Systems and methods for monitoring Required Navigational Performance (RNP) Procedures and reducing nuisance Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System warnings including a processor, a memory with RNP instructions and data, and a communication device. The processor accesses the RNP data and instructions from the memory, and uses the communication device to obtain flight information from a Flight Management System of an aircraft. When the processor determines that the aircraft is in RNP space, the processor projects an RNP envelope and modifies a warning envelope of an EGPWS to coincide with the RNP envelope if the EGPWS warning envelope extends farther than the RNP envelope.

At present, many aircraft are equipped with Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (EGPWS), such as the system taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,080, titled "Terrain Awareness System," issued Nov. 17, 1998 to Muller et al., and herein incorporated by reference. The EGPWS combines a worldwide digital terrain database with a long-range navigation system such as Global Positioning System, INS (Inertial Navigation System), radio-dependant navigational systems, or a combination of the above. On-board computers can compare its current location with a database of the Earth's terrain. Pilots receive timely cautions and warnings of any obstructions to the aircraft's path. The EGPWS uses the intended flight path and projects a volume (or envelope) around the flight path. The volume is determined by the flight path, the aircraft capabilities, and a "buffer" zone of safety to allow for human and mechanical errors. If the projected volume intersects with terrain features or other obstacles, the EGPWS notifies the pilot.
Required Navigational Performance (RNP) is a statement of the navigation performance accuracy necessary for operation within a defined airspace. RNP extends the capabilities of modern airplane navigation systems by providing real-time estimates of navigation uncertainty, assurance of performance through its containment concepts, and features that ensure the repeatability and predictability of airplane navigation. This precise characterization of airplane performance is key to designing more efficient airspace routes and procedures. Additional information may be found in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Order 8400.33, Procedures for Obtaining Authorization for RNP-4 Oceanic and Remote Area Operations, and FAA Notice N 8000 RNP-SAAAR, Airworthiness and Operational Approval for Special Required Navigation Performance (RNP) Procedures with Special Aircraft and Aircrew Authorization Required (SAAAR).
RNP allows smaller, more precise flight paths than current practices, and thus may help increase the amount of air traffic allowable in an area at any given time. RNP flight paths (or RNP envelopes) are not aircraft-dependent, and are fixed in space, as opposed to the EGPWS envelopes, which are based from the aircraft. This may cause the EGPWS to trigger terrain avoidance alerts (caution or warning) because terrain or other obstacles impinges on the EGPWS alert envelope. The RNP envelope, being smaller than the EGPWS envelope, may not be impinged by the obstacle and thus, even though a terrain avoidance alert has been signaled, the aircraft may not be in a dangerous situation. In such a situation the EGPWS alert is considered a "nuisance" alert. These nuisance alerts may reduce pilot responsiveness to the EGPWS alerts; that is, the pilot may start to ignore the EGPWS alert. Additionally, the approach path designer must tailor the approach to avoid ground proximity alarms which leads to non-optimum approach paths, and sometimes the alarm conditions may not be avoidable at all.
What is needed are systems and methods of reducing the number of nuisance alerts received by a pilot.

System for monitoring RNP for safe terrain clearance


A method, a wireless communication system, a tangible machine-readable medium, and a communication apparatus for transmitting a bandwidth (BW) allocation based on a multi-hop relay standard are provided. The wireless communication system comprises a BS and at least one RS. The BS transmits the at least one particular channel descriptor to the at least one RS. The least one RS transmits at least one Ack to the BS for replying the at least one particular channel descriptor. Finally, the BS transmits the at least one BW allocation to the at least one RS according to the at least one Ack in a predetermined interval.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, a wireless communication system, a tangible machine-readable medium, and a communication apparatus for transmitting a bandwidth (BW) allocation based on a multi-hop relay standard; more specifically, relates to a method, a wireless communication system, a tangible machine-readable medium, and a communication apparatus for transmitting a BW allocation according to a channel descriptor based on a multi-hop relay standard.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
Although IEEE 802.16 standard already provides greater bandwidths, lower building cost, better service quality and expansibility, there still exist some defects of coverage and signal quality of IEEE 802.16 standard. Therefore, IEEE 802.16j standard working group established a multi-hop relay study group in July 2005 for building a multi-hop relay standard.
When a relay station (RS) of IEEE 802.16 standard transmits a channel descriptor, such as a downlink channel descriptor (DCD) or an uplink channel descriptor (UCD), a BW allocation configured by a base station (BS) is needed. Accordingly, a solution to configure BW allocations for mobile stations (MSs)/subscriber stations (SSs) and relay stations (RSs) based on a multi-hop relay standard, such as IEEE 802.16j standard, is desired.

Method, wireless communication system, tangible machine-readable medium, and communication apparatus for transmitting bandwidth allocation based on a multi-hop relay standard


A radiation-emitting semiconductor body includes a semiconductor layer sequence including an active region that generates radiation, an n-conducting semiconductor layer and a p-conducting semiconductor layer, wherein the active region is arranged between the n-conducting semiconductor layer and the p-conducting semiconductor layer and the p-conducting semiconductor layer includes a first doping region with a first dopant and a second doping region with a second dopant different from the first dopant, and the p-conducting semiconductor layer includes a further doping region doped with the first dopant and has a thickness of at most 2 nm.

In radiation-emitting semiconductor components such as, for example, light-emitting diodes in the visible spectral range, leakage currents can impair their efficiency. One of the main causes of this is that electrons at the region between the active region provided to generate radiation and the p-conducting region penetrate into the p-conducting region on account of a potential barrier that is too low and recombine there in a non-radiating manner. This effect increases with increasing operating temperature.
By using semiconductor material having a large band gap compared to the material of the active region, only some of the electrons can be kept away from penetration into the p-conducting region. In addition, in material systems such as AlInGaP, it is often no longer possible to achieve an even higher band gap by adapting the proportions of the group III elements for the p-conducting region, and thus a sufficiently high potential barrier.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a semiconductor body distinguished by high efficiency and a method by which a semiconductor layer sequence, in particular for such a semiconductor body, can be produced efficiently and reliably.

Radiation-emitting semiconductor body and method of producing a semiconductor layer sequence


The invention provides derivatives of thiazolo[4,5-d1]pyrimidine and their use as inhibitors of proinflammatory cytokines.

The release of inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) by leukocytes is a means by which the immune system combats pathogenic invasions, including infections. TNFα stimulates the expression and activity of adherence factors on leukocytes and endothelial cells, primes neutrophils for an enhanced inflammatory response to secondary stimuli and enhances adherent neutrophil oxidative activity. See, Sharma et al., Med. of Inflamm., 6, 175 (1987). In addition, macrophages/dendritic cells act as accessory cells processing antigen for presentation to lymphocytes. The lymphocytes, in turn, become stimulated to act as pro-inflammatory cytotoxic cells.
Generally, cytokines stimulate neutrophils to enhance oxidative (e.g., superoxide and secondary products) and nonoxidative (e.g., myeloperoxidase and other enzymes) inflammatory activity. Inappropriate and over-release of cytokines can produce counterproductive exaggerated pathogenic effects through the release of tissue-damaging oxidative and nonoxidative products (K. G. Tracey et al., J. Exp. Med., 167, 1211 (1988); and D. N. Männel et al., Rev. Infect. Dis., 9 (suppl. 5), S602–S606 (1987)). For example, TNFα can induce neutrophils to adhere to the blood vessel wall and then to migrate through the tissue to the site of injury and release their oxidative and non-oxidative inflammatory products.
Although monocytes collect slowly at inflammatory foci, given favorable conditions, the monocytes develop into long-term resident accessory cells and macrophages. Upon stimulation with an inflammation trigger, monocytes/macrophages also produce and secrete an array of cytokines (including TNFα), complement, lipids, reactive oxygen species, proteases and growth factors that remodel tissue and regulate surrounding tissue functions.
Inflammatory cytokines have been shown to be pathogenic in: arthritis (C. A. Dinarello, Semin. Immunol., 4, 133 (1992)); ischemia (A. Seekamp et al., Agents-Actions-Supp., 41, 137 (1993)); septic shock (D. N. Männel et al., Rev. Infect. Dis., 9 (suppl. 5), S602–S606 (1987)); asthma (N. M. Cembrzynska et al., Am. Rev. Respir. Dis., 147, 291 (1993)); organ transplant rejection (D. K. Imagawa et al., Transplantation, 51, 57 (1991); multiple sclerosis (H. P. Hartung, Ann. Neurol., 33, 591 (1993)); and AIDS (T. Matsuyama et al., AIDS, 5, 1405 (1991)). In addition, superoxide formation in leukocytes has been implicated in promoting replication of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (S. Legrand-Poels et al., AIDS Res. Hum. Retroviruses, 6, 1389 (1990)).
A series of substituted xanthine-like compounds including pteridinediones, quinazolinones, and isoquinolones have been reported which inhibit the production or action of TNFα in human monocytes stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro. See, for example, H. B. Cottam et al., J. Med. Chem., 35, 2 (1996) and D. Carson et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,843,943). The most active compounds of these series were found to be in the pteridinedione class and their activity was independent of phosphodiesterase inhibition. Moreover, these compounds bind only very weakly at adenosine receptors A1 and A2a and therefore elevations in intracellular cyclic AMP levels are unlikely to play a significant role in their biological activity.
However, a continuing need exists for compounds which can block the deleterious effects of the cytokine-mediated mammalian inflammatory response.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Thiazolopyrimidines useful as TNFα  inhibitors

The Regents of the University of California


Provided herein is a pharmaceutical or oral care product for treating or preventing oral diseases that is prepared with proteoglycan 4 (PRG4) as an active ingredient, the preparing method thereof and the use thereof in manufacturing medicaments or oral care products for treating or preventing oral diseases and maintenance of oral health. PRG4 may have efficacy in maintaining oral health and treating or preventing oral disease. This secreted glycoprotein, which is also called lubricin and superficial zone protein, is known to protect against frictional forces, cell adhesion and protein deposition.

To date, a wide variety of oral care products are available which, over the short term, aid the maintenance of good oral hygiene by delivering various oral care substances or actives to the soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. The most frequently used oral hygiene treatments are those administered by the consumer themselves and it is usual that these are practiced, in the Western world, either once or twice a day.


In a signal shaper circuit provided between a VICS antenna, which receives a VICS signal and outputs reception input data signal, and a navigation CPU for signal processing, a low pass filter of a resistor and a capacitor is provided. The cutoff frequency of the low pass filter is set to pass light modulation noise included in the input data signal but cut off the input data signal, which is higher in frequency than the light modulation noise. The input data signal is compared with the filter-processed signal used as a reference signal by a comparator. As a result, a final output data signal is outputted in a waveform-shaped form and without loss of data.

The present invention relates to a communication device, in which a power supply line for supplying electric power to a receiver circuit is used for transmitting a reception signal of the receiver circuit.
A conventional inter-vehicle communication device mounted in a vehicle transmits and receives electrical beacon signals and optical beacon signals to communicate with road-side devices provided along travel roads, as disclosed in the following patent document 1. In this inter-vehicle communication device, a transmitter/receiver circuit for transmitting and receiving the electrical beacon signal and the optical beacon signal is positioned on a dashboard in a vehicle, for example, so that electric wave and light are easily transmitted and received. Thus, the transmitter/receiver circuit is formed separately from a main circuit for processing transmission and reception signal of the electrical beacon and the optical beacon.
For simplifying wiring in the vehicle, the transmitter/receiver circuit and the main circuit are connected via a single electrical line thereby to not only supply electric power from the main circuit to the transmitter/receiver circuit and transmit and receive the transmission and reception signal of the electrical beacon and the optical beacon by multiplexing.
Patent document 1: JP 10-256992A
The electrical beacon signal and the optical beacon signal are used to supply various road traffic information to vehicles. The electrical beacon signal and the optical beacon signal are transmitted to a navigation device so that the received road traffic information is provided to passengers by way of map display or voice announcement in the vehicle.
More and more navigation devices recently use a thin liquid crystal display panel as a display device and light emitting diodes as a backlight source of the liquid crystal display panel. The light emitting diode is used, because it is more advantageous than a cold cathode tube in respect of environmental protection, low voltage driving and low temperature operation characteristics.
The luminance of the backlight source (brightness of the liquid crystal display panel) is normally adjustable by a user in accordance with changes in brightness of the surrounding area between day and night. For example, the light emitting diodes used as the backlight source are connected in series with a switching element so that supply of current to the light emitting diodes are turned on and off by turning on and off the switching element. The light emitting diodes are driven to emit light in a desired luminance by controlling the duty ratio of a pulse-width modulation (PWM) signal, which turns on and off the switching element connected in series with the light emitting diodes.
When the current supply to the light emitting diodes is turned from on to off or from off to on, the input voltage supplied to the light emitting diodes is changed correspondingly by the change in the current supply. Thus, light modulation noise develops on a power supply line. Such noise on the power supply line influences other devices such as a transmitter/receiver circuit, which is connected to the same power supply line.
In the optical beacon, in which the power voltage and the reception signal are multiplexed on the single signal line, the light modulation noise on the single signal line will in some cases cause loss of a part of the reception signal received from an external site when the reception signal is transmitted to succeeding circuit stages in the communication device. As a result, the road traffic information cannot be acquired properly.


For on-demand Quality of Service (QoS) transmission of packets, edge nodes update a TERMINAL-PORT TABLE as terminals log-on and then pass their node ID to each terminal that logged on. The nodes establish Quality of Service (QoS) assured pre-set paths through the WAN with conventional IP routing and accordingly update their NODE-PATH TABLE to provide links between the pre-set paths, network resources upon which the QoS of the paths depend and identification of a last-hop node, without the need for identification of each destination terminal of the paths. An application level connection between source and destination terminals, using conventional IP routing, provides the source terminal with identification of the last-hop node that is coupled to a destination terminal. The source terminal provides the first-hop node the last-hop node ID, the destination ID and flow information. The first-hop node creates its FLOW-PATH TABLE and transmits the information to the last-hop node, which creates its FLOW-PORT TABLE. The last-hop and first-hop nodes send acknowledgements to the source terminal. As a part of creating the FLOW-PATH TABLE, the NODE-PATH TABLE is searched and a QoS path extracted based upon the request and the last-hop node ID. Then packets are sent from the source terminal to the destination terminal over the designated path. Thereby, nodes do not need to link pre-set paths to destination terminals prior to receiving a request for a QoS path, which reduces network storage capacity requirements and computational load as compared to a conventional pre-set path system.

Wide Area Networks, particularly the Internet, has been suffering from storage and computational overloads of increased traffic, which problems are growing at an alarming rate.
A resource reservation protocol (RSVP) requires that reservation and confirmation of a network resource occur on every node through which data will pass, every time a connection is made, which will tend to create long delays while a connection is being established. In RSVP and MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks, as the network grows in size, the number of connections and the number of transactions for the reservation that a node must handle will grow, which will require a correspondingly large computational power at each node, and the network may be unable to handle the necessary connections and transactions.
Recently, applications running on Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure are evolving to require high-bandwidth and real-time transfer of data. To differentiate these high-demand applications from conventional applications such as e-mail downloads and WEB page transactions, a virtual path (simply "path" hereafter) that guarantees Quality of Service (QoS) attributes, such as bandwidth, delay and jitter, can be used. The sender of the data specifies the path on which the data flow will be allocated and then sends the data on that path to have a guaranteed QoS.
One prior art method establishes pre-set paths, for example as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,304, to Hajime et al, dated Jun. 8, 1998. The pre-set path is established between a first-hop node and a last hop node of a Wide Area Network (WAN), such as the Internet, and can be used for any path that starts from a terminal that directly connects to the first-hop node and ends at a terminal that directly or indirectly connects to the last-hop node. The many terminals that directly connect to the first-hop node and the last-hop node can share the pre-set paths when establishing their own paths.
As used herein, Edge nodes of the network, edge nodes of sub-networks, edge nodes of work-groups, and gateways are examples of a first-hop node and a last-hop node of a Wide Area Network, which are in contrast to transit nodes that are along the path between the first-hop node and the last-hop node.
Routing information is exchanged between the first-hop node and the last hop node of a Wide Area Network in IETF, Multi-protocol Label Switching Architecture, RFC3031, January 2001. The first-hop node needs a path table linking the IP address of the destination terminal to a pre-set path. The source terminal sends a packet with a destination IP address to the first-hop node. The first-hop node uses the destination IP address to extract a path from its path table and then sends the packet through the selected pre-set path.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,425, issued to Iwata on Aug. 3, 1999, selects a first path to a destination in response to a connection request that specifies multiple Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. If the transmission of the first signal along the first path is unsuccessful, then a second path is selected according to a database. The pre-set paths are kept current as to QoS.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,682, issued to Nagasawa on Jul. 25, 2000, specifies a pre-set path that is available at log-on of a terminal. The originating network element, which is the starting point of a path, transmits a path trace value to the next network element, which path trace value has an identifier of the element which transmits the path trace value. The receiving element changes the identifier of the path trace value to its own identifier and retransmits the modified path trace value to the next element, etc. up to an end point. Each element holds cross-connect information and transmits to a network management system that constructs paths using the cross-connect information.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,751,971, issued to Dobbins et al on May 12, 1998, has multiple router interfaces assigned the same IP network address, creating an IP work group and allowing a host to be relocated anywhere in the work group without requiring reconfiguration of the host. A single address is used for several physical networks.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,256,295 B1 to Callon, dated Jul. 3, 2001, has a system for determining a plurality of minimally-overlapping paths between a source node and a destination node in a network. If the first path and the second path overlap, the system modifies at least one path to minimize the overlap of the paths to lessen the likelihood that a failure in one path will cause a failure of the other path.
There is a need for an improved set-up of QoS paths.

Method and apparatus for path configuration in networks


Collaboration space object model provides for a place consisting of rooms created by users interacting with a client browser. A skin (i.e., theme) may be used as template for creating places. PlaceBots (i.e., agents) provide for accessing, processing and managing data in a place. HTML may be dragged and dropped into a place, where it is parsed and corresponding place fields created. MS Excel or Word documents may be dragged and dropped into a place, which creates a corresponding form, and users may create new documents using that form. A place type comprising a template of an entire place, or collaboration space, may be used to create new places. Changes made to a place may be reported, subject to security controls, by selecting what's new. Task fields are provided allowing web browser creation of forms for work flow. Place enabled objects are provided for synchronous communications. A quick browse feature provides a simplified format for browser windows based on selection of HTML links. MS Office documents may launched within a place for in place editing and importing the resulting document into the place.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to web technology. More particularly, it relates to the creation and use of collaboration sites on the Internet or on an Intranet client/server system and to the graphical user interface used in Internet communications.
2. Background Art
The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) provide intra-enterprise connectivity, inter-enterprise connectivity and application hosting on a larger scale than ever before. By exploiting the broadly available and deployed standards of the Internet and the WWW, system users and designers can leverage a single architecture to build client/server applications for internal use that can reach outside to customers, business partners and suppliers.
Collaboration requires simultaneous communication between individuals on a project team. Typically, this has required that the team members work in the same location. Phone and video conferencing has enabled some remote work on the part of team members. Also, because of the growth of the Internet, collaboration using web technologies has been attempted, primarily using electronic mail (E-mail), Internet chat rooms, electronic whiteboards, and conferencing software. The most useful has been E-mail, but this approach results in a large trail or thread of notes as collaboration on a project advances, and these notes have no home or place to reside which is accessible by all team members substantially instantaneously and simultaneously. People often enter such a thread at different points, and such threads are not efficient in coordinating the work of many different people on a team which may include in-house developers and others, such as remote contractors, outside of an enterprise's firewall.
In order for such disperse teams to have the same, or substantially the same, collaboration environment as individuals working in the same physical office, a system is required which facilitates instant messaging, voice conferencing, electronic white boarding, and text and non-text file exchange. Such a system needs to provide a collaborative electronic room, or space, which is easily configured for use by team members without substantial administrative or application development support, and preferably include both groupware and project oriented applications such as shared folders, file exchange, workflow, group calendars, threaded conversations, version control, file locking, file merging, and security.
There is a need in the art for such a system which is easy to set up and which enables diverse and remote teams to become immediately productive in a secure environment. It would be, further, most desirable to allow such a collaborative environment to be set up without administrative support, that is by members of the team itself, using a familiar and easy to use browser user interface. Members of the team, acting with manager or author authority, and using such a browser interface without involving administrative or application development support, need to be able to set up a folder or room for each project element, such as a source code component, with version control, workflow elements, and group calendaring for tracking the project or project element with respect to approvals and deadlines. Such a room needs to receive from team members reports and have them routed to appropriate team members for review, resolution, and approval.
The WWW is a collection of servers on an IP (Internet Protocol) network, such as the Internet, an Intranet or an Extranet, that utilize the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Hereinafter, "Internet" 100 will be used to refer to any IP network.
HTTP is a known application protocol that provides users with access to files, which can be in different formats, such as text, graphics, images, sound, and video, using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Among a number of basic document formatting functions, HTML allows software developers to specify graphical pointers on displayed web pages, commonly referred to as "hyperlinks," that point to other web pages resident on remote servers. Hyperlinks commonly are displayed as highlighted text or other graphical image on the web page. Selection of a hyperlink with a pointing device, such as a computer mouse, causes the local computer to download the HTML associated with the web page from a remote server. The browser then renders the HTML into the displayed web page.
Web pages accessed over the Internet, whether by a hyperlink, opening directly via an "open" button in the browser, or some other means, are commonly downloaded into the volatile cache of a local computer system. In a computer system, for example, the volatile cache is a high-speed buffer that temporarily stores web pages from accessed remote web sites. The volatile cache thus enables a user to quickly review web pages that were already downloaded, thereby eliminating the need to repeat the relatively slow process of traversing the Internet to access previously viewed web pages. This is called local caching.
It is an object of the invention to provide a collaboration space application model for creating web applications that are aesthetically pleasing and present the user with a simple interface.
It is a further object of the invention to provide for creating web applications that are instantly created, instantly archived, team and project oriented, easy to use, created, accessed and administered via the Web, reusable, and extensible.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved method and system for designers and consultants to incorporate into collaboration space custom features and data from other applications.

Method and system for importing HTML forms

International Business Machines Corporation


Method for optimizing the development of a fluid deposit using a fracture network grid constructed from a Voronoi diagram.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the development of underground deposits, such as hydrocarbon deposits comprising a fracture network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The petroleum industry, and more precisely petroleum deposit exploration and development, require that knowledge of the underground geology is as perfect as possible to efficiently provide an evaluation of reserves, a modeling of production or development management. In fact, determining the location of a production well or an injection well, the composition of the drilling mud, the completion characteristics, choosing a method of recovering hydrocarbons (such as water injection for example) and the parameters necessary for the implementation of this method (such as injection pressure, production rate, etc.) require good knowledge of the deposit. Knowledge of the deposit notably means knowing the petrophysical properties of the subsoil at any point in space, and being able to predict the flows likely to occur there.
To do this, for some time the petroleum industry has combined field (in situ) measurements with experimental modeling (performed in the laboratory) and/or numerical modeling (using software). Petroleum deposit modeling thus constitutes a technical step essential to any deposit exploration or development. The object of this modeling is to provide a description of the deposit.
Fractured reservoirs constitute an extreme type of heterogeneous reservoirs comprising two contrasting media, a matrix medium containing the major part of the oil in place and displaying low permeability, and a fractured medium representing less than 1% of the oil in place and highly conductive. The fractured medium itself may be complex, with different sets of fractures characterized by their respective density, length, orientation, inclination and opening. The fractured medium is all the fractures. The matrix medium is all the rock around the fractured medium.
The development of fractured reservoirs requires knowledge of the role of the fractures which is perfect as possible. What is referred to as a "fracture" is a plane discontinuity of very small thickness in relation to its extent, representing a rupture plane in a rock of the deposit. On the one hand, knowledge of the distribution and of the behavior of these fractures can be used to optimize the location and the spacing between wells to be drilled through the oil-bearing deposit. On the other hand, the geometry of the fracture network conditions fluid displacement, both at the scale of the reservoir and at the local scale where it determines elementary matrix blocks in which the oil is trapped. Knowing the distribution of the fractures is therefore also very useful, at a later stage, for reservoir engineers seeking to calibrate the models they construct for simulating deposits in order to reproduce or to predict past or future production curves. For these purposes, geoscientists have three-dimensional images of deposits, for locating a large number of fractures.
Thus, to reproduce or predict (i.e. "simulate") the production of hydrocarbons on starting production from a deposit according to a given production scenario (characterized by the position of the wells, the recovery method, etc.), reservoir engineers use calculation software, called a "reservoir simulator" (or "flow simulator"), which calculates the flows and the changes in pressure within the reservoir represented by the reservoir model (reservoir image). The results of these calculations enable them to predict and optimize the deposit in terms of flow rate and/or amount of hydrocarbons that are recovered. Calculating the behavior of the reservoir according to a given production scenario constitutes a "reservoir simulation."
For carrying out simulations of flow around a well or at the scale of a few reservoir grid cells (˜km2), taking into account a geologically representative discrete fracture network, it is necessary to construct a grid of the matrix medium (rock) and a grid of the fractured medium. The latter must be adapted to the geometric (location of diffuse faults and fractures in three dimensions) and dynamic heterogeneities, since the fractured medium is often much more conductive of fluids than the matrix medium. These simulation zones, if they are fractured, may have up to a million fractures, with sizes varying from one to several hundred meters, and with very variable geometries: dip, strike, shape.
This step is very useful for the hydrodynamic calibration of fracture models. In fact, the discontinuity of hydraulic properties (dominant permeability in the fractures and storage capacity in the matrix) often leads to using the double-medium approach (homogenized properties) on reservoir models (hectometric grid cell). These models are based on the assumption that the representative volume element (RVE) is attained in the grid cell and the fracturing of the medium is sufficiently large to be able to apply homogenization methods (stochastic periodicity of fracturing is used, for example).
As part of the development of petroleum deposits, discrete flow simulation methods are used, notably, for the scaling of permeabilities (at the scale of a reservoir cell) and for dynamic tests (a zone of interest (ZOI) of small size compared to that of the reservoir). The calculation times appear to be crucial since the calculation is often performed sequentially and many times in optimization loops. It is known that in the case of dense fracturing (very connected fractures), analytical methods are applicable while in the case of a low connectivity index, the numerical simulation on a discrete fracture network (DFN) is necessary.
The numerical model, i.e. the matrix of transmissivities relating to the various objects (diffuse faults, grid cells of the matrix medium) must respect a number of criteria:                It must be applicable to a large number of fractures (several thousand fracture nodes);        It must restore the connectivity of the fracture network;        It must be adaptable in order to take into account all fracture models (several scales of fracturing, 3D disordered fractures, tight faults, dynamic properties over time, etc.);        It must be the shape of the fractures (any plane convex polygons or ellipses) and the heterogeneities of intersection between 3D fractures must be taken into account in the plane gridding of each of the fractures;        The number of simulation nodes must be restricted for being able to use a numerical solver;        It must be quick and inexpensive in memory (usable on a normal workstation and not just on a supercomputer).
With such requirements, conventional (finite element or finite volume) grids and the methods derived from them for a local construction of transmissivities, are not applicable due to an excessively high number of nodes necessary for the simulation.
The known technique implemented in the FracaFlow™ software (IFP Energies nouvelles, France) which overcomes these limitations by using a physical approach based on analytical solutions of plane flow problems. The fractures here are assumed to be constrained by geological beds (they cross them entirely) and to be subvertical. A fracture is considered constrained to the beds if it breaks off on changes of geological bed. These assumptions ensure that all intersections take place on any intermediate plane parallel to the geological layers. In the midplane of each geological bed, the nodes are placed on the intersections (a point) of the fractures on the plane (a matrix node and a fracture node at the same place). The vertical connections are borne by the fractures crossing several layers and the volumes associated with the nodes are calculated as the set of points (on the 2D plane, propagated vertically to the thickness of the layer) closest to the node (in the medium considered).
This method reaches its limits when the fractures are not constrained to the beds and/or the dip of the fractures is not vertical. The intersections are consequently not present on each intermediate plane and the vertical connectivity cannot be honored. By increasing the number of intermediate planes, the error can be reduced (without ever being correct in the case of subhorizontal fractures) but the number of nodes increases significantly and exceeds the limits imposed by the solvers.

Method for constructing a fracture network grid from a Voronoi diagram

Abstract: Based on observations of the deposit a discrete fracture network is constructed in which each fracture is represented by an isotropic polygonal finite plane in terms of its dynamic properties, a plane comprising segments of intersection with other network fractures. A Voronoi diagram is constructed on each fracture plane by positioning Voronoi cell centers on the segments of intersection, and the transmissivities are calculated between centers of neighboring cells from the ratio between the surface area of the neighboring cells and the distance between the neighboring cells. The cells and transmissivities can then be used to construct an image of the fluid deposit. Finally, this image and a flow simulator are used to optimize the development of the fluid deposit.


Methods and apparatus for a roof analysis tool for constructing a parameter set, where the parameter set is derived from mapping data for a map region, and where the parameter set describes the roofs for the buildings within the map region. In some cases, the parameter set includes a list of roof type identification values and the respective buildings in the map region for which a given roof type identification value corresponds. The roof analysis tool may operate on a server and work in conjunction with a mobile device, where the mobile device may display map views of a map region such that the map view is based on a three-dimensional model of the map region, and where a portion of the three-dimensional model is based on data generated on the mobile device and a portion of the three-dimensional model is based on data generated on the server.

Mobile devices often provide various mapping related features such as displaying a map view for a region in various modes and according to various viewpoints. Traditional mapping applications operable on mobile devices receive raster image data for a given map region of a map view. However, raster data is unusable for creating three-dimensional models of a map region and a corresponding three-dimensional map view of the map region. Further, within a map view of a map application executing on a mobile or desktop device, a user may prefer to see a representation of the surrounding environment in an aesthetically simple rendering. For example, as a user walks down a street while referencing the map view provided by a mobile device, a user may find it easier to navigate if surrounding structures in the map view were stripped of unnecessary and distracting details, texture or other information that may not be related to navigation or identification of the structure. In some cases, the map view may be three-dimensional, and in such a case a map view that is a simplified version of the real world may allow a user to make quicker navigation decisions.

Identifying and parameterizing roof types in map data


The invention provides pharmaceutical compositions for pulmonary delivery comprising particles containing a pharmaceutical agent and having a geometric size of greater than about 5 μm and a tap density of less than about 0.075 g/cm3. The invention also provides methods for delivering the pharmaceutical compositions of the invention to the respiratory tract of a patient.

Delivering large doses of drug through the pulmonary route is very difficult. Dry powder inhalers offer advantages in delivering high dose drugs. In a dry powder formulation, choosing a formulation with a high percentage of drug and a low percentage of excipient can help delivery high dose drugs, but it can often be difficult to manufacture and use such powders. Applicants have discovered an ultralow density pulmonary dry powder which allows for high doses of the powder to be packaged in a delivery compartment while being released from the inhaler as highly respirable particles.


A mass spectrometer having an ion source section capable of creating positive ions and negative ions at high efficiency. The ion source is comprised of an ion source section for creating ions of a sample gas, a mass spectrometric section for conducting mass separation of created ions, linear RF generating multipole electrodes, magnetic fields generation means, a sample gas introduction system, a reaction gas introduction system and an electron source in which the linear RF generating multipole electrodes generate linear RF multipole electric fields. A static magnetic fields is applied in parallel on the center axis where the linear RF multipole electric fields are zero. A sample gas and a reagent gas are introduced into the ion source section. Electrons are injected for creating reaction of the positive ions or negative ions.

The present invention concerns a mass spectrometry and, particularly, it relates to a massspectrometer that can be utilized, for example, for the detection of contaminants such as residual agricultural chemicals present by slight amount in atmospheric air, drinking water, foods, etc. or detection of dangerous matters.
Mass spectrometry is an essential technique as means for identifying substances and has been utilized generally for application uses such as detection of environmental food contaminants present by slight amount in atmospheric air, drinking water, foods, etc., or detection of dangerous matters.
In mass spectrometry, molecular samples separated from specimen by using an appropriate pretreatment device such as a gas chromatograph are introduced in vacuum and ionized and created as sample ions. The sample ions are identified by measuring for the ratio of charge and mass (charge-mass ratio) by using electro magnetic fields in a mass spectrometric section. Various kinds of pretreatment devices, ions sources and mass spectrometers have been known and identification of substances is conducted in a wide range of fields by appropriately selecting and combining them while utilizing the feature coping with the object to be analyzed.
The chemical ionization includes, as is well-known, positive chemical ionization for creating positive ions and negative chemical ionization for creating negative ions. In many cases, a sample gas separated by a pretreatment device such as a gas chromatograph is introduced in vacuum, ions are created by chemical ionizing reaction and they are analyzed by an ion trap mass spectrometer, etc.
In the positive chemical ionization, when an electron e− at high energy (about 70 eV) is irradiated to molecule species G referred to as a reagent gas, a primary positive ion G+ is created by the process of electron impact between the reagent gas and the electron (electron impact ionizing reaction of formula (1)) and a positive sample ion M+ is created by the transfer of a positive charge from the primary positive ion G+ to the sample gas molecule M (charge transfer reaction of formula (2)). The created positive sample ion M+ is subjected to mass analysis is identified. In the positive chemical ionization, methane (CH4), etc. are utilized generally as the reagent gas of molecule species G.G+e−(several tens eV)→G++2e−  (1)G++M→G+M+  (2)
On the other hand, in the negative chemical ionization, when an electron e− at low speed (1 eV or lower) is irradiated to the reagent gas of molecule species G, a primary negative ion G− ions are created by the electron capture process by the reagent gas molecule species G (electron capture reaction of formula (3)) and a negative sample ion M− is created by electron donation and reception between the created primary negative ion G− and the sample molecule M (charge transfer reaction of formula (4)). In the negative chemical ionization, molecule of water, etc. are utilized generally as the reagent gas molecule species G.G+e−(1 eV or lower)→G−  (3)G++M→G+M+  (4)
In a case of conducting creation of the sample ions and the mass analysis of the sample ions in different places, it requires an ion transportation section for ion transportation between the ion source section and the mass spectrometric section. This results in loss of the sample ions caused by ion transportation. On the other hand, in a case of conducting creation of the sample ions and mass analysis of the sample ions in one identical place, that is, in a mass spectrometer in which the ion source section and the mass spectrometric section are identical, loss of the sample ions is not caused, and mass spectrometry at high efficiency is possible.
A mass spectrometer having an ion source section for conducting positive chemical ionization is well-known (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-96727). The positive chemical ionization is often conducted inside the ion trap.
FIG. 9 is a view for explaining the outline of a mass spectrometer in a prior art where an ion source section for conducting positive chemical ionization and a mass spectrometric section are used in common.
A three dimensional ion trap comprises a ring electrode 201, and two end cap electrodes 202 and 203. When a reagent gas used for positive chemical ionization (flow of reagent gas is shown by arrow 205) and a sample gas containing a sample molecules separated by gas chromatograph (GC) 206 (flow of sample gas is shown by arrow 207) are introduced to a vacuum vessel where the three dimensional ion trap is placed. Thermal electrons generated by a tungsten filament 204 are accelerated and have a kinetic energy at about 70 eV. The accelerated thermal electrons are introduced as an electron beam 208 to the inside of the three dimensional ion trap.
G+ is created by there action of formula (1) between the electron and the reagent gas molecule G introduced to the inside of the three dimensional ion trap and the created G+ is reacted with the specimen gas molecule M (formula (2)) to create the sample ion M+ 209. The created sample ion M+ 209 is ejected mass selectively from the three dimensional ion trap by using a well-known three dimensional ion trap mass spectrometry and detected by an ion detector 210. The sample molecule is identified based on mass spectra.
A mass spectrometer having an ion source section for conducting negative chemical ionization is well-known (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-306419). In the prior art, creation of negative sample ions and separative detection of the sample ions are conducted generally in different places, that is, the ion source section and the mass spectrometric section are placed independently of each other. The ion source section is often referred to as an external ion source. Negative sample ions created by the external ion source are introduced into the mass spectrometric section. In the prior art, creation of the sample ion by the negative chemical ionization in the ion trap has been utilized only limitatively such as for scientific researches since the reaction efficiency of the formula (3) is low.
FIG. 10 is a view for explaining the outline of a mass spectrometer in the prior art having an external ion source section for conducting negative chemical ionization.
As shown in FIG. 10, an ion trap mass spectrometric section in which a three dimensional ion trap comprising a ring electrode 201 and two end cap electrodes 202 and 203 is placed, and an external ion source vessel 301 for conducting negative ionization of a sample are placed independently of each other. A reagent gas used for negative chemical ionization (flow of reagent gas is shown by arrow 205) and a gas containing a sample separated by a gas chromatograph 206 (gas flow containing sample is shown by arrow 207) are introduced into an external ion source 301. Thermal electrons generated by a tungsten filament 204 are introduced as an electron beam 208 at a low energy to the external ion source vessel 301.
G− is created by the reaction between the electron and the reagent gas molecule G introduced to the inside of the external ion source vessel 301 (formula 3) and the created G− is reacted with the sample gas molecule M (formula 4) to create a sample ion M− 302. The created sample ion M− 302 is moved from the external ion source vessel 301 through diffusion to the three dimensional ion trap as shown by a horizontal arrow shown in FIG. 10. The sample ion M− 302 is ejected mass selectively from the three dimensional ion trap by using a well-known dimensional ion trap mass spectrometry and detected by an ion detector 210. The sample molecule is identified based on the detection signal by the ion detector 210.
A linear ion trap mass spectrometric system is well-known (refer, for example, to the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,425 and the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,668), the technique regarding a linear ion trap axial resonance ejection on the linear ion trap mass spectrometry is well-known (refer, for example, to the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,824). An ion guiding technique using linear RF generating multipole electrodes not in parallel is well-known (refer, for example, to the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 5,847,386).


A field effect transistor includes a substrate, a passivation layer on the substrate forming a passivated substrate, wherein the passivation layer is inert to XeF2, and a graphene lateral heterostructure field effect transistor (LHFET) on the passivated substrate.

In the prior art, graphene lateral heterostructure field effect transistors (LHFETs) were developed with epitaxial graphene grown on silicon carbide (SiC) substrates. These prior art LHFETs have had limited utility. Further, because those prior art graphene LHFETs are on SiC substrates, integration with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits, which are generally on Si substrates, is not feasible.
Jeong S. Moon et al. describe a prior art graphene LHFET in "Lateral Graphene Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistor" IEEE Electron Device Letters, VOL. 34, NO. 9,September 2013, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference as though set forth in full. A prior art graphene LHFET is also described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,064,964, issued Jun. 23, 2015 titled "Graphene Heterostructure Field Effect Transistors", which is hereby incorporated herein by reference as though set forth in full. This prior art graphene LHFET suffered from severe etching of the silicon substrate and of other device structures on the substrate during fluorination of the graphene.
What is needed is an improved graphene LHFET which can be easily integrated with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. The embodiments of the present disclosure answer these and other needs.

Graphene LHFETS (lateral heterostructure field effect transistors) on SI compatible with CMOS BEOL process


The messages are broadcast successively and at regular intervals to mobile stations on a particular radio channel of the TDMA network. They comprise service messages and schedule messages respectively associated with successive schedule periods, each schedule message including information about the distribution of the service messages which will be broadcast during the associated schedule period. For each service message which will be broadcast during a schedule period, the associated schedule message includes a cue indicating whether this service message has been broadcast during the preceding schedule period. The schedule message furthermore indicates, as the case may be, the broadcasts of service messages which are repetitions of service messages already broadcast during the period. Use in particular in cellular radio telephone networks.

The present invention relates to a process for transmitting messages from an infrastructure of a radio communication network to mobile stations, as well as the equipment for implementing this process.
The invention applies to the broadcasting, by a base station of the infrastructure, of service messages destined a priori for all the mobile stations situated within the zone of coverage of the base station, each mobile station being able to decide whether or not to receive these service messages. The relevant broadcasting channels can in particular be channels for monitoring radio links if the service messages convey signals for setting up and managing the communications, channels for broadcasting service messages of which the users are intended to be made aware, or else mixed channels on which both these types of service messages will be broadcast.
To illustrate the problems raised by the broadcasting of such messages, in what follows we consider the example of the GSM ("Groupe Special Mobiles") European cellular digital radio communication system, for which there is a message broadcasting service, termed "SMS-CB" standing for "Short Message Service Cell Broadcast". When this service is provided, a particular radio channel is used in each cell and a message is broadcast roughly every two seconds on this channel. A mobile station equipped for this service reads the messages on this channel and displays them on a screen. Typically, the messages are rebroadcast cyclically.
The applications of this service are diverse. Those exploiting the network may use it for information relating to other services, as for example the tariff zones. It may also be used by external service providers, for example to broadcast travel information or weather forecasts.
The service messages are made up of 88 bytes sent in four successive blocks of equal length, the first of which contains four bytes for identifying the message, including 2 bytes, namely 16 bits, which consist of a message category cue. Each block can be received independently by the mobile stations, in the sense that reception of a block may be correct whether the other blocks have or have not been correctly received, and that the mobile station can decide whether or not to receive each individual block.
In the current state of the public specifications for the system, the mobile stations have to receive at least the first blocks of all the messages, failing prior information as to their contents, even if the user is only interested in certain of these messages. This tends to shorten the electrical endurance of the mobile stations, each reception consuming energy. Now, the endurance of portable mobile stations, which are light in weight and therefore have a small battery, is a point of importance to users.
To remedy this drawback, studies are in progress into reducing the number of receptions required, by sending information in advance. The objective is to provide indications in advance enabling the mobile station to know whether or not it is interested in a given message. Cases in which it is not interested are for example messages of a category of no interest to the user (the latter may program his apparatus to, for example, indicate to it that he is not interested in travel information). Another case is that of messages already received. Thus, the messages are rebroadcast regularly, there being many which are not modified for hours or days.
It has in particular been proposed to broadcast, on the same radio channel, schedule messages each giving information about a number of service messages which will be broadcast consecutively after the schedule message. The period for which the service messages catalogued in the schedule message are broadcast is called the schedule period. The information contained in the schedule message includes the categories of the various messages to be broadcast during the schedule period, so that a mobile station which has been programmed to ignore certain categories of message, may refrain from receiving the messages belonging to these categories without even having had to receive their first blocks. The service messages which will be broadcast several times during the schedule period are also identified within the schedule message, so that the mobile station may decide to receive these messages just once during the schedule period if this reception takes place without error. If a transmission error is detected in one of the blocks of the message received during the first broadcast, the mobile station can still decide to receive this block during the repetition of the message.
Let us consider for example the case in which the broadcasts to occur during the schedule period are those illustrated in table I. The content of the schedule message is then as indicated in table II.
After the header, the information relating to the broadcasts of messages are ranked in the sequence in which these broadcasts will occur. For each broadcast, the first bit indicates whether this is a first broadcast of a message during the schedule period (0) or a repetition (1), and the remainder of the field designates the category of the message, coded on 15 bits so as to obtain fields of 2 bytes (in the case of GSM, this entails omitting one bit from the complete category cue which contains 16 bits; it is therefore not impossible that there may be a few cases ambiguous to the mobile stations).
TABLE I ______________________________________ Broadcasting Message to be Category of sequence broadcast the message ______________________________________ 1 M1 c1 2 M2 c2 3 M3 c1 4 M3 c1 5 M2 c2 6 M1 c1 ______________________________________
TABLE II ______________________________________ Header (essentially the number of broadcasts to occur during the schedule period, here: 6) ______________________________________ 0 c1 0 c2 0 c1 1 c1 1 c2 1 c1 ______________________________________
If a mobile station receiving this schedule message is interested only in category c1, it may refrain from receiving the messages in the 2.sup.nd and 5.sup.th positions. However, it must read at least the first blocks of the messages in the 1.sup.st and 3.sup.rd positions. If, for example, the message M3 has been correctly received by the mobile station before the broadcasting of the schedule message, the mobile station must receive this same message again, at least its first block, in a superfluous manner in the 3.sup.rd position of the current period. Moreover, if the mobile station misses reception of the first block of this message in the 3.sup.rd position, it will also have to receive in a superfluous manner at least the first blocks of the messages broadcast in the 4.sup.th and 6.sup.th positions.
The schedule messages which have been proposed are therefore not optimal in terms of economy of the energy resources of the mobile stations. A main objective of the invention is to afford a solution which performs better in this respect.

Process and equipment for broadcasting messages to mobile radio communication stations


The present invention relates to a flexible electrode and a method for manufacturing the same. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the flexible electrode includes a substrate 10, a bonding layer 20 formed by adsorbing an amino group (NH2)-containing monomolecular material on the substrate 10, and a conductive layer 30 formed by coating metal nanoparticles 31 on the bonding layer 20.

With the recent advances in nanotechnology, information technology, and display technology, there has been an increasing need for mobile electronic devices that are easy to carry and are portable. Particularly, flexible, lightweight, and easy-to-carry electronic devices have received attention in various fields, including displays, transistors, touch panels, and solar cells. Electrodes suitable for fabricating such flexible electronic devices should be able to maintain their electrical conductivity even under various mechanical stresses such as bending, twisting, and stretching. Flexible electrodes are manufactured by forming a highly electrically conductive electrode material on a flexible substrate. Flexible electrodes are applicable to not only flexible devices but also antistatic films, antennas, and optical filters depending on their sheet resistance. Due to these advantages, flexible electrodes have been well-established as key components in information, electronic, and energy fields.
Conductive oxides, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and polymer conductors are currently known as the most widely used materials for flexible electrodes. Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a representative flexible electrode material, as disclosed in KR2009-0069886. ITO is a kind of transparent conductive oxide and is most widely used in flexible electrodes due to its high transmittance and conductivity.
However, the limited reserves of indium, a major constituent element of ITO, are responsible for the increasing manufacturing costs of flexible electrodes, resulting in low competitiveness in the market. ITO electrodes are apt to crack, resulting in deterioration of their electrode characteristics, because of their low resistance to substrate bending and warpage. That is, the low mechanical strength of ITO electrodes leads to poor electrical properties. The bonding of electrodes to lightweight and human-friendly fabric materials is of particular importance for the development of wearable devices. ITO electrodes are not suitable for this need.
Thus, there is an urgent need for a solution to the problems of conventional flexible electrodes.

Flexible electrode and method for manufacturing the same

Korea University Research and Business Foundation


Methods and apparatuses for still image compression, video compression and automatic target recognition are disclosed. The method of still image compression uses isomorphic singular manifold projection whereby surfaces of objects having singular manifold representations are represented by best match canonical polynomials to arrive at a model saved and compressed using standard lossy compression. The coefficients from the best match polynomial together with the difference data, if any, are then compressed using lossless compression. The method of motion estimation for inhanced video compression sends I frames on an xe2x80x9cas neededxe2x80x9d basis, based on comparing the error between segments of a current frame and a predicted frame. If the error exceeds a predetermined threshold, which can be based on program content, the next frame sent will be an I frame. The method of automatic target recognition (ATR) including tracking, zooming, and image enhancement, uses isomorphic singular mainfold projection to separate texture and sculpture portions of an image. Soft ATR is then used on the sculptured portion and hard ATR is used on the texture portion.

The present invention relates to image compression systems, and in particular relates to an image compression system which provides hypercompression.
Image compression reduces the amount of data necessary to represent a digital image by eliminating spatial and/or temporal redundancies in the image information. Compression is necessary in order to efficiently store and transmit still and video image information. Without compression, most applications in which image information is stored and/or transmitted would be rendered impractical or impossible.
Generally speaking, there are two types of compression: lossless and lossy. Lossless compression reduces the amount of image data stored and transmitted without any information loss, i.e., without any loss in the quality of the image. Lossy compression reduces the amount of image data stored and transmitted with at least some information loss, i.e., with at least some loss of quality of the image.
Lossy compression is performed with a view to meeting a given available storage and/or transmission capacity. In other words, external constraints for a given system may define a limited storage space available for storing the image information, or a limited bandwidth (data rate) available for transmitting the image information. Lossy compression sacrifices image quality in order to fit the image information within the constraints of the given available storage or transmission capacity. It follows that, in any given system, lossy compression would be unnecessary if sufficiently high compression ratios could be achieved, because a sufficiently high compression ratio would enable the image information to fit within the constraints of the given available storage or transmission capacity without information loss.
The vast majority of compression standards in existence today relate to lossy compression. These techniques typically use cosine-type transforms like DCT and wavelet compression, which are specific types of transforms, and have a tendency to lose high frequency information due to limited bandwidth. The xe2x80x9cedgesxe2x80x9d of images typically contain very high frequency components because they have drastic gray level changes, i.e., their dynamic range is very large. Edges also have high resolution. Loss of edge information is undesirable because resolution is lost as well as high frequency information. Furthermore, human cognition of an image is primarily dependent upon edges or contours. If this information is eliminated in the compression process, human ability to recognize the image decreases.
Fractal compression, though better than most, suffers from high transmission bandwidth requirements and slow coding algorithms. Another type of motion (video) image compression technique is the ITU-recommended H.261 standard for videophone/videoconferencing applications. It operates at integer multiples of 64 kbps and its segmentation and model based methodology splits an image into several regions of specific shapes, and then the contour and texture parameters representing the region boundaries and approximating the region pixels, respectively, are encoded. A basic difficulty with the segmentation and model-based approach is low image quality connected with the estimation of parameters in 3-D space in order to impart naturalness to the 3-D image. The shortcomings of this technique are obvious to those who have used videophone/videoconferencing applications with respect particularly to MPEG video compression.
Standard MPEG video compression is accomplished by sending an xe2x80x9cI framexe2x80x9d representing motion every fifteen frames regardless of video content. The introduction of I frames asynchronously into the video bitstream in the encoder is wasteful and introduces artifacts because there is no correlation between the I frames and the B and P frames of the video. This procedure results in wasted bandwidth. Particularly, if an I frame has been inserted into B and P frames containing no motion, bandwidth is wasted because the I frame was essentially unnecessary yet, unfortunately, uses up significant bandwidth because of its full content. On the other hand, if no I frame is inserted where there is a lot of motion in the video bitstream, such overwhelming and significant errors and artifacts are created that bandwidth is exceeded. Since the bandwidth is exceeded by the creation of these errors, they will drop off and thereby create the much unwanted blocking effect in the video image. In the desired case, if an I frame is inserted where there is motion (which is where an I frame is desired and necessary) the B and P frames will already be correlated to the new motion sequence and the video image will be satisfactory. This, however, happens only a portion of the time in standard compression techniques like MPEG. Accordingly, it would be extremely beneficial to insert I frames only where warranted by video content.
The compression rates required in many applications including tactical communications are extremely high as shown in the following example making maximal compression of critical importance. Assuming 5122 number of pixels, 8-bit gray level, and 30 Hz full-motion video rate, a bandwidth of 60 Mbps is required. To compress data into the required data rate of 128 kbps from such a full video uncompressed bandwidth of 60 Mbps, a 468:1 still image compression rate is required. The situation is even more extreme for VGA full-motion video which requires 221. Mbps and thus a 1726:1 motion video compression rate. Such compression rates, of course, greatly exceed any compression rate achievable by state of the art technology for reasonable PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) values of approximately 30 dB. For example, the fourth public release of JPEG has only a 30:1 compression rate and the image has many artifacts due to a PSNR of less than 20 dB, while H320 has a 300:1 compression ratio for motion and still contains many still/motion image artifacts.
The situation is even more stringent for continuity of communication when degradation of power budget or multi-path errors of wireless media further reduce the allowable data rate to far below 128 kbps. Consequently, state of the art technology is far from providing multi-media parallel channelization and continuity data rates at equal to or lower than 128 kbps.
Very high compression rates, high image quality, and low transmission bandwidth are critical to modern communications, including satellite communications, which require full-motion, high resolution, and the ability to preserve high-quality fidelity of digital image transmission within a small bandwidth communication channel (e.g. T1). Unfortunately, due to the above limitations, state of the art compression techniques are not able to transmit high quality video in real-time on a band-limited communication channel. As a result, it is evident that a compression technique for both still and moving pictures that has a very high compression rate, high image quality, and low transmission bandwidth and a very fast decompression algorithm would be of great benefit. Particularly, a compression technique having the above characteristics and which preserves high frequency components as well as edge resolution would be particularly useful.
In addition to transmission or storage of compressed still or moving images, another area where the state of the art is unsatisfactory is in automatic target recognition (ATR). There are numerous applications, both civilian and military, which require the fast recognition of objects or humans amid significant background noise. Two types of ATR are used for this purpose, soft ATR and hard ATR. Soft ATR is used to recognize general categories of objects such as tanks or planes or humans whereas hard ATR is used to recognize specific types or models of objects within a particular category. Existing methods of both soft and hard ATR are Fourier transform-based. These methods are lacking in that Fourier analysis eliminates desired xe2x80x9csoft edgexe2x80x9d or contour information which is critical to human cognition. Improved methods are therefore needed to achieve more accurate recognition of general categories of objects by preserving critical xe2x80x9csoft edgexe2x80x9d information yet reducing the amount of data used to represent such objects and thereby greatly decrease processing time, increase compression rates, and preserve image quality.
The present invention is based on Isomorphic Singular Manifold Projection (ISMP) or Catastrophe Manifold Projection (CMP). This method is based on Newtonian polynomial space and characterizes the images to be compressed with singular manifold representations called catastrophes. The singular manifold representations can be represented by polynomials which can be transformed into a few discrete numbers called xe2x80x9cdateryxe2x80x9d (number data that represent the image) that significantly reduce information content. This leads to extremely high compression rates (CR) for both still and moving images while preserving critical information about the objects in the image.
In this method, isomorphic mapping is utilized to map between the physical boundary of a 3-D surface and its 2-D plane. A projection can be represented as a normal photometric projection by adding the physical parameters, B (luminance) to generic geometric parameters (X, Y). This projection has a unique 3-D interpretation in the form of a xe2x80x9ccanonical singular manifoldxe2x80x9d. This manifold can be described by a simple polynomial and therefore compressed into a few discrete numbers resulting in hyper compression. In essence, any image is a highly correlated sequence of data. The present invention xe2x80x9ckillsxe2x80x9d this correlation, and image information in the form of a digital continuum of pixels almost disappears. All differences in 2-D xe2x80x9ctexturexe2x80x9d connected with the 2-D projection of a 3-D object are xe2x80x9cabsorbedxe2x80x9d by a contour topology, thus preserving and emphasizing the xe2x80x9csculpturexe2x80x9d of the objects in the image. This allows expansion with good fidelity of a 2-D projection of a real 3-D object into an abstract (mathematical) 3-D object and is advantageous for both still and video compression and automatic target recognition.
More particularly, using catastrophe theory, surfaces of objects may be represented in the form of simple polynomials that have single-valued (isomorphic) inverse reconstructions. According to the invention, these polynomials are chosen to represent the surfaces and are then reduced to compact tabulated normal form polynomials which comprise simple numbers, i.e., the datery, which can be represented with very few bits. This enables exceptionally high compression rates because the xe2x80x9csculpturexe2x80x9d characteristics of the object are isomorphically represented in the form of simple polynomials having single-valued inverse reconstructions. Preservation of the xe2x80x9csculpturexe2x80x9d and the soft edges or contours of the object is critical to human cognition of the image for both still and video image viewing and ATR. Thus, the compression technique of the present invention provides exact representation of 3-D projection edges and exact representation of all the peculiarities of moving (rotating, etc.) 3-D objects, based on a simple transition between still picture representation to moving pictures.
In a preferred embodiment the following steps may be followed to compress a still image using isomorphic singular manifold projections and highly compressed datery. The first step is to subdivide the original image, IO, into blocks of pixels, for example 16xc3x9716 or other sizes. These subdivisions of the image may be fixed in size or variable. The second step is to create a xe2x80x9ccanonical imagexe2x80x9d of each block by finding a match between one of fourteen canonical polynomials and the intensity distribution for each block or segment of pixels. The correct polynomial is chosen for each block by using standard merit functions. The third step is to create a model image, IM, xe2x80x9csculpturexe2x80x9d of the entire image by finding connections between neighboring local blocks or segments of the second step to smooth out intensity (and physical structure to some degree). The fourth step is to recapture and work on the delocalized high frequency content of the image, i.e., the xe2x80x9ctexturexe2x80x9d. This is done by a subtraction of the model image, IM generated during the third step from the original segmented image, IO, created during the first step. A preferred embodiment of this entire still image compression process will be discussed in detail below.
Optimal compression of video and other media containing motion may be achieved in accordance with the present invention by inserting I frames based on video content as opposed to at fixed intervals (typically every 15 frames) as in the prior art motion estimation methods. In accordance with the motion estimation techniques of the present invention, the errors between standard xe2x80x9cmicroblocksxe2x80x9d or segments of the current frame and a predicted frame are not only sent to the decoder to reconstruct the current frame, but, in addition, are accumulated and used to determine the optimal insertion points for I frames based on video content. Where the accumulated error of all the microbloceks for the current frame exceeds a predetermined threshold which itself is chosen based upon the type of video (action, documentary, nature, etc.), this indicates that the next subsequent frame after the particular frame having high accumulated error should be an I frame. Consequently, in accordance with the present invention, where the accumulated errors between the microblocks or segments of the current frame and the predicted frame exceed the threshold, the next subsequent frame is sent as an I frame which starts a new motion estimation sequence. Consequently, I frame insertion is content dependent which greatly improves the quality of the compressed video.
The I frames inserted in the above compression technique may first be compressed using standard DCT based compression algorithms or the isomorphic singular manifold projection (ISMP) still image compression technique of the present invention for maximal compression. In either case, the compression techniques used are preferably MPEG compatible.
Additionally, using the motion estimation technique compression of the present invention, compression ratios can be dynamically updated from frame to frame utilizing the accumulated error information. The compression ratio may be changed based on feedback from the receiver and, for instance, where the accumulated errors in motion estimation are high, the compression ratio may be decreased, thereby increasing bandwidth of the signal to be stored. If, on the other hand, the error is low, the compression ratio can be increased, thereby decreasing bandwidth of the signal to be stored.
Because the present invention is a 3-D non-linear technique that produces high level descriptive image representation using polynomial terms that can be represented by a few discrete numbers or datery, it provides much higher image compression than MPEG (greater than 1000:1 versus 100:1 in MPEG), higher frame rate (up to 60 frames/sec versus 30 frames/sec in MPEG), and higher picture quality or peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR greater than 32 dB versus PSNR greater than 23 dB in MPEG). Consequently, the compression technique of the present invention can provide more video channels than MPEG for any given channel bandwidth, video frame rate, and picture quality.

Method of isomorphic singular manifold projection still/video imagery compression


Disclosed is a lift type weight measuring centrifuge which is able to measure the weight of a measurement object after spatially isolating the measurement object. The centrifuge includes an upper sensing plate to move upwards, and a weight sensing mechanism provided under the upper sensing plate to sense a weight of the measurement object seated on the upper sensing plate. The centrifuge further includes a lift mechanism to move both the upper sensing plate and the weight sensing mechanism vertically, and a control device to control the operation of the lift mechanism and to measure the weight of the measurement object using a weight sensing signal output from the weight sensing mechanism.

Generally, centrifuges are apparatuses in which a rotor holding a bucket, in which a sample is placed, is rotated at high speed to apply high centrifugal force to the sample, so that a high density fraction is moved radially outwards and a low density fraction is moved radially inwards, thus separating the fractions from each other. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a conventional automatic balancing centrifuge. As shown in FIG. 1, the automatic balancing centrifuge includes a base 110, a centrifugal motor 120 which is supported by the base 110, a rotor 130 which is coaxially coupled to the centrifugal motor 120 and has a rotor lever 160, and a bucket 140 which has a predetermined volume to contain therein a desired sample 150 to be separated into fractions. The rotor 130 is provided with an upper housing 172 having a cubic cap shape and a lower housing 174 in which one rotor lever 160 is mounted. The rotor lever 160 has a lever central body 161 which is positioned at the center of the rotor lever 160, and two rotating arms 162 which are coupled at opposite ends of the lever central body 161 by hinges 163, thus being rotatable vertically. A pressure sensor 168 is mounted on a lower portion of each of the rotating arms 162 provided at the opposite ends of the lever central body 161, so as to directly sense the pressure of the rotating arm 162. The rotating arms 162 are balanced by the support of the pressure sensors 168. Two lever guide holes 166 are provided at opposite sides on outer surfaces of the upper and lower housings 172 and 174. The rotor lever 160 is inserted through the lever guide holes 166 and is horizontally movable in the lever guide holes 166 to maintain balance. In the drawings, the reference numeral 164 denotes a stop protrusion which is provided on each inner surface of the rotating arms 162 to hold the bucket 140. The reference numeral 142 denotes a stop groove which is formed on the bucket 140 to engage with the stop protrusion 164. In this construction, when measuring values of the opposite pressure sensors 168 are different in the state in which the samples 150 are placed in the buckets 140, a lever moving motor 182 provided in the upper housing 172 is operated. Then, the rotor lever 160 is horizontally moved by the operation of the lever moving motor 182, thus becoming balanced.
According to such a conventional automatic balancing centrifuge, imbalance of samples supported by the rotor lever is sensed prior to every centrifugal operation and, thereafter, the rotor lever is moved according to the imbalance sensing result, thus automatically balancing the centrifuge. Therefore, the samples are prevented from damage due to imbalance of the rotor and, as well, the lifetime of the automatic balancing centrifuge is extended. However, the conventional automatic balancing centrifuge is problematic in that because the weight sensor such as the pressure sensors are frequently struck by the buckets containing the measurement objects, the weight sensor is easily damaged.


A proximal portion of a first link is pivotally supported by a rear end portion of a frame. A second support shaft is provided in a distal portion of the first link. A first cylinder and a second link to which a counterweight is connected are supported by the second support shaft. A second cylinder is connected to the second link. Through pivoting of the second link by the second cylinder, the counterweight is selectively raised and lowered between a mounting position defined on the frame and a separating position above the mounting position. Through pivoting of the first link by the first cylinder, the counterweight moves between the separating position and the ground surface.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for detaching and attaching a counterweight provided in a construction machine such as a hydraulic excavator or a hydraulic crane, and, more specifically, to an apparatus for detaching and attaching a counterweight to and from a rear end portion of a frame.
Typically, a heavy-weighted work device such as a shovel or a crane is supported by a front portion of a frame of a construction machine such as a hydraulic excavator or a hydraulic crane. A counterweight is provided in a rear end portion of the frame in such a manner as to maintain equilibrium between the weight of the counterweight and the weight of the work device. For reducing the weight of the construction machine when transporting the machine to or out from a construction site, the counterweight is sometimes removed from the frame of the construction machine. To allow such removal, an apparatus that allows attachment and detachment of the counterweight is secured to a rear end portion of the frame. By means of the apparatus, the construction machine can be transported with the counterweight suspended from the frame. Also, the apparatus allows the counterweight to be attached to and detached from the construction machine in a state maintained on the ground surface.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-268908, for example, describes a configuration of this type of detaching/attaching apparatus. The apparatus includes a bracket secured to a rear end portion of a frame. A proximal portion of a pivotal arm is pivotally supported with respect to the bracket. A cylinder that causes pivoting of the pivotal arm is provided between the pivotal arm and the bracket. A counterweight is pivotally suspended from the pivotal arm through a connection tool at a position closer to the distal end of the pivotal arm than a connecting portion of the pivotal arm with respect to a piston rod of the cylinder. Through pivoting of the pivotal arm through the cylinder, the counterweight moves between a mounting position at the rear end portion of the frame and the ground surface.
In the apparatus, the counterweight is connected to the pivotal arm at the position closer to the distal end of the pivotal arm than the connecting portion of the pivotal arm with respect to the piston rod. Therefore, when the counterweight is raised or lowered, the torque generated by the cylinder acts on the pivotal arm at a position closer to the proximal end of the pivotal arm than the connecting portion of the pivotal arm with respect to the piston rod. This makes it necessary to employ a cylinder that generates great torque, which leads to enlargement of the apparatus. Also, the load of the counterweight acts on the pivotal arm at the position closer to the distal end of the pivotal arm than the connecting portion of the pivotal arm with respect to the piston rod. Since the pivotal arm functions as a cantilever in this case, bending load is concentrated on the distal end of the pivotal arm. Therefore, in order to enhance rigidity of a pivotal lever, the dimensions and the weight of the pivotal lever must be increased. This makes it necessary to employ a cylinder that outputs great torque.
Further, the counterweight of this apparatus is moved between the mounting position at the rear end portion of the frame and the ground surface through pivoting of the pivotal lever. Specifically, such movement of the counterweight between the rear end portion of the frame and the ground surface forms an arcuate path the radius of which corresponds to the entire length of the pivotal arm. However, the movement path of the counterweight makes it impossible to place the counterweight on the frame in a stable state or smoothly move the counterweight from the mounting surface of the frame to the ground surface. To solve the problems, it is necessary to ensure a clearance of a predetermined height between the counterweight and the frame by elevating the counterweight from the mounting surface of the frame. Nonetheless, the apparatus of this patent publication does not include a mechanism for selectively raising and lowering the counterweight with respect to the frame.
Thus, for satisfying the aforementioned necessity, the apparatus has a support pin that projects rearward from the rear end portion of the frame. An engagement hole engageable with the support pin is defined in the counterweight. Therefore, by placing the counterweight at the mounting position defined at the rear end portion of the frame and engaging the support pin of the frame with the engagement hole of the counterweight, the counterweight is suspended by the support pin. However, this structure cannot hold the counterweight stably at the rear end portion of the frame. Also, in order to bear the weight of the counterweight, the support pin and the peripheral structure around the support pin must be reinforced. This further complicates the configuration of the apparatus. Further, positioning between the engagement hole of the counterweight and the support pin is complicated.
Unlike the apparatus of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-268908, an apparatus described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 8-333776 includes a mechanism that selectively raises and lowers a counterweight with respect to a frame. The apparatus has a bracket secured to a rear end portion of the frame. A central portion of a first arm member is pivotally supported with respect to the bracket. A first cylinder through which the first arm member is pivoted is arranged between a first end of the first arm member and the bracket. A central portion of a second arm member is pivotally supported with respect to a second end of the first arm member. A second cylinder through which the second arm member is pivoted is provided between a first end of the second arm member and the first arm member. A counterweight is pivotally suspended from a second end of the second arm member. The position of the counterweight when placed on a rear end portion of the frame is defined as a mounting position. The position of the counterweight when elevated from the mounting position through pivoting of the second arm member by the second cylinder is defined as a separating position. The counterweight is selectively raised and lowered between the mounting position at the rear end portion of the frame and the separating position above the mounting position. The counterweight moves also between the separating position and the ground surface through pivoting of the first arm member by the first cylinder.
In this apparatus, the first arm member and the second arm member are supported pivotally with respect to each other. Also, the drive cylinders are connected to the first ends of the first and second arm members and the opposing arm member or the counterweight is connected to the second ends of the arm members. Since, in this case, each of the arm members functions as a cantilever, bending load is concentrated on the distal ends of the arm members. This makes it necessary to employ cylinders that output great torque and enhance strength of each arm member. This complicates the configuration of the apparatus.

Apparatus for detaching and attaching counterweight