggest feature of this filter is the calculation method of the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j).
Here, FIG. 3 shows the relation between the differential value between the pixel value of the current pixel and the pixel value of each peripheral pixel, and the value of the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j) that is calculated from this differential value.
As is evident from this FIG. 3, a big value is set as the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j) when the pixel value of a peripheral value is close to the pixel value of the current pixel, on the contrary, a small value is set as the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j) when the pixel value of a peripheral value is widely different from the pixel value of the current pixel.
Here, a strong smoothing is performed when a big value is set as parameter t because a big filter coefficient is set in the case of a peripheral pixel whose pixel value is widely different from the pixel value of the current pixel. On the contrary, a weak smoothing is performed when a small value is set as parameter t because a small filter coefficient is set in the case of peripheral pixels except the peripheral pixels whose pixel values are very close to the pixel value of the current pixel. Therefore, there is a need to preset the optimum constant value as parameter t according to the purpose of the processing when applying the SUSAN filter.
The case for eliminating mosquito noises using this SUSAN filter will be considered.
As mentioned earlier, mosquito noises occur as fuzzy dots around strong edges.
FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing the relation between edges and mosquito noises. Note that the value of parameter t of the SUSAN filter should be set well smaller than the tone changes on edges and well bigger than the tone changes of mosquito noises. Here, because a very small filter coefficient is set on pixels including edges that have a pixel value widely different from the pixel value of the current pixel by the effect of the second filter coefficient α2x, y (i, j) without exerting much influence on the filter processing in effect when applying the SUSAN filter on pixels with mosquito noises, filter processing is performed setting a big filter coefficient on pixels with mosquito noises around the current pixel that have a pixel value close to the pixel value of the current pixel. Therefore, it is possible to keep edges sharp and eliminate mosquito noises effectively.
Considering this, filtering processing where filter coefficients are determined based on the differential value between the pixel value of the current pixel and the pixel value of the peripheral pixel is very effective so as to eliminate mosquito noises keeping the edge sharp.
Also, the following image processing apparatus has been conventionally considered (refer to patent literature 1): an image processing apparatus for eliminating noises from image data divided into a plurality of blocks block by block, and it comprises a judging unit operable to calculate frequency distribution of differential value between the neighboring pixels block by block based on image data for respective blocks and judge whether any edge is included as to each block based on the frequency distribution and a selection unit operable to select blocks where noises should be eliminated based on the result judged by the judging unit. Note that this technique is also written as "the second prior art" from here.
This second prior art makes it possible to eliminate mosquito noises and keep textures sharp by a simple processing because filter (E filter) processing is performed on blocks including edges and no filter processing is performed on blocks without edges as shown in FIG. 5.
[non-patent literature 1]
S. M. Smith and J. M. Brady, "SUSAN—A New Approach to Low Level Image Processing, "International Journal of Computer Vision, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 45-78, 1997.
[patent literature 1]
U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,828 (FIG. 1 in the first page)
However, according to the first prior art, when using the SUSAN filter so as to eliminate mosquito noises, a distinctive effect of keeping edges sharp even when eliminating mosquito noises that occurred in the sign area of the signboard is obtainable as shown in FIG. 6, but there occurs a problem of causing great degree of blur in the texture area such as the area of leaves. This comes from eliminating the tone change of the texture that existed in the original image when performing filter processing on the texture area using this parameter t because there is a need to set the value of parameter t to a value that is much bigger than the degree of the tone change of mosquito noises so as to eliminate mosquito noises effectively.
On the contrary, according to the second prior art, it is possible to keep textures sharp without affecting the effect in eliminating mosquito noises, but there occurs a new problem that mosquito noises are not completely eliminated or that image quality excessively changes depending on the existence of an edge because no filter processing is performed on dull edges.

Image processing apparatus and image processing method

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A method and system for optimizing real-time bidding on online advertisement placements is disclosed. According to one embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises receiving a real-time bidding (RTB) request from a RTB partner who is selling an impression on behalf of a publisher. Several probability scores are predetermined based on various criterion. During the processing of a real-time bid request, a combined probability score and threshold are calculated based on these probability scores. The decision to bid on and price to bid for the impression is determined by the RTB system. Campaign targets are based on the combined probability score. A RTB bid response indicating the selected campaign targets and the bid prices are returned to the RTB partner.

Online advertisement placements generally refer to the slots or space on the pages of a website that are available for displaying advertisements along with its content. Advertisers typically bid on these advertisement placements that are made available through real-time bidding (RTB) exchanges such as AdX, Admeld, Pubmatic, etc.
From a mechanical perspective, this requires the bidding server to have computer hardware linked to the exchanges. The bidding server then receives bid requests via the exchanges. A bid request occurs when a user/internet surfer visits a website/publisher that is selling their ad space on an RTB exchange. Upon receiving a bid request, the bidding server has a very short period of time within to respond to this request (generally around 50-100 ms or less).
Since this bid response needs to occur in a very short period of time, it is difficult to run large scale models to predict what ads to buy and what price to pay for them. We propose methods for creating optimal bid time decisions that allow multiple large data sets to be used in the decision processing in a way that can be acted upon in the time frame required for real-time bidding.
Traditionally, an advertiser manually made simple static rules to be carried out at bid time. The advertiser observed and determined which domains were available on the exchanges. The advertiser selected the domains to bid on by entering them into an excel document. Then, after several days, the advertiser received a report and visually weighs each domain against its click-through-rate ("CTR") to decide if the advertisement performed adequately. The CTR refers to the percentage of times users click on the advertisements given the number of times the advertisements are displayed ("impressions"). The advertiser removed poor performing domains and added new domains. This traditional approach was largely a process of trial and error that relied to a great extent on human memory and human judgment in an effort to meet CTR goals and to ensure enough domains were chosen so that the campaign met the daily impression quota. The traditional approach is more prone to human errors. Furthermore, because all domains were generally bid on with a single static price, advertisers often paid too much for advertisement placements or did not win the more valuable bids.

System and method for optimizing real-time bidding on online advertisement placements utilizing mixed probability methods


A system and method for designing web pages that enables web designers to place hyperlinks to web pages independent of any hierarchical relationship between the pages of the website. A link bar element is provided within a description of the website. The link bar element includes a persistent set of links, each link corresponding to one of several content files. One or more of the content files may be a web file. The link bar element is associated with at least one web file by including a link bar name in the at least one web file. In addition, other link bar information is stored in the web file and a description of the website is stored in a description file separate from the at least one web file that is associated with the link bar element. The description file includes an identifier for the link bar node and the one or more links. Based on the link bar element included within the web file, the description file is translated into additional instructions configured to cause a browser to create web links on a corresponding web page. The web links correspond to the one or more links in the link bar element.

Today, it is possible to share multiple page documents and collections of documents with others in a networked environment, such as the World Wide Web (hereinafter simply referred to as the "web"). However, linking these collections of documents in a useful manner may be a tedious task. Typically, linking is done by providing links on each web page to other web pages or documents. A user may click on one of the links appearing on the web page in a browser to navigate to the other web page or document. In order to easily navigate the collection of documents without causing confusion or being cumbersome to the user, the links shown on each web page should allow navigation of the website with a reasonable number of mouse clicks, and without displaying an overwhelming number of links on any one web page.
The creation of the links on each web page may be performed by a web author or designer by inserting a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for each link appearing on the web page. However, creating and designing a web page by typing in URLs is typically tedious, error prone and very time consuming. In addition, updating links that are scattered across several interconnected web pages can be a real chore. Therefore, the web designer may choose to use a website creation tool, which, among other features, provides a user interface (UI) for creating web pages. One popular website creation and management tool is FrontPage® 2000, developed and licensed by Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.
Some website creation tools allow a web designer to use menus and commands to design a website's overall structure (e.g. a web page hierarchy) in a navigation view, and to provide a separate page view in which to create and lay out a web page. An object (e.g., a navigation bar) may be defined in the page view to quickly and conveniently create "live" links to other web pages based on the website structure. Such live links are defined based upon the hierarchical relationship of the web pages. For example, the live links may point to one or more web pages above the selected web page (e.g., a parent or home page), one or more web pages on the same level as the selected web page, (e.g., sibling pages), or one or more web pages below the selected web page (e.g., a child page). These live links are then displayed as part of the web page when a user views the web page via a browser.
While the navigation bar greatly simplifies the creation of certain links, this mechanism is not ideal. For example, the navigation bar is relative to the web page on which it is used, e.g., a link to a parent means one thing on pages with the same parent but something else on pages with a different parent. Moreover, current web design tools require a web designer to hierarchically define the website structure and associate links based on the hierarchical structure. Still further, the web designer typically has to switch between the navigation view and the page view to create the hierarchical website structure and the respective web pages, which can cause confusion and inconvenience the website designer, who must remember the hierarchical website structure when linking the web pages.
Given the limitations in the prior art web design tools, there is a need for a more flexible and efficient way to design websites and their pages.

System and method for facilitating the design of a website


The present invention relates to a system comprising a heat source to provide heat at the desired temperature and energy field (e.g. a solar concentrator); an electron source configured and operable to emit electrons; an electric field generator generating an electric field adapted to supply energy sufficient to dissociate gas molecules; and a reaction gas chamber configured and operable to cause interaction between the electrons with the molecules, such that the electrons dissociate the molecules to product compound and ions via dissociative electrons attachment (DEA) within the chamber.

The abundant, low-cost production of potent fuels, which can be used in intrinsically clean energy processes, i.e. processes which do not produce and emit greenhouse gases and other pollutants is a challenging task.
Steam reforming is generally used to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbons. Steam reforming of natural gas, sometimes referred to as steam methane reforming (SMR), is the most common method of producing commercial bulk hydrogen, as well as hydrogen, used in the industrial synthesis of ammonia.
The steam reforming of methane and other hydrocarbons (Reaction 1 below), is generally followed by a water shift reaction to convert CO to H2. The syn-gas (i.e. synthetic mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) produced in the reforming process, can also be used as enriched gas fuel, or converted to liquid fuels such as methanol. Methane CH4 can be reformed with steam or carbon dioxide to form a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (syn-gas) as follows:CH4+H2OCO+3H2 ΔH=206.2 kJ/mol  (1)CH4+CO22CO+2H2 ΔH=247.3 kJ/mol  (2)where ΔH is the enthalpy of the reaction. At high temperatures (700-1100° C.) and in the presence of a metal-based catalyst, steam reacts with methane to yield carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

System and method for chemical potential energy production

Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd.


A method to measure, install and fix a toilet seat provides a contour measurement device, which includes a toilet seat contour line and a mounting base contour line, and depends on a process of shifting the toilet seat contour line on the contour measurement device along a boundary contour of a flush toilet and referring to these two contours as a basis to decide a location of the toilet seat and a fixed location of the mounting base contour line for a mounting base to be installed. Moreover, the mounting base is provided with a reusable adhesive medium which is fixed at a bottom surface and used to repeatedly stick the mounting base on a flush toilet without damage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method to measure, install and fix an object, particular a method to measure, install and fix a toilet seat.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Currently, an ordinary toilet seat or a computerized toilet seat to be installed on a flush toilet should make a holder fixed at two mounting holes of the flush toilet with bolts, washers and nuts by a worker using a wrench or a screw driver in an inconvenient or time-consuming course of assembling or disassembling the toilet seat or the computerized toilet seat that may be unseparated in the case of bolts or nuts rusted.
In addition, a holder of any toilet seat or computerized toilet seat being available in the market and featuring its particular specifications should be lifted gently to check secure fastening after the toilet seat or the computerized toilet seat was installed on a flush toilet. In order to provide a mounting base of the computerized toilet seat available to any flush toilet made by an unspecified manufacturer, some tolerances have to be designed on a holder's mounting holes for flexible adjustment within certain extents. However, it is possible to open more mounting holes by a user in the case of two mounting holes' positions beyond the tolerances; otherwise, the toilet seat fails to be assembled.

Method to measure, install and fix a toilet seat


A steel sheet product and a method for manufacturing the steel sheet product are described, the method includes the steps:                providing at least two steel sheets extending in a longitudinal direction (A),        cleaning longitudinal edges of the steel sheets by removing any surface oxide layers therefrom,        joining the steel sheets along the cleaned longitudinal edges using butt welding without filler material to form a weld, wherein inert gas protection is applied on both a top side and a root side of the weld during welding, thereby obtaining a welded steel sheet product,        removal of excess material from the weld, and        hardening of the welded steel sheet product by means of heat treatment and subsequent quenching.

High strength steel sheets are commonly used in e.g. the production of containers and tipper bodies of heavy duty vehicles. The high strength makes it possible to reduce the overall weight of the part by reducing its thickness and is therefore beneficial from an energy efficiency point of view. Apart from a high strength, steel sheet products for use in such products need to have good formability and high surface quality. Moreover, for many products, such as for containers and flatbeds for trucks, it is beneficial to provide steel sheet products that combine a large width with a small thickness. Widths of more than 2500 mm may be requested for certain applications, and sometimes in combination with thicknesses of less than 5 mm.
The production of such wide and thin products is however challenging. Wide steel sheets for use in the automotive industry, and for containers and flatbeds of trucks, are today typically produced using Steckel rolling mills or heavy plate rolling mills, in which the plates are fed back and forth between pairs of rolls. The processes for producing thin sheets in such rolling mills are relatively costly since the production rate decreases significantly with reduced sheet thickness. Furthermore, the surface quality as well as the thickness tolerances of the produced steel sheet products are generally inferior due to the slow rolling process. Therefore, there is an ongoing strive for improving the production methods as well as the quality of the produced steel sheet products.

Method for manufacturing a steel sheet product


One or more sensors are disposed to sense user inputs in an active display area as well as user inputs in an extended area that is outside of the active display area. Data for user inputs, such as gestures, may include data from user inputs sensed in both the active display area and outside of the active display area. The user inputs can begin and/or end outside of the active display area.

Mobile computing devices have been developed to increase the functionality that is made available to users in a mobile setting. For example, a user may interact with a mobile phone, tablet computer, or other mobile computing device to check email, surf the web, compose texts, interact with applications, and so on. Traditional mobile computing devices oftentimes employ displays with touchscreen functionality to allow users to input various data or requests to the computing device. However, it can be difficult to recognize certain user inputs with such traditional mobile computing devices, providing frustrating and unfriendly experiences for the users.


An incinerator has a hollow main body with a front wall, a rear wall, a first side wall, a second side wall, a top wall, and a bottom wall. The front wall has a first opening and a second opening formed therein. The second opening is disposed adjacent to the bottom wall between the first opening and the bottom wall. The rear wall has at least one inlet aperture formed adjacent to the bottom wall. The first side wall and the second side wall each have at least one outlet aperture disposed adjacent to the top wall. The incinerator further has a door that is movable between an opened position, whereby waste may be disposed on a grate suspended inside of the main body, and a closed position, whereby the door may cover the first opening.

The disposal of waste is a major concern of the municipal, commercial, and private sectors. Various types of recycling equipment and techniques are in use or have been proposed to dispose of waste, all with varying degrees of success.
One known method of disposal is to transport and bury the waste in a landfill. However, landfill sites are becoming scarce. Those remaining landfills are cost prohibitive, especially in rapidly growing urban areas. In addition, even if suitable sites for new landfills can be found, they are often at a distance that makes transportation costs prohibitive to their use.
Furthermore, landfills are a relatively inefficient method of recycling. Being simply buried at one site, the economic potential of the land is rarely fulfilled. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative disposal process capable of removing waste while saving land for future development.
One known option for circumventing the use of landfills has been to burn the waste material. However, this produces an ash residue, which can be toxic to the surrounding environment. As a result, there are many environmental limitations imposed by Federal, State, and local jurisdictions, where open burning is not always feasible or possible. Many such regulations significantly limit the amount of ash and smoke that may be released into the atmosphere.
There is a continuing need for an incinerator that is a closed system in compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Desirably, the incinerator is configured to combust waste with minimal emission of ash and debris.


A method includes identifying one or more features of a short term profile of a user that are not included in a long term profile of the user, using the one or more features to identify one or more third party profiles having features that substantially match the one or more features of the user's short term profile, accessing the identified one or more third party profiles, and providing one or more content items included in the third party profile to the user, the one or more content items having associated features that match the one or more features of the short term profile. An alternative method includes accessing one or more third party profiles that are not a profile of the user, and using the accessed third party profile to identify a plurality of content items for recommendation based on a feature set of the third party profile.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to personalization of content. More particularly, the present invention relates to user interface techniques and active and passive personalization techniques to enhance a user's personalization experience.
2. Background
With more and more content being continually added to the world wide information infrastructure, the volume of information accessible via the Internet, can easily overwhelm someone wishing to locate items of interest. Although such a large source pool of information is desirable, only a small amount is usually relevant to a given person. Personalization techniques are developing to provide intelligent filtering systems to 'understand' a user's need for specific types of information.
Personalization typically requires some aspect of user modeling. Ideally, a perfect computer model of a user's brain would determine the user's preferences exactly and track them as the user's tastes, context, or location change. Such a model would allow a personal newspaper, for example, to contain only articles in which the user has interest, and no article in which the user is not interested. The perfect model would also display advertisements with 100% user activity rates (i.e., a viewer would peruse and/or click-through every ad displayed) and would display only products that a user would buy. Therefore, personalization requires modeling the user's mind with as many of the attendant subtleties as possible. Unfortunately, user modeling to date (such as information filtering agents) has been relatively unsophisticated.
However, personalization content as well as profiles can be difficult for users to digest, especially where such content is dispersed through a web page that often requires a large amount of scrolling. Furthermore, developing a personalization profile can be cumbersome and time consuming. Fill-in profiles represent the simplest form of user modeling for personalization technology. A fill-in profile may ask for user demographic information such as income, education, children, zip code, sex and age. The form may further ask for interest information such as sports, hobbies, entertainment, fashion, technology or news about a particular region, personality, or institution. The fill-in profile type of user model misses much of the richness desired in user modeling because user interests typically do not fall into neat categories.
Feature-based recommendation is a form of user modeling that considers multiple aspects of a product. For example, a person may like movies that have the features of action-adventure, rated R (but not G), and have a good critic review of or higher (or 3 stars or higher). Such a multiple-feature classifier such as a neural network can capture the complexity of user preferences if the interest is rich enough. Text-based recommendation is a rich form of feature-based recommendation. Text-based documents can be characterized using, for example, vector-space methods. Thus, documents containing the same frequencies of words can be grouped together or clustered. Presumably, if a user selects one document in a particular cluster, the user is likely to want to read other documents in that same cluster.
However, it would be advantageous to provide a user with a personalization experience that generates positive perceptions and responses that encourage users to want to use the personalization service, while avoiding those negative perceptions that would discourage users from using the system, in an unintrusive manner so that the user can view content in a manner with which they are already familiar. Positive perceptions from the point of view of a user include, easily developing a profile, easily viewing third party profiles, and easily viewing potentially interesting content.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Content recommendation using third party profiles


Provided is a linear motion guide device that is less noisy and excellent in operability. A concave groove of a return guide and a raceway groove of a slider are not smoothly continued at a connection portion therebetween, where a stepped portion is formed. At a groove bottom portion of the raceway groove of the slider and the neighboring portion thereof, the surface of the raceway groove of the slider is located to be closer to a curvature center of the raceway groove of the slider than the surface of the concave groove of the return guide is. At a groove shoulder portion of the raceway groove of the slider and the neighboring portion thereof, the surface of the concave groove of the return guide is located to be closer to the curvature center of the raceway groove of the slider than the surface of the raceway groove of the slider is.

An example of conventional linear motion guide devices is described as follows. On a guide rail having a substantially rectangular sectional shape and extending linearly, a slider is assembled so as to be movable in a longitudinal direction of the guide rail. The slider includes a concave portion, has a substantially U-shaped section, and is assembled into the guide rail so that an upper part of the guide rail is housed in the concave portion. On both side faces of the guide rail is formed a raceway groove having an arc-shaped section and extending in the longitudinal direction, and on inner side faces (an inner surface of the concave portion) of the slider facing the side faces of the guide rail is formed a raceway groove having an arc-shaped section facing the raceway groove of the guide rail.
Then, between each raceway groove of the guide rail and each raceway groove of the slider is formed a rolling passage in which balls that are rolling members roll, and the rolling passage extends in the longitudinal direction. Plural balls are rollably loaded in the rolling passage, and the slider is movable in the longitudinal direction while being guided by the guide rail via rolling of the plurality of balls in the rolling passage.
In addition, the slider is includes a slider main body and an end cap detachably mounted at both ends of the slider main body (which are both ends in the longitudinal direction, and can also be referred to as both ends in a moving direction of the slider), and the raceway grooves of the slider are formed on inner side faces of the slider main body. The slider further includes, inside the slider main body, return passages including straight holes parallel to the rolling passages and passing through in the longitudinal direction.
On the other hand, on a back surface of the end cap (a surface abutting the slider main body) is formed a direction changing passage curved in an arc shape. More specifically, a direction changing passage concave portion is formed on the surface abutting the slider main body, and a semicylindrical return guide is fitted into the direction changing passage concave portion. On a radially outer surface of the return guide, a concave groove having an arc-shaped section that serves as a guide face for the balls is formed in a semicircular shape, and the direction changing passage is formed by the guide face of the return guide and an inner surface of the direction changing passage concave portion.
When the above-described end caps are mounted to the slider main body, the rolling passage and the return passage are communicated by the direction changing passages. The return passage and the direction changing passages at both ends constitute a rolling member conveying passage that conveys and circulates the balls from an end point to a start point of the rolling passage. The rolling passage and the rolling member conveying passage constitute a substantially looped circulation route.
When the slider assembled into the guide rail moves in the longitudinal direction along the guide rail, the balls loaded in the rolling passage move in the same direction as the slider with respect to the guide rail while rolling in the rolling passage. Then, the balls having reached the end point of the rolling passage are scooped up from the rolling passage and sent to the direction changing passage. The balls having entered into the direction changing passage are caused to make a U-turn, are introduced into the return passage, and reach the direction changing passage on the opposite side through the return passage. Here, the balls make a U-turn again and return to the start point of the rolling passage, thereby endlessly repeating such a circulation in the circulation route.
The guide face of the return guide is arranged so as to be connected to the raceway groove of the slider. However, in the linear motion guide device disclosed in PLT 1, a stepped portion is formed at a connection portion between the guide face of the return guide and the raceway groove of the slider. Then, the stepped portion is formed by positioning the guide face of the return guide to be closer to a curvature center of the raceway groove of the slider than a surface of the raceway groove of the slider is.
With such a configuration, the balls do not collide against the ends (end faces) in the longitudinal direction of the slider main body made of a metal such as steel. Thus, sliding resistance and noise can be reduced.


A wheel cylinder and brake piston are formed in the brake caliper of each wheel of a vehicle. A piezoelectric device, which is formed of laminated piezoelectric elements, is formed in the brake caliper such that it is connected with the wheel cylinder. By applying a voltage to the piezoelectric elements the piston device is made to expand and contract to thereby vary the volume of the wheel cylinder. Brake fluid is supplied from the master cylinder to the wheel cylinder via fluid passage formed in the brake caliper and a control valve for opening and closing this passage is formed in the passage. When there is a high pressure in the wheel cylinder, the piezoelectric device expands and the control valve closes. Then, by lowering the voltage the piezoelectric device contracts and the pressure in the wheel cylinder decreases.

This invention relates generally to a braking control apparatus for a vehicle such as an automobile and particularly to a control apparatus whose braking force is minutely controlled electronically, and which, when slippage occurs between the wheels and the road surface, automatically performs antiskid control by suitably reducing the force acting on the wheels when the wheels lock up.
Brake fluid is discharged from the master cylinder and is supplied to the individual wheel cylinders when the brake pedal is depressed. The wheel cylinders act on the brake pistons through the hydraulic pressure of the brake fluid and the brake pistions stop the rotation of the brake discs provided concentrically to each wheel.
With this type of control apparatus, the wheels lock up when a large force is applied to the brake pedal to bring the automobile to an abrupt stop. When the wheels lock up, slippage between the wheels and the road surface occurs resulting in a loss of control and unstable operation of the automobile. Accordingly, for smooth control of the automobile it is necessary for the operator to prevent this lock up of the wheels by detecting when slippage is about to occur and then reducing the force acting on the wheels.
It is however difficult to safely control the braking force as this depends on the sensory perception of the operator. An automatic control apparatus that operates based on a running state detection signal has been strongly desired.
A conventional apparatus that has a control device for reducing the pressure of the brake fluid supplied to each wheel cylinder is well known as a means for preventing wheel lock up. When lock up is detected from the change in wheel rotation speed signal, etc., an electromagnetic valve is operated to reduce the brake fluid supplied to the wheel cylinders.
However, with this kind of control apparatus there is an increase in the piping required to supply brake fluid from the electromagnetic valve to the wheel cylinders and, because of the compressability of the brake fluid, it is necessary to control a large volume of fluid, which in turn results in the need for a large capacity electromagnetic valve and hydraulic pump. This means that the apparatus is large and complicated, and it is difficult to improve the responsiveness of the apparatus.


A variety of systems, methods and compositions are disclosed, including, in one method, providing a foamed cement composition comprising a hydraulic cement, water, a foaming surfactant, a gas, and a nanocellulose foam stabilizing additive; placing the foamed cement composition in a selected location; and allowing the foamed cement composition to set.

Cement compositions may be used in a variety of subterranean applications. For example, in subterranean well construction, a pipe string (e.g., casing, liners, expandable tubulars, etc.) may be run into a well bore and cemented in place. The process of cementing the pipe string in place is commonly referred to as "primary cementing." In a typical primary cementing method, a cement composition may be pumped into an annulus between the walls of the well bore and the exterior surface of the pipe string disposed therein. The cement composition may set in the annular space, thereby forming an annular sheath of hardened, substantially impermeable cement (i.e., a cement sheath) that may support and position the pipe string in the well bore and may bond the exterior surface of the pipe string to the subterranean formation. Among other things, the cement sheath surrounding the pipe string functions to prevent the migration of fluids in the annulus, as well as protecting the pipe string from corrosion. Cement compositions also may be used in remedial cementing methods, for example, to seal cracks or holes in pipe strings or cement sheaths, to seal highly permeable formation zones or fractures, to place a cement plug, and the like. Cement compositions also may be used in surface applications, for example, construction cementing.
Cement compositions utilized in subterranean operations may be lightweight to prevent excessive hydrostatic pressure from being exerted on subterranean formations penetrated by the well bore, whereby the formations may be unintentionally fractured. One type of lightweight cement composition is a foamed cement composition, i.e., a cement composition that comprises entrained gas. In addition to being lightweight, the gas contained in the foamed cement composition may improve the ability of the composition to maintain pressure and prevent the flow of formation fluids into and through the cement composition during its transition time, i.e., the time during which the cement composition changes from a true fluid to a set mass. Foamed cement compositions may also be advantageous because they have low fluid loss properties and may act to prevent the loss of fluid circulation. Additionally, foamed cement compositions when set have a lower modulus of elasticity than non-foamed cements, which is often desirable as it enables the resultant set cement, for example, to resist hoop stresses exerted on the set cement in the annulus.
A foamed cement composition generally may be prepared by mixing a gas, such as air or nitrogen, with the cement composition. Foamed cement composition typically further may comprise a variety of surfactants commonly referred to as "foaming surfactants" for facilitating the foaming of a cement composition and various other surfactants commonly referred to as "foam stabilizers" for preventing the components of the foamed cement composition from prematurely separating. While a variety of foaming agents and foam stabilizers are well known in the art, problems have been associated with their use. For example, certain foaming agents, such as those consisting of a surfactant of Formula 1, R—(OR′)n—OSO3—X+, and foam stabilizers, such as a glycol of Formula 2, CH3O—(CH2CH2O)nH, or a betaine surfactant, may lower the compressive strength of the resultant set cement composition. Furthermore, upon mixing, the foaming agents and foam stabilizers used heretofore with water, gelation may occur, which is undesirable. Moreover, some foaming agents and/or foam stabilizers may have undesirable environmental characteristics and/or may be limited by strict environmental regulations in certain areas of the world.


A navigation system for catheter-based interventions, the system comprising a processing device; an angiogram x-ray system connected by data transfer connection to the processing device and capable of capturing angiographic images of a patient; an electrocardiogram monitoring device that is also connected by data transfer connection to the processing device and to the x-ray system; a medical instrument to be inserted into the area of the patient captured by the angiographic image; a position capture module for getting position information about the position of the medical instrument, the unit connected by data transfer connection to the processing device, wherein the processing device is capable of triggering the capturing of the angiographic images as a roadmap and superimposing on the roadmap the position information about the medical instrument.

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is performed through natural body openings or through small surgical incisions. MIS allows access to difficult-to-reach anatomy, minimizes trauma to the patient, and can result in shorter hospital stays and reduced pain. Endoscopic sinus surgery, neurosurgery, spinal surgery, arthroscopic and laparoscopic surgeries are all examples of minimally invasive surgeries.
Image-guided coronary navigation provides the medical practitioner with a visual "roadmap" of the patient's anatomy together with the position of an inserted medical instrument, such as a guidewire, catheter, balloon, stent, or other device.
Currently image-guided coronary navigation is done manually by the practitioner. Using repeated injections of contrast to enable capture of a progression of angiograms, the practitioner navigates a guidewire across the stenosis and then advances a balloon or other device to the treatment site. Roadmaps are difficult to use for cardiology due to the motion of the heart, therefore an overlay of previous injections is not currently used for coronary applications.
The present invention provides a method and system for advancing a guidewire or other device within the coronary tree using a roadmap image (roadmap). Several advantages are thereby obtained, including:
For the patient, there is a marked reduction in the use of contrast agents, thereby preventing renal damage and enhancing the ability to treat patients with multiple lesions in one session. Furthermore, there is a dramatic reduction in the amount of the patient's exposure to x-rays.
For the physician, automated wire positioning enhances his or her ability to treat the disease effectively by faster, more accurate deployment of the guidewire and/or medical device. Furthermore, in cases where the guidewire and/or medical device is positioned with an automatic positioning system, the deployment can be done faster and more accurately and with closed loop control.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent after reading the present specification and reviewing the accompanying drawings.

Image-guided navigation for catheter-based interventions


A fan with pressurizing structure includes a rotor having a main body, blades spaced on the main body, a magnetic body annularly mounted in the main body, and a shaft axially connected to an inner side of the main body; a frame having a sleeve and at least one bearing rotatably received in the sleeve, and an opposing end of the shaft being inserted into the bearing; a stator assembly fitted around the sleeve and including silicon steel plates and a base plate; and a plurality of first pressurizing sections selectively provided on one of the base plate and an end face of the magnetic body. With the first pressurizing sections, deposition of moisture and salt fog in the sleeve and the rotor can be prevented to avoid corroded and damaged bearing and rotor shaft, and the service life of the whole fan is increased.

The currently available cooling fan mainly includes a stator, a rotor, a circuit board, blades, a bearing, and a frame.
With the constantly increased applications of the cooling fan in different fields, from the central processing unit in electronic devices to servers, power supply devices, communication chassis, telecommunication base stations, etc., the cooling fan is frequently used in severe working environment, such as an environment with high humidity and salt fog. Since most of the currently available cooling fans are not provided with any structure for guarding against external moisture and salt fog, the stator and bearing inside the fan are subject to invasion by the moisture and salt fog and easily become corroded. In some worse condition, the circuit board of the fan is also corroded and becomes failed to shorten the fan service life.
To solve the above problems, two solutions have been proposed by those skilled in the art, namely, vacuum coating process and encapsulating process. In vacuum coating process, the stator and the circuit board are entirely coated with a film to obtain a waterproof effect. However, when the fan operates in an environment with salt fog, crystallized salt tends to grow and accumulate in the fan, the vacuum coated film, which is a very thin layer of polymeric compound, is subject to breaking when it is in frictional contact with the crystallized salt in the fan. As a result, electronic components in the fan are invaded by salty water and subject to short circuit and burnout.
In the encapsulating process, the stator and the circuit board are first assembled to the fan frame, and the obtained assembly is positioned in a mold. Then, a predetermined type of encapsulating compound is filled in the mold. After the encapsulating compound is set, the encapsulated assembly is removed from the mold. In this process, the encapsulating compound is filled into all spaces in the stator and the circuit board and encloses the whole stator and circuit board therein, so as to obtain the waterproof effect. A very thick capsule is formed in this process to enclose all the electronic components of the fan therein. Heat produced by the electronic components during operation thereof is not easily dissipated from the thick capsule to thereby cause burnout of the electronic components and failure of the fan.
The vacuum coating process and the encapsulating process are designed mainly for protecting the electronic components of the fan against corrosion by water and salt fog, but fail to prevent external moisture and salt fog from invading into the internal structure of the fan. Therefore, the vacuum coating process and the encapsulating process simply provide a way to protect the circuit board against water, and external water and salt fog can still invade the internal structure of the conventional fans. Moreover, when the fan motor is encapsulated to protect the circuits inside the fan, the heat produced by the motor during operation thereof can not be well dissipated from the capsule, which in turn brings constant rising temperature of the motor. The salt fog invaded into the fan and subjected to the high temperature tends to deposit and crystallize in the fan, and the crystallized salt attaches to the inner walls of the fan, resulting in stuck rotor shaft and bearing and burnt-out circuit board. Therefore, the cooling fan with the conventional ways of guarding against external water and salt fog has the following disadvantages: (1) having shortened service life; (2) having accumulated heat in the fan; and (3) having low heat dissipation efficiency.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved fan with pressurizing structure to prevent external moisture and salt fog from entering the fan, so as to overcome the problems existed in the prior art fans.