An apparatus includes: a memory and a first processor being configured to: control an operating frequency of a second processor connected to power supply devices that receive power from one or more power source systems to an operating frequency corresponding to a power value based on information on a number of power source systems and information on a number of uninterruptable power supplies connected to the power supply devices; and control, when the number of the power source systems is two or more and an uninterruptable power supply is connected to a power supply device in each of the power source systems, the operating frequency of the second processor to an operating frequency corresponding to a power value based on a number of power supply devices normally operating in a first power source system and a number of uninterruptable power supplies in a second power source system.

Some information processing apparatuses, such as servers and storage devices, have configurations in which power is received from two power source systems (hereinafter referred to as "two-system power reception") in order to avoid power interruptions due to failure of Power Supply Units (PSUs) or power failure. With this configuration, when an abnormality, e.g., power failure, occurs in one of the systems, an information processing apparatus can continue its operation by using the power supplied from the other normal system.
Here, a system may mean one power supply source or a power supply path (e.g., a line) connected to the power supply source. Accordingly, a two system may mean two power supply sources that are different from each other, or two power supply paths (e.g., lines) connected to different power supply sources.
In an information processing apparatus including 2×N (N is a natural number) PSUs and carrying out two-system power reception in which each system uses N PSUs, a scheme has been known which controls the clock (operating) frequency of the processor such that the processor can be cooled and operated with the power suppliable by N PSUs. For example, the information processing apparatus controls the operating frequency of the processor so that the power consumption of the processor does not exceed the power suppliable by the N PSUs. Consequently, the event of a power failure of one system, the information processing apparatus operates using power supply of the other system.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-178018    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2013-25343

Power control apparatus and method for power control


Circuitry and methods are provided for AC line synchronization of the firing means for phase-controlled thyristors in a DC motor speed control system. A line synchronization method and system is disclosed which eliminates zero offset in the phase command input function. This zero offset, which is cuased by motor counter EMF, occurs in prior art controllers which use zero crossings of the AC line voltages for line synchronization of thyristor firing. This invention provides line synchronization timing intervals of constant duration that terminate at the coincidence of AC line voltage and motor counter EMF with the coincidence being the latest time at which the particular thyristor being controlled is forward biased in the absence of current flow. Application to N-phase AC to DC converters for DC motor speed control is disclosed. Application to N-phase AC to DC converters for control of the DC bus voltage of variable frequency voltage-source inverters controlling the speed of an AC motor or a brushless DC motor is also disclosed.

The function of a typical motor speed controller is to regulate the speed of a connected motor to a desired value and to limit or regulate motor current to a safe level. To accomplish these functions thyristor type controllers must include not only regulator circuitry but also thyristor firing circuitry and line synchronization circuitry which fixes the time axis relationship between the thyristor firing pulses and the AC line voltages.
One type of control system is a regenerative control system which is capable of controlling power flow from an AC line to the motor (motoring action) or power flow from the motor back into the AC line (generating action). In regenerative control circuits a thyristor bridge rectifies the AC line voltages and through a conversion process known in the art as phase control applies a fraction of the maximum available rectified line voltage to the motor causing current to flow through the motor which subsequently causes it to rotate. The fraction of available voltage applied to the motor is determined by the magnitude of the phase command. As the motor rotates, a speed feedback output is produced which is proportional to the motor speed.
Regulators, which are generally high gain closed loop systems, drive a phase command to whatever polarity and magnitude is required to force the feedback function to agree with the corresponding command function. The typical loop architecture causes the speed loop to be satisfied except when the current which is required to do so exceeds the current limit command. In any case, the net result is that the regulator section outputs a phase command which controls the fractional part of AC line voltage that the thyristors apply to the motor thereby determining the current which flows through the motor.
In order for the phase command to exercise control as described, each firing pulse generator is synchronized to the appropriate AC line by an "enable" timing interval which is typically of 180 electrical degrees duration. During this interval, timing of the firing pulse for a connected thyristor occurs under control of a phase command signal.
In the prior art methods, timing intervals start and end at the zero crossings (zero voltage points) of a given line to line AC voltage. This method is suitable for controlling thyristor bridges which control the current to resistive or inductive loads which do not contain an active voltage component such as the counter EMF of a rotating DC motor. When prior art timing methods are utilized with thyristor bridges controlling DC motors, however, the counter EMF of the rotating motor causes the magnitude of the phase command required to produce zero current to the motor to increase proportional to the counter EMF of the motor. This occurs because, in the absence of thyristor conduction, the polarity of voltage across a given thyristor, and thus the period in which it may be fired, is determined not by just a line voltage, but by the sum of a line voltage and the counter EMF of the motor.
This load-voltage-induced offset in the phase command is undesirable for several reasons, particularly if the thyristor bridge is bidirectional and capable of producing either polarity of current to the motor. Such bridges are actually two independent back-to-back bridges and logic must be provided in prior art controllers to select the correct bridge to satisfy the regulator loop which is providing the phase command. If it were not for the load-voltage-induced offset in the phase command, the polarity of the phase command could be used to directly control the polarity of the motor current and bridge selection logic would not be necessary. Other disadvantages caused by the zero offset of prior art controllers include inability of the controller to safely start a rotating motor, snap-on and dead band effects, and potentially damaging current surges that can occur if the phase command is forced to zero as a means of protective shutdown of the controller.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved functional block within a thyristor control system for DC motors or for control of the DC bus voltage of AC variable frequency motor controls of the voltage-source type. Specifically, there is a need in the art for circuitry which accurately synchronizes thyristor firing pulses to AC lines when the connected load includes an active voltage component.

Circuitry and method for controlling the firing of a thyristor


The present disclosure provides a system and method for generating power, such as electrical power, using an increased volume of a substance when the substance freezes due to the system's ambient conditions. The increased volume of the substance may be absorbed by a flexible container and flexible container may transfer a hydraulic fluid to a hydraulic line in fluid communication with a hydraulic generator. The hydraulic generator may be configured to generate power using the transferred hydraulic fluid.

Worldwide demand for energy, especially electrical energy, or electrical power, continues to grow. Domestic energy prices continue to rise and challenges arising from foreign political instabilities, especially with regard to fossil fuels like crude oil, brings uncertainty into future energy prices. At the same time, by certain accounts, known reserves of fossil fuels like crude oil are declining, and may not be renewed in the foreseeable future.
A percentage of the increased demand in electrical power may come from developing countries attempting to add people to community power supplies, as a measurable percentage of the world's population still lives without access to electrical power. This percentage may correlate closely in certain geographical regions with poverty, illiteracy, reduced life expectancy, infant mortality, unsafe drinking water, crop failure, water-borne diseases, and other negative consequences.
Accordingly, a system and method for generating electrical power would be beneficial. More particularly, a system and method for generating electrical power in a clean and cost effective manner, such as by using a renewable and sustainable energy source would be particularly useful.

Power generating system utilizing ambient temperature


An auxiliary vehicle mirror system which includes a first housing having a primary mirror for receiving images of road conditions forward of the vehicle, and a secondary adjustable, pivotally mounted mirror for transmitting the images to the driver of the vehicle. The housing is pivotally mounted on a jaw which in turn is mounted on a second housing covering a conventional side view mirror on either side of the vehicle. The first housing may be mounted on either side of the vehicle, and is provided with structure for blocking extraneous views from the driver in the form of fins, or alternatively, in the form of a clip-on cover.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mirror system for extending or enhancing the visual field available to the driver of an automotive vehicle. More particularly, this invention relates to an auxiliary vehicle mirror system which presents to the driver a forward view of the road ahead of his or her vehicle from a vantage point located directly above the existing conventional external rear view mirrors located on the automobile. With this invention the driver is provided with a forward view other than his or her direct line of sight which could be obstructed by other vehicles in that direct line of sight.
Automobiles with darkened windows, loaded station wagons, pick-up trucks, vans, trailers, etc., can all block the view of the road ahead, such that a driver cannot see whether the vehicles ahead are slowing down, or more importantly, braking, so that the driver can do the same with enough anticipation to avoid having to slam the brakes in a panic stop.
In heavy traffic it is difficult if not impossible to view the road conditions ahead, in order to prepare to slow down, to brake, to change lanes, to accelerate, or simply to know what is delaying traffic, whether an exit is approaching, etc. The mirror system of this invention makes automobile driving safer in heavy traffic, such as during rush-hour commuting. The third brake light currently provided on automobiles helps drivers of cars behind, while the "Look Ahead" feature of this invention directly helps its user.
The mirror system of this invention is not only useful but is easy to install, is inexpensive, and is aesthetically pleasant. The mirror system will fit most cars, installs in seconds and can be removed just as easily without damage to existing vehicle parts. Only a simple screwdriver is required.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mirror systems which provide a driver with a forward view of the road conditions ahead of his or her vehicle are known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 1,700,764, issued Feb. 5, 1929 to Walter S. Wagstaff discloses a periscopic type of mirror arrangement extending from within the car, near a conventional rear view mirror to the outside of the car. There is no disclosure by Wagstaff of mounting the periscopic arrangement on the rear view mirror.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,210,147, issued Aug. 6, 1940 to James E. Griffith discloses a mirror system wherein three individual mirrors are each independently mounted on a complex support whereby a driver may be provided with both a forward and rear view of road conditions. One of the mirrors is mounted within the vehicle while the other two mirrors are located outside the vehicle. There is no disclosure by Griffith of mounting the housing of one mirror system on the housing of another mirror system.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,796,003 issued Jun. 18, 1957 to William J. Kaufman discloses a periscopic device for automobiles wherein a rear view mirror is pivotally mounted on the housing of a mirror system for providing a forward view of road conditions, the mirror system and rear view mirror being mounted on a support which extends within the car. There is no disclosure by Kaufman of a mirror system for forward viewing of road conditions which is mounted on the housing of a conventional rear view mirror.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,268,120 issued May 19, 1981 to Tsuneharu Jitsumori discloses a single housing for mounting both a rear view mirror and a forward viewing mirror system. Jitsumori does not disclose a first mirror housing mounted on a second mirror housing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,694 issued Jan. 20 1987 to Albert A. Costaneda discloses a complex structure for mounting an auxiliary mirror on the housing of a conventional rear view mirror. Costaneda does not disclose a jaw-like mounting structure which can be quickly and easily connected and disconnected from the housing of a second mirror.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,908 issued Jan. 2, 1990 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,088 issued Mar. 6, 1990, both to Everett R. Casey, disclose structure including a clamp or jaw for mounting an auxiliary mirror on the housing of a conventional rear view mirror.


An air intake including an air duct inside an aircraft, an inlet at one end of the air duct, a flap door and driving mechanism that moves the flap door between closed and open positions. The flap door includes a barrier filter configured to filter an incoming airflow into the air duct, and wherein the driving mechanism is configured to pivot the flap door about a first end of the door.

Most aircraft typically incorporate a duct system for supplying airflow to onboard equipment such as engines, electronic devices, ventilation systems, etc. or areas inside the aircraft. For example, the airflow can be drawn from the atmosphere through an air intake. Such airflow may contain unwanted materials including dust, dirt, sand, insects, hairs or lint. To prevent said unwanted materials from reaching the onboard equipment or areas inside the aircraft, the conventional aircraft intake may have a barrier filter installed.
These barrier filters can be installed in a fixed position or can be actuated to be removed from the airstream when not required (for example in flight) for avoiding impact on the intake performances (minimizing pressure losses, avoiding disturbance of the airflow, etc.). However, these known barrier filters have the problem that they can become clogged and not effective until the maintenance for cleaning or replacement is carried out. Further, the clogged barrier filters may also cause that the airflow does not reach properly the relevant onboard equipment or area inside the aircraft, resulting in low performance, malfunction and/or damage of such equipment.
Furthermore, some of the air intakes have a barrier filter arranged inside the air duct, which is the duct in charge of driving the airflow towards the onboard equipment.
There are known intakes with filters which are able to be self-cleaned on board, but with relatively complex arrangements to produce a reverse airflow for cleaning such filters and scavenge the unwanted material outside of the aircraft.
The present invention provides an aircraft with an improved air intake which solves the drawbacks previously mentioned.


An interactive information providing apparatus is provided with: an output component that provides an information requesting output for requesting a user for information; an input component that receives from the user input information to the information requesting output; and an interaction controller component that controls the output component and the input component according to a scenario, to carry on a dialogue with the user. In the apparatus, the interaction controller component changes a level at which the output component requests a user for information, according to an importance parameter associated with the scenario.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interactive information providing apparatus well adapted to, for example, an in-vehicle information terminal equipped with a navigation unit.
2. Description of Related Art
In traditional information processing apparatuses including ticket machines and car navigation devices, which are provided with input/output mechanisms such as keys and/or voice, input/output operations must be performed successively when a user wishes to use one or more of their functions. To do so, a program within the information providing apparatus executes interactive input/output operation with a user through passage from one state to another, each state comprising a series of operations of receiving input from the user, acquiring information necessary for the apparatus to perform its function(s), controlling the apparatus, and indicating the progress or result of the state. When viewed from the user, this passage from one state to another could be perceived as an interactive scenario involving exchange of information between the user and the apparatus to achieve an objective. The apparatus has many prepared scenarios corresponding to many of its service functions, and the user inputs commands and information as requested by the apparatus to carry on the interactive scenario(s) to utilize these functions.
The information providing apparatus that executes an interactive scenario prompts the user for appropriate input so that the apparatus can reliably perform particular operation using visual and vocal information in a dialogue involved. If the user input is appropriate, the apparatus moves on to a next scenario. If not, the apparatus does not respond at all or keeps on prompting the user for appropriate input. That is, in a dialogue between the user and the apparatus, it is the apparatus that dictates the major part of the dialogue. The user must always give responses as appropriate as the apparatus so requires, and the apparatus refuses any of them to abort the interaction, unless the user response is appropriate. This scheme of processing interactions which demands appropriate user inputs could be positively evaluated as being easy to operate. However, as the user uses the apparatus more often, a high incidence of input error by the user and of recognition failure by the apparatus occurs to annoy the user, and interactive scenarios also bore the user when played repeatedly. Thus, there is a need to eliminate these shortcomings.

Interactive information providing apparatus, interactive information providing program, and storage medium having stored same


One or more neural networks generate a first vector field from an input image and a reference image. The first vector field is applied to the input image to generate a first warped image. The training of the neural networks is evaluated via one or more objective functions. The neural networks are updated in response to the evaluating. The neural networks generate a second vector field from the input image and the reference image. A number of degrees of freedom in the first vector field is less than a number of degrees of freedom in the second vector field. The second vector field is applied to the input image to generate a second warped image. The neural networks are evaluated via the one or more objective functions, the reference image and the second warped image. The networks are updated in response to the evaluating.

Image registration has evolved into a necessary and expected preprocessing step in nearly all applications that aim to extract information and actionable intelligence from image-derived data sets. Algorithms designed to operate on a single image are becoming increasingly rare. Instead, the scientific community is often inundated with a surplus of imagery that has been captured with variable geometry, modality, and collection time. Global alignment of these images becomes critical in developing exploitation tools that rely on spatial consistency, such as change detection, depth estimation, and object tracking.
Current image registration approaches typically employ an analytical model that defines the alignment, as well as metadata defining the collection geometry, e.g., position and orientation from an inertial measurement system (INS), image feature correspondences, or some combination to the two. Neither sensor-based nor feature-based approaches are without limitation. In the event that a photogrammetric sensor model exists, poor model assumptions and errors in parameter measurements may yield significant misalignment in the registration process. Whether applied independently or after coarse geometry correction, image feature matching approaches often suffer from poor localization, sensitivity to image texture, computationally intensive outlier removal methods, and other challenges. Moreover, feature correspondences must be filtered such that they exist only on the stabilization surface for which the model parameters are valid. In other words, perfect feature correspondences will still produce registration errors if the model fails to accurately represent the image-to-image relationship.

Hierarchical neural network image registration


A truck guard assembly includes a semi-truck that has a front end and a pair of female hitch receivers is mounted on the front end and is spaced from each other. A shield apparatus includes a plurality of elongated members each having a first end and a second end. A plurality of connector bars is attached to each of the elongated members so that the elongated members are each orientated parallel to each other. A pair of connectors is configured to releasably attach the shield apparatus to the front end of the semi truck. Each of the connectors is attached to the shield apparatus and is positioned for engaging one of the hitch receivers.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to truck guard devices and more particularly pertains to a new truck guard device for providing protection from impacts from large animals, other vehicles or other objects to a front end of a semi-truck.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of truck guard devices is known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,760 describes a device for positioning on a vehicle which includes a brush guard and a utility rack. This device allows a vehicle to drive through relatively light brush and prevents damage to the vehicle from the light brush. Another type of truck guard device is U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,128 having a grill assembly that is removably attachable to the front end of a truck for preventing damage to the front end. Yet another such device is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,290,271 that has a design adapted for positioning on a pick-up truck front end.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the need remains for a device that is configured for being removably positioned on a semi-truck for preventing damage to the front end of the semi-truck, particularly that damage from impacts with large animals such as deer. Additionally the device should incorporate a tilting means to allow a person to tilt the device away from the front end when a cab of the semi-truck must be lifted during engine maintenance.


An effective address pre-calculation type pipelined microprocessor comprises a register file which can be used for a base address for an operand address and an effective address calculation unit for calculating and generating an effective address of an operand prior to execution of an instruction, by using a register included in the register file as a base address register. A copy register is provided for selecting and holding either the calculated effective address or a modification amount added result obtained by adding a constant number to the calculated effective address, and a copy valid flag is provided for storing a history of a written condition of the copy register. When an auto-modification designation mode is detected, a calculated effective address or the modification amount added result is written to the copy register. A copy register identification code latch stores an identification code of a register which is used as a base address register in the auto-modification designation mode. When the copy valid flag indicates that the copy register has been written and when a value of the copy register identification code latch is consistent with a base address register number, the value of the copy register is supplied to the effective address calculation unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an effective address pre-calculation type pipelined microprocessor, and more specifically, to a mechanism for avoiding a register hazard generated at the time of the effective address pre-calculation.
2. Description of Related Art
In the prior art, some large-sized computers operating in a pipelined manner comprise copy registers provided in an effective address calculation unit or an instruction decoder unit for the purpose of copying contents of all general purpose registers. In these large-sized computers, when an instruction for changing a content of some general purpose register is decoded, the effective address calculation unit or the instruction decoder unit estimates the result of execution of the instruction, and updates a value of a copy register holding the copy of the general purpose register. When a general purpose register is used as a base register for the register indirect addressing, the copy register copying the general purpose register is used as the base register, so that a register hazard which would be generated in the effective address pre-calculation is avoided.
However, if the above mentioned arrangement is adopted, the hardware inevitably becomes vary large. Because of this reason, a microprocessor which adopts the same effective address pre-calculation type pipelined system cannot adopt the above mentioned arrangement for the large-sized computer. As a result, the effective address precalculation type pipelined microprocessor cannot avoid the register hazard in the case that a general purpose register which can be modified in accordance with an auto-modification addressing in a preceding instruction is used in a register indirect addressing in a succeeding instruction.
For example, there is known an addressing mode in which a base address register value is addressed as an operand address, and thereafter, when an instruction is executed, the base address register value is incremented or decremented by an amount corresponding to the data size. This mode is called a "post-modification addressing" hereinafter. There is also known an addressing mode in which the base address register value is added with or subtracted by the amount corresponding to the data size so that the result of the addition or subtraction is used as the operand address, and when an instruction is executed, the base address register value is written with the result of the addition or subtraction of the data size. This mode is called "pre-modification addressing" hereinafter. The post-modification addressing and the pre-modification addressing are collectively called an "auto-modification addressing" hereinafter. If a general register designated to be modified in the auto-modification addressing in a preceding instruction is used as a base address register in a succeeding instruction before it is actually modified by an instruction execution unit, a so-called register hazard occurs, and an address generation for the succeeding instruction cannot be executed until execution of the preceding instruction having the preceding auto-modification addressing has been completed. As a result, the pipelined operation stops in the stage for the effective address calculation. Namely, a job opening occurs in the pipelined operation.

Effective address pre-calculation type pipelined microprocessor


A hydrofoil propeller guard, including a thrust tube, a hydrofoil fin and bottom securing plate, is used in conjunction with an outboard motor mounted on a boat and with stern drives, to encompass the propeller to reduce sideways thrust, to move items away from the propeller, and the guard preferably includes a trolling plate to increase slow speed performance.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a safety propeller guard to be used in combination with the propeller of boats having a stern engine drive or an outboard motor to provide the propeller with obstacle protection, more power and the boat with additional steerage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For over 50 years various types of propeller protection devices have been employed by or proposed for the marine industry to try to reduce damage to propellers from objects, reduce damage to fishing lines from propellers and protect swimmers, fish, underwater mammals and plant life from the action of propellers. The devices have been called rings, wire baskets, steel fence shrouds and skeg guards.
The devices have not been generally adopted. The major drawback has been reduced performance due to such factors as weight, drag, and early failure due to metal fatigue and increased damage with certain objects.


An axle assembly that includes a housing, an input pinion, a ring gear, an angular contact bearing, and a differential assembly. The input pinion has a plurality of pinion teeth and is received in the housing for rotation about a first axis. The ring gear, which is received in the housing, is a bevel gear having ring gear teeth that define a pitch angle and are meshingly engaged with the pinion teeth. The angular contact bearing supports the ring gear for rotation on the housing about a second axis that is transverse to the first axis. The angular contact bearing has a first race, which is integrally formed into the ring gear, a second race, and a plurality of bearing balls disposed between the first and second races. The differential assembly has a differential case that is mounted to the ring gear for rotation therewith.

This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Modern automotive vehicles, particularly light trucks, typically employ beam axles that are constructed in the style of a Banjo-type axle or a Salisbury-type axle. As is known in the art, a Banjo-type axle employs a housing that is fabricated of two identical beam halves, which are welded to one another on the front and rear edges where the beam halves abut one another. A housing for a conventional Banjo-type axle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,674,783. As is also known in the art, a Salisbury-style axle employs a housing that includes a center carrier and a pair of axle tubes that are pressed into or otherwise permanently affixed to the center carrier. A housing for a Salisbury-type axle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,878,059.

Axle assembly having an angular contact bearing that supports a ring gear for rotation on an axle housing


A storage page for holding stacked groups of photographic prints so that the topmost print in the stack is visible and an album containing such pages are disclosed. The storage page comprises (a) a rigid page backing; and (b) a plurality of expandable, flexible pockets mounted thereon. Each of the pockets has a transparent front wall and side and bottom walls of sufficient width to accommodate 10 to 40 photographic prints.

Each year untold numbers of photographs are developed, looked at and stuffed in a drawer or cupboard. The photographer usually has good intentions of putting them into a photo album, but never quite gets around to it because of the time required to mount individual photographs. They remain in the drawer where they are subject to loss and damage.
There is thus a need for a storage system whereby whole sets of prints can be stored where they can be protected, and in a manner such that a set can be readily identified.
Numerous systems and devices are known for storing and protecting individual photographic prints.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,310,722 (Weinger) discloses a method for producing photographic albums. The photograph album comprises, in addition to the usual cover and backbone, a series of main leaves, and each of the main leaves supports secondary leaves. In the example shown, the secondary leaves allow the mounting of nine photographic prints upon each face. Each pocket is designed to hold a single photograph.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,146 (Holes) discloses an album having pocketed album pages. A plurality of elongate rectangular transparent strips formed of a suitable plastic are applied to one surface of the sheet and are capable of accommodating several small photographs side by side. Each of the strips has a converging, wedge-shaped lower portion which serves to grip the lower edge portion of the picture to prevent sliding and movement of the photograph in the pocket.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,070 (Roberg) discloses transparent plastic film holders containing a plurality of pockets for strips of photographic film negatives or prints. The preferred embodiment provides pockets for a length of film strip or a length of negative. The film holder is constructed from two layers of transparent plastic film which are bonded or sealed together along a series of parallelspaced sealing lines. Each pocket is designed to hold a single strip.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,042 (Eisen et al.) discloses a register for maintaining photographs of items of property along with a description of the items in the photographs. The register includes a loose leaf binder with a loose leaf page having one section containing an inventory record which is hinged to a section containing photographs. The photographs are held in transparent pockets and each pocket receives a photograph or a slide transparency or other illustrative documentation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,319 (Mermelstein) discloses a transparent plastic storage page which includes a plurality of parallel, laterally extending, top-loading pouches for accommodating film negatives. The storage pages are formed by overlaying a pair of matching translucent or transparent sheets and fastening the sheets together by a series of sealing dots. Each pocket or pouch so formed holds a single strip of photographic negative.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,773 (Manico et al.) discloses a photographic image set which insures that negatives are retained with the positive images or prints corresponding to them. In all of the embodiments each pocket contains only one of either a strip of negative or a positive print.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 316,107 (Lockner) discloses an ornamental design for a dated holder for maintaining and displaying lesson planning cards. It appears from the design that the holder includes a plurality of pockets each holding single lesson planning card.
None of the foregoing references discloses a page having a pocket or pockets which were designed to hold a plurality of photographic prints in such fashion that only one of the prints in the stack was visible. All of the devices of the art relating to display of photographs have in common the shortcoming of requiring individually mounting or inserting each object.
Display pages are also known in arts other than the photographic art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,977,667 (Breitkreuz) discloses a page for a stamp collector's album; the page is provided with pockets or pouches for removably receiving stamps such that each stamp may be individually viewed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,954,003 (Shea) discloses a coupon organizer for organizing and holding coupons for shopping items; each page comprises a pair of pockets upon each side of a center piece. The center piece is a sheet of plastic to which the pockets have been heat-sealed on each side. U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,223 (Mitsuyama) discloses a card case made of two rectangular sheets of plastic produced by fusing three edges thereof; the case is provided with a hole through which a fingertip may be inserted to push a card through the open side. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,889 (Schulz) discloses a bag book made from a plurality of paper bags. Each bag forms a page of the book and provides a pocket having capacity to retain a plurality of items, none of which can be viewed without removing them from the bag.
It is an object of the invention to provide a storage system and device whereby prints from a whole roll of film can be stored at once.
It is a further object to provide a device wherein a stack of prints can be protected while still allowing one to view one of the prints in the stack and thereby identify the stack.
These and other objects and features are provided by the present invention.

Page with picture pockets and album containing such pages


Described herein is the generation of a signal for an analysis of a communication network based on a first version of a radio signal transmitted from a first node of the radio communication system to a second node of the radio communication system received at a passive node by detecting deviations of the first version of the transmitted radio signal from a second version of the radio signal received at the second node, and generating the signal based on the deviations.

Radio communication systems are omnipresent in many areas, e.g. in industrial automation for the data technical connection of mobile and movable subsystems to higher-level systems, in large public areas, such as railway stations, airports, exhibition halls, hospitals and above all in the daily life of private users. Many of the used radio systems use license-free frequency bands, such as the ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical Band) or UNIT (Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure) frequency bands.
However, data transmission via radio is influenced by various interference factors, for example by path losses, interference with other radio nodes or interfering transmitters, shadowing effects, fast and slow fading due to multipath propagation and movement of the transmitter, receiver or objects in the environment, and hardware or software defects in the transmitting or receiving node.
Temporal and spatial overlaps in the usage of a frequency band can result in significant negative effects on the radio links. This is particularly the case when the radio medium is not coordinated by a central instance. The spatial distribution of the network participants and possible interference sources intensifies this problem, since the signal emitted by a radio participant can only be received at a limited spatial distance. This characteristic leads to the known "hidden node problem" and the "exposed node problem". Depending on the position and other influencing variables such as the radiation characteristics of the antenna, transmission power or reflection and attenuation characteristics of the environment, situations arise in which the interferences within a network can vary greatly depending on the location.
The example in FIG. 1 shows exemplarily in a schematic diagram how the position and transmission power of three radio nodes can cause different interference conditions in a network. The AP node is in the influence area of radio node A and radio node B. Radio node A and B are only in the influence area of the node AP, but not in the influence area of the other radio node.
In addition, the reception of an emitted packet is also influenced by apparatus-specific interference, which results in very individual error patterns of the individual nodes even in very dense radio networks.
The mobility of the network participants and of objects in their environment, such as persons and vehicles, cause, in combination with environmental influences, such as temperature changes and humidity variations, a strong temporal dependency of the connection quality of the individual radio links.
Due to this spatial, temporal and apparatus-specific dependency of the interferences, statements on the condition and reliability of radio networks cannot be made on the basis of the estimates performed during the planning phase. The multitude and dynamics of the influencing factors described above can lead to very large deviations between the network state predicted in the planning phase and the real state of the network in the life cycle.
Currently, radio components do not have sufficient capability for monitoring the state of radio networking, since their available hardware resources are very limited. In the case of transmission interferences, the radio components are not able to independently identify the cause of the transmission interferences and initiate a corrective response or inform the user.
External monitoring systems, which have the necessary hardware resources, are, as observers, not part of the link to be analyzed and should also not influence the same by active influence. The usage of external monitoring components causes differences in the reception and interference conditions with regard to the network to be monitored. These differences may complicate and falsify the results of the intended analyses, such as analyses of transmission quality, stability, reliability and availability of all radio links.
The minimal example shown in FIG. 2 shows the communication between an access point AP and a station or node STA. Radio communication consists of two unidirectional links.
On the link LAP→STA, the AP sends radio packets which are received by the STA. The link LSTA→AP represents the opposite direction of communication where packets are emitted from STA and received by AP.
In this example, the monitoring system comprises a monitoring node or monitor. In a real application with several network participants, the monitoring system would usually comprise several monitoring nodes for improved area coverage.
The monitoring nodes receive radio signals from their environment and process them further. Processing can be divided into the following two types. On the one hand, a spectral analysis of the receive signal can be performed. On the other hand, the receive signal can be demodulated to extract digital information transmitted in the radio packets. The following designations are used below for a clear description. As a result of the spectral analysis, spectral information is available for each received radio packet. After successful demodulation of the receive signal, the contents of the received radio packets, the so-called "packet contents", are available. A combination of spectral analysis and demodulation is also possible.
A monitoring node can only monitor the radio packets emitted by the radio nodes AP and STA. These two unidirectional links are hereinafter referred to as LSTA→Monitor and LAP→Monitor.
Due to the spatial, temporal and apparatus-specific reception differences between the radio nodes AP and STA and the monitoring node, the receive signals at AP, STA and monitoring node differ considerably from each other. This means that the reception situations can vary greatly.
The information extractable from the receive signal of the monitoring node, e.g. spectral information and packet contents, may differ significantly from that of the observed radio links LAP→STA and LSTA→AP.
In FIG. 3, the individual links for the exemplary network of FIG. 2 are broken down according to the emitted and received radio packets. Radio packets that could not be demodulated correctly due to the various interference factors at the receiver are shown in a dashed manner. Some radio packets of the node AP or the node STA are not correctly received by the desired receiver, i.e. STA or AP, and rejected as defective, whereas the monitoring node receives these packets. Conversely, situations occur in which the actual receiver receives the packets correctly, but the monitoring node does not capture these radio packets.
The effect just described, which could also be described as an observation problem, leads to an incomplete database within the monitoring system and thus to a possible misinterpretation of the connection state of the observed radio link. Of course, an attempt is made to minimize this problem as much as possible, for example by selecting the position of the monitoring nodes according to the maximum signal-to-noise ratio with respect to the actual receiver, which is not possible at all times or can at least mean a large effort.

Concept for the analysis of a radio communication system

FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.


A web service description language with object extensions provides type-centric extensions to web service description languages in order to describe and implement a type-centric, object-model agnostic, web service description. By implementing the constructs described herein, a heterogeneous distributed computing environment can implement rich type-centric services. For example, in a graph description, a type description indicates whether a type is encoded as a reference or embedded within another type. In a service reference description, a type description indicates whether a type is remoted by value or by reference. A type description indicates that a service extends another service, a service implements an interface (potentially multiple interfaces), a field of a type (including interfaces) is a reference type, a constant value field, or a bit field type that defines enumerations with associated values.

The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML format for describing network services offered by a server. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-wsdl-20010315. This specification assumes the reader is familiar with XML, XSD, SOAP, and WSDL. This technology space is well known and written about in the computer arts. Generally, WSDL is used to create an XML textual description of services provided by a network server and a set of operations within each service. WSDL describes the format that a client uses to request services. WSDL service description is used by the client and server to communicate in an agreed XML format. The server agrees to provide certain services only if the client sends a properly formatted XML request.
Programmers use WSDL to form proper messages and service requests, and proper message responses and service request responses. A client obtains a copy of the WSDL description, and uses the information in this file to format a conforming request. Upon receiving a compliant request, the server can complete an operation and return the results to the client in a WSDL compliant format.
In a general sense, FIG. 1 depicts how WSDL, SOAP, XSD, and XML support message passing and web services over a network 106 between computer systems 102, 104. WSDL is computing environment agnostic, meaning, so long as a client communicates in XML according to the WSDL definition, it makes little difference whether the client and server exist in compatible computing environments (e.g., COM, JAVA, CORBA, etc). Since WSDL describes a textual representation for message passing and invoking web services in XML, a WSDL compliant communication can be recognized and translated by any computer environment following the WSDL standard.
As shown in FIG. 1, XML and SOAP are specified on both computers 102, 104. However, in some cases WSDL and XSD are not specified on both computers. In one case, a client 104, may not have WSDL and XSD specified locally, as indicated by the dotted lines 108. In this case, the client 104 parses the server's 102 WSDL and XSD, and sends the server a SOAP message which corresponds with the server WSDL. In some cases, many computers access a server to parse a WSDL and/or XSD.
A WSDL document contains the following elements in the definition of network services as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1Types—A container for data type definitions using some type system(such as XSD).Message—An abstract, typed definition of the data being communicated.PortType—An abstract set of operations supported by one or more end-points.Binding—A concrete protocol and data format specification for aparticular port type.Port—A single endpoint defined as a combination of a binding and anetwork address.Service—A collection of related endpoints.
As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the WSDL document structure is a set of definitions. There is a definitions element at the root 302, and definitions inside the document. The grammar of the WSDL document format is followed by the server that is providing services to its clients so as to allow any client to understand the syntax of the messages accepted by the server. As discussed in Table 1,the WSDL document may contain types 304, messages 306, port types 308, bindings 402, and services 404.
The namespace prefixes described in Table 2,along with the syntax and rules described in Table 3,are used in this specification. Namespaces are a way to uniquely identify elements and attributes within a document.
TABLE 2prefixnamespace URIdefinitionwsdlhttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/WSDL namespace for WSDL framework.wsdl/soaphttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/WSDL namespace for WSDL SOAP binding.wsdl/soap/httphttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/WSDL namespace for WSDL HTTP GET &wsdl/http/POST binding.mimehttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/WSDL namespace for WSDL MIME binding.wsdl/mime/soapenchttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/Encoding namespace as defined by SOAP 1.1soap/encoding/soapenvhttp://schemas.xmlsoap.org/Envelope namespace as defined by SOAP 1.1soap/envelope/xsihttp://www.w3.org/2001/XInstance namespace as defined by XSDMLSchema-instancexsdhttp://www.w3.org/2001/XSchema namespace as defined by XSDMLSchematns(various)The "target namespace" (tns) prefix is used asa convention to refer to the current document.(other)(various)All other namespace prefixes are samplesonly. In particular, URIs starting with"http://example.com" represent someapplication-dependent or context-dependentURI
TABLE 3The syntax appears as an XML instance,but the values indicate the data typesinstead of values.Characters are appended to elements andattributes as follows: "?" (0 or 1), "*" (0or more), "+" (1 or more).Elements names ending in "..."(such as <element...> or </element...>) indicatethat elements/attributes irrelevant to the context are being omitted.<-- extensibility element --> is aplaceholder for elements from some "other"namespace (like ##other in XSD).The XML namespace prefixes (defined below)are used to indicate the namespaceof the element being defined.Examples starting with <?xml containenough information to conform to thisspecification; others examples are fragmentsand require additional information tobe specified in order to conform.
Using the WSDL document structure shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, and an example program ("CEchoString") shown in FIG. 4, a WSDL description of CEchoString is shown in FIG. 5.
For example, a server can publish, deliver, or otherwise make available, a copy of the WSDL description of CEchoString to a client. The client can use the description to send web service requests and responses. The client computer system includes software that sends and receives XML messages that comply with the description. The server computer system includes software that receives and sends messages according to the description. Both client and server may include software that translates the XML messages into their respective implementation environment.
Thus, a network server provides a WSDL description of the services it provides. Some of the messages sent to the server will have parameters, and some of these parameters may contain trees of objects. For example, given the XML message contained in FIG. 6, the trees of objects shown in FIG. 7 can be constructed.
The described extensions are directed towards providing type-centric descriptions to web service description languages. The extensions illustrated herein provide the constructs to describe and implement a type-centric, object-model agnostic, web service description. By implementing the constructs described herein, a heterogeneous distributed computing environment can implement rich type-centric services.
A few of the web services describable by this extended type-centric web service description language include support for representing graph data structures through its definition of the syntax for multi-reference pointers, for representing remote objects passed by-reference through its definition of service reference wire datatype, for discovering the type of a remote object at runtime through the definition of a service interface, and other type-centric constructs such as classes, interfaces, properties, events, and delegates. With this extended web service description language, a server can provide a type-centric, object-model agnostic description of a web service.
The type extensions described herein allow many added features. A few of these features are included for example purposes. In one respect, in a graph description, a type description indicates whether a type is encoded as a reference or embedded within another type. In another respect, in a service reference description, a type description indicates whether a type is remoted by-value or by-reference. In several other respects, a type description indicates that, a service extends another service, a service implements an interface (potentially multiple interfaces), or a field of a type (including interfaces) is a reference type, a constant value field, or a bit field type that defines enumerations with associated values.
In another respect, the type extensions provided the ability to define properties on types, to set enumeration values and types, to compose services including with other services, and to specify an array syntax.
Additional features and advantages will be made apparent from the following detailed description which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Type extensions to web services description language


A method, system and program for maintaining confidentiality of personal information during E-commerce transactions. The method, means and program function include: (1) compiling a profile of personal information within a depository for at least the buying party to an E-commerce transaction; (2) providing the buying party with a unique identifier linked to his profile for use during subsequent E-commerce transactions; and (3) in response to the buying party providing the identifier to a merchant, completing the E-commerce transaction at the depository without providing any of the buyer's personal information to the merchant.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to commercial transactions and in particular to commercial transactions on the Internet. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, system and program for maintaining confidentiality of personal information on the Internet during commercial transactions on the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet commerce or E-commerce, as it is commonly referred to in the industry, is quickly becoming a preferred method of conducting commercial transactions. Many traditional and non-traditional businesses have realized the vast potential of conducting business on the Internet and have established web sites by which potential customers or clients may remotely access their respective information or products. This merging of business with the electronic medium of the Internet has thus resulted in an increase in commercial and personal transactions.
E-commerce transactions may be either point-to-point/bipartite (i.e., an individual communicating directly with another individual or a business web site) or multi-point (i.e., many individuals transacting with each other, as in a swap room, or with on-line auctions, for example). Typically, a web server provides the background within which these E-commerce transactions take place.
Currently, most E-commerce transactions are bipartite and occur between a merchant and a buyer. The merchant is represented online by a web site located on a web server and accessible via a universal resource locator (URL) or web address. The buyer connects to the Internet via one of several known means of connecting to the Internet and accesses the merchant's web site. The merchant and the buyer enter into a transaction within the web server, which is recorded in electronic form on the web server as an agreement (or contract). Thus, the contract is typically stored in the web server of the merchant. A buyer may be provided with the opportunity to print the contract prior to terminating the connection to the web site.
As in traditional commercial transactions, disputes often arise about the actual terms (price, quantity, freight charges, etc.) of a transaction subsequent to the creation of the contract. In the traditional arena, contracts are typically in written form and at least one party has signed the original contract document verifying its authenticity. The terms, as written in this document are difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate without being noticeable once the signature has been affixed to the page.
In the electronic medium of the Internet, electronic documents are generated, which are typically stored on the merchant's web server and are easily modifiable. The electronic nature of the document allows anyone with access to the web server to modify the terms of the original agreement. There is thus an inherent uncertainty in the validity of electronic documents. It is therefore difficult for the buyer or a third party arbitrator to determine the authenticity of the documents when a dispute arises.
Several prior art patents have taught methods for ensuring authenticity of communications/documents on the Internet with the use of digital signatures. U.S. Pat. No. 5,949,876 discloses a system and method for secure transaction management for insuring that information is accessed and utilized only in an authorized way. U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,442 teaches the use of public key infrastructure (i.e., smart token technology) to secure electronic transactions. A third party is utilized to register an application which is held and made accessible to the recipient after signature verification/authentication using a smart token.
Both of these patents use a digital signature, which may be provided to both the buyer and merchant. Use of digital signatures, however, has not been adopted widely by the Internet community, particularly due to associated costs and other logistical concerns, such as the complexity involved in creating the digital signatures and revoking lost or compromised digital signatures.
Another method, which utilizes a third party, has been proposed by United Parcel Services (UPS) OnLine Courier®. This method essentially allows the delivery of secure e-mail via the UPS as a depository third party. The sender sends a document using UPS OnLine Courier. The document is securely uploaded to the secure UPS OnLine Courier server, which sends an e-mail notification to the recipient that there is a document delivery for him. The recipient uses the URL provided in the e-mail to download the document from the secure UPS OnLine Courier server via a Web browser. As an option, the sender may specify that the recipient may only download the file if he has provided a password to the UPS OnLine Courier server, insuring the sender that only the intended recipient may open the document.
Another problem encountered during E-commerce transactions is the loss of or low levels of privacy with respect to distribution of personal information (name, address, email address, etc.) of a buyer. Buyers are usually required to enter personal information into the merchant's web site when conducting a transaction. E-bay, for example, provides multi-point E-commerce transactions; however, E-bay displays the personal information of each visitor who transacts on the site and does not provide for any anonymity/confidentiality. Occasionally, merchants subject their buyers to unsolicited e-mails (referred to as "junk mail") or physical mail, which advertise products of the merchant or another entity to which the merchant has forwarded the buyer's personal information. Also, the buyer may wish to withhold his personal information from the merchant for other reasons.
In some instances, a seller may wish to have his personal information kept private. Currently, anyone may access personal information (such as name and address) about the owner of a web site (i.e., find out to whom a web server belongs) by looking up the domain name in one of the several server databases publicly available through issuers of Internet domain names and affiliated groups.
Prior art attempts to handle this problem includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,692,982 and 5,553,145, which disclose the use of a third (trusted) party to transmit an encrypted message from one party to a second party, whereby the identity of the communicating parties may be kept secret (from the third party). A receipt is sent to the sending party when the communication is received by the receiving party. The method also uses a digital signature where each party has a secret signing key and matching public verification key for sending and accessing the content of the communication. Other related patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,420 which utilizes a third party to communicate if a first attempt to communicate directly fails. Chat rooms allow use of pseudonyms during internet communications but do not extend into the internet-based commercial transactions in the context of exchange of financial information.
None of the prior art methods discloses an efficient and globally applicable method for ensuring the confidentiality of personal information of parties to an E-commerce transaction. The present invention thus recognizes that it would be desirable to provide a method and system for providing this functionality (i.e., maintaining confidentiality of personal information during E-commerce transactions) in an efficient and globally applicable manner. A method and system by which a person's personal information is preserved away from the other party in an E-commerce transaction would be a welcomed improvement. These and other benefits are provided in the present invention.

Maintaining confidentiality of personal information during E-commerce transactions

International Business Machines Corporation


A sound focusing mechanism for generating a focused source of sound, which can be used to identify the transmission loss of an object or identify areas of acoustic or thermal leakage is disclosed. The sound focusing mechanism includes a housing having at least one wall formed from a material having high sound insulating properties. A sound generating device for generating a sound is located with a central cavity within the housing. An actuator assembly is operatively connected to the sound generating device for selectively operating the sound generating device for selectively operating the sound generating device. The wall is configured to limit the transmission of the sound there through such that a focused beam or pulse sound is emitted from the mechanism through the opening.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sound focusing mechanism that generates a high sound pressure level, denoted throughout this document as decibel, and highly focused signal that is used in connection with sound proofing to locate areas of acoustic leakage. The sound focusing mechanism is also used in connection with the determination of the transmission loss of an object. The present invention is also directed to a method of locating acoustic leakage points in an object in order to improve sound proofing by focusing a high decibel sound at a desired location on an object then measuring the sound transmission loss at one of more locations. Since apertures in a wall, window or door can equally influence the thermal rating of the wall, window or door the focusing tube is also an efficient method for locating thermal leakage of such an object, as well as estimating its thermal efficiency.
2. Description of Related Art
Hearing noise from adjacent rooms, pipes, outside the dwelling or an adjacent dwelling is something that many people are disturbed by on a daily basis. At a minimum, it can be distracting. The increasing International Code council mandates on acoustics in hospitals, classrooms, etc demonstrate the increasing realization that noise can have negative effects from ability to retain read information to general health and ability to sleep. Many spend large sums of money to reduce the overall transmission of sound into and/or through their dwellings in order to create quieter and calmer surroundings. This, however, does not always produce the desired results. In many circumstances, the person(s) performing the acoustic modifications to the structure does not provide adequate sound insulation or improperly installs the same such that the disturbing noises are still transmitted through the structure.
The problem encountered by many of these installers is that it is often difficult to determine the location of acoustic leaks, or quickly estimate the configuration of a wall without opening up the wall. To date, an economical and easily portable device to permit someone to easily determine the transmission loss of a wall, floor, or other room perimeter structures or simply locate acoustic leaks in the same so that it is possible to determine what are the optimum actions to be taken to increase the transmission loss of a wall, ceiling, window, pipe, or other structural element has not been developed.

Method of estimating acoustic or thermal leakage of an object and method of estimating transmission loss of an object, using a sound focusing mechanism


A method and an apparatus for transmitting and receiving resource allocation information in a wireless communication system are provided. The method includes allocating resources for each of one or more device-to-device (D2D) discovery resources pools, generating information related to resources allocated for each of the one or more D2D discovery resource pools, and transmitting the generated information.

Device-to-Device (D2D) discovery is a process of determining whether a user equipment (UE) that is capable of D2D communication (hereinafter, referred to as D2D-enabled UE) is in proximity of another D2D-enabled UE. Discovery of a D2D-enabled UE comprises determining whether another D2D-enabled UE is of interest to it using D2D discovery. A D2D-enabled UE is of interest to a discovering D2D-enabled UE if its proximity needs to be known by one or more authorized applications in the discovering D2D-enabled UE.
For example, a social networking application may be enabled to use D2D discovery features. The D2D discovery enables the D2D-enabled UE of a given user of a social networking application to discover and be discoverable by the D2D-enabled UEs of his/her friends. In another example, the D2D discovery may enable the D2D-enabled UE of a given user of a search application to discover stores or restaurants of interest in its proximity.
A D2D-enabled UE may discover other D2D-enabled UEs in its proximity by using direct UE-to-UE signaling with evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA) technology. This is referred as D2D direct discovery. Alternatively, a communication network determines the proximity of two D2D-enabled UEs and informs them of their proximity. This is referred as network-assisted D2D discovery.
It is assumed that the same spectrum or radio frequency is used for D2D discovery and regular communication between a UE and a base station (BS). In traditional communication, a UE and a BS communicate with each other by establishing a connection with each other and the BS allocates dedicated resources to the UE.
In the case of D2D discovery, the requirements are quite different. There is no one-to-one communication between a D2D-enabled UE transmitting discovery information and another D2D-enabled UE receiving the discovery information during D2D direct Discovery. The discovery information transmitted by the D2D-enabled UE may be received and processed by multiple D2D-enabled UEs. D2D discovery is a continuous process performed by the D2D-enabled UEs. The D2D-enabled UEs should be able to perform D2D discovery irrespective of their states (that is, idle or connected). During the D2D direct discovery, the D2D-enabled UE monitoring the discovery information should know time and frequency resources used by the D2D-enabled UE transmitting the discovery information. The D2D discovery should coexist with legacy UE-BS communication. The time and frequency resources configured for discovery should minimize impact on legacy UEs. For example, latency-sensitive applications of legacy UEs should not be affected. That is, a synchronous hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) operation on an uplink (UL) should not be affected.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method for configuring and signaling resources for D2D discovery.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving resource allocation information in a wireless communication system


A scanning radiographic densitometer constructs a broad area, two dimensional projection image from a combination of a set of smaller fan beam scans by tilting the axis of each such smaller scan to construct an effective larger fan beam to reduce artifacts caused by height dependant overlap of the multiple fan beams. The data is projected to a non-planar image surface to eliminate local area distortion such as may cause error in density measurements and to permit some overlap without height sensitive effects.

Scanning radiographic equipment differs from conventional radiography in that it employs a narrowly collimated beam of radiation, typically x-rays formed into, for example, a fan beam, rather than a broad area cone beam. The small beam size used in scanning radiographic equipment allows replacement of an image forming sheet of radiographic film, used with conventional radiographic equipment, with a small area array of detector elements.
The detector elements receiving the transmitted radiation produce electrical signals which may be converted to digital values by an analog to digital converter for the later development of an image or for other processing by computer equipment. The ability to quantify the measurement of the transmitted radiation, implicit in the digitization by the analog to digital converter, allows not only the formation of a radiographic "attenuation" image but also the mathematical analysis of the composition of the attenuating material by dual energy techniques. See generally, "Generalized Image Combinations in Dual KVP Digital Radiography", by Lehmann et al. Med. Phys. 8(5) September/October 1981. Such dual energy techniques quantitatively compare the attenuation of radiation at two energies to distinguish, for example, between bone and soft tissue. Dual energy techniques allow the measurement of bone mass, such measurement being important in the treatment of osteoporosis and other bone diseases.
The limited area of the beam of radiation used in scanning radiographic systems allows the use of limited area detectors permitting high resolution with relatively lower cost. The limited area of the detectors, however requires that the beam be scanned along several adjacent paths if large area images are to be constructed. Typically, a fan beam will be scanned in a raster pattern over the area to be measured, each line of the scan separated by somewhat less than the width of fan beam, to ensure complete illumination of the entire volume of the imaged object, with the directions of scanning being generally perpendicular to the direction of the radiation and the plane of the fan beam.
Images formed by a scanning radiographic system are potentially more accurate than those produced by a typical broad beam radiograph system. This accuracy arises from the limited divergence, in the scanning direction, of the rays of the fan beam, as compared to a broad area cone beam. This narrow collimation of the fan beam reduces "parallax" in the projected image, particularly of anatomical planar surfaces that are nearly parallel with the plane of the fan beam--such as the superior and inferior borders of the vertebrae in the spine when the scanning directions is along the superior-inferior axis of the body.
Morphological measurements of the vertebrae, and other structures, which benefit from reduced parallax are used to evaluate various dimensions of a vertebra to detect crushing or other deformation that are one element of certain bone diseases such as osteoporosis. See e.g. Minne et al., "A Newly Developed Spine Deformity Index (SDI) to Quantitate Vertebral Crush Factors in Patients with Osteoporosis," Bone and Mineral, 3:335-349 (1988); J. C. Gallagher et al, "Vertebral Morphometry: Normative Data," Bone and Mineral, 4:189-196 (1988); Hedlund et al, "Vertebral Morphometry in Diagnosis of Spinal Fractures," Bone and Mineral, 5:59-67 (1988); and Hedlund et al, "Change in Vertebral Shape in Spinal Osteoporosis," Calcified Tissue International, 44:168-172 (1989). Automatic techniques for morphological measurements of bone are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/944,626 filed Sep. 14, 1992 and entitled: "Method for Analyzing Vertebral Morphology Using Digital Radiography" assigned to the same assignee as the present application and hereby incorporated by reference.
Nevertheless, images developed with scanning fan beam equipment can include certain distortions or artifacts. In particular, it has been noted that objects at the interface between two adjacent scan paths contain a blurring or distortion in a direction perpendicular to the scan path.

Method and apparatus for piece-wise radiographic scanning


Some embodiments of the invention a circuit configured to apply a time domain processing sequence to a modulated input signal to estimate a mean value of the modulated input signal and to subtract the estimated mean value from the modulated input signal, thereby removing the DC offset from the input signal. In one particular embodiment, the time domain processing sequence is based on integration and differentiation of a demodulated output signal. In such an embodiment, a circuit is configured to integrate a demodulated signal to generate an integrated signal having a triangular shaped output signal. The circuit then measures the slopes of the integrated signal, by differentiation of the triangular shaped integrated signal, and generates an appropriate DC offset correction signal based upon the measured slopes. The DC offset correction signal may be added on top of the actual input signal to cancel the unwanted DC offset component.

Modulation (i.e., the generation of modulated signals) allows for the transmission of data over transmission medium such as radio waves by impressing data onto a carrier wave by varying the amplitude, frequency, phase, or other characteristics of the carrier wave. Therefore, modulated signals play an important role in wireless communication that is widely used today. For the communication process to be completed the original information is extracted from the modulated carrier wave through a demodulation process.
In various situations a modulated signal may comprise a DC offset in addition to a modulated signal component. For example, sensors configured to detect a physical attribute (e.g., proximity, acceleration, etc.) may comprise a DC offset due to ambient data sources. Similarly, a baseband signal may comprise a DC offset which is introduced by hardware during the course of the baseband signal's transmission across a network.

Square wave signal component cancellation


A power distribution device includes a number (N, N≧2) of power input terminals, a number (M, M≧2) of power output terminals, and a number (M) of power distribution circuits, each electrically coupled to a corresponding one of the power output terminals and electrically coupled to a number (P, P≧2) of the power input terminals. Each of the power distribution circuits includes a number (P) of diodes each electrically coupled between a respective one of the power input terminals and the corresponding one of the power output terminals, a switch element connected in parallel to one of the diodes, and a controller controlling the switch element to operate in a conducting state when the controller determines that power received at the power input terminal connected to the switch is normal, and controlling the switch element to operate in a non-conducting state when the power is abnormal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power management device, more particularly to a power distribution device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Owing to progress of technology, desktop personal computers (PCs) have been developed so as to conform to a trend of miniaturization. Mobile chipsets have been adopted to manufacture a power-saving miniaturized personal computer, such as an All-In-One (AIO) personal computer and a mini personal computer available on the market. Since the miniaturized PC adopts the power-saving mobile chipsets, a power adapter used by notebook computers may replace an ATX power supply originally used by personal computers for supplying power. Therefore, there are manufacturers gathering a plurality of mini PCs for centralized diversification management, such as a server and a multimedia digital signage. Moreover, power usage of the miniaturized PC is usually not fully loaded. For example, assuming that a power adapter provided to a mini PC has power of 90 watts and power usage rate of the mini PC is lower than 50% most of the time, i.e., only 40 watts used, the power adapter has idle power of 50 watts. Therefore, if there are six mini PCs disposed together, the idle power thereof may reach 6×50 watts=300 watts.
Furthermore, a computer is ordinarily provided with a corresponding power supply. When the power supply breaks down, the computer may not function. Moreover, when the computer is processing important data and the power supply suddenly breaks down, the important data may be lost.
Therefore, in a condition that a plurality of power supplies are providing electricity at the same time, how to provide power to other computers or electronic devices in urgent need using idle power of the power supplies is the subject of the present invention.

Power distribution device and power distribution circuit


A fixing band-tightening apparatus comprises a holding section for gripping a shaft section at both ends in an axial direction, the holding section being provided rotatably in a circumferential direction in accordance with a driving action of a rotary driving source, a stopper section arranged in a lateral direction substantially horizontal with respect to the holding section, for positioning a projection of a fixing band in the lateral direction except for a vertical direction, and a band-tightening section for forcibly nipping the projection of the fixing band positioned by the stopper section to tighten the fixing band.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for tightening a fixing band, which make it possible to tighten the fixing band to be used, for example, to fix a boot installed to a constant velocity universal joint. The present invention also relates to a constant velocity universal joint apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A constant velocity universal joint has been hitherto used for a driving force-transmitting section of a vehicle such as an automobile in order to transmit the rotary force of a driving shaft to respective axles via a driven shaft. A bellows-shaped boot is installed to the constant velocity universal joint. The boot functions to ensure the liquid-tight performance for lubricating oil enclosed in an outer cup and prevent the inside of the outer cup from invasion of dust, water, and the like.
The boot comprises a bellows section which has a bellows-shaped configuration, a large diameter annular attachment section which is installed to an outer circumferential surface of the outer cup, and a small diameter annular attachment section which is installed to an outer circumferential surface of a shaft on the driven side, wherein the large diameter annular attachment section and the small diameter annular attachment section are formed integrally at both ends of the bellows section. Fixing bands for the large diameter and for the small diameter are constricted to the large diameter annular attachment section and the small diameter annular attachment section respectively.
Usually, such a boot is formed of a rubber material. However, it is difficult to respond to the recent demand, for example, for the high speed durability and the durability against temperature. Therefore, a boot, which is based on the use of a synthetic resin material in place of the rubber material, is often adopted. The boot made of resin has rigidity, and it scarcely suffers from warpage or the like as well, as compared with the boot made of rubber.
A technical concept is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-251336, in which the fixing band is automatically installed by mechanically tightening the fixing band. A band-fixing apparatus, which is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-251336, is provided with a positioning mechanism for the axial direction and a temporary positioning mechanism for the circumferential direction. A method is adopted, in which a projection of the fixing band, which is temporarily positioned at an upper portion of the boot by the temporary positioning mechanism for the circumferential direction, is forcibly nipped and deformed by a pawl mechanism to reduce the diameter of the fixing band so that the boot is fixed to a drive shaft.
That is, the band-fixing apparatus, which is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-251336, is operated such that the projection of the fixing band is sensed by a photoelectric sensor to stop the driving of a motor on the basis of an output of the photoelectric sensor. Accordingly, the position is temporarily determined in the circumferential direction so that the projection of the fixing band is disposed at the upper portion of the boot, and the projection is forcibly nipped and deformed by the aid of the pawl mechanism.
However, in the case of the band-fixing apparatus concerning the conventional technique described above, the projection of the fixing band is forcibly nipped in the state of being temporarily positioned at the upper portion of the boot. Therefore, a problem arises such that it is impossible to make application to an existing tightening apparatus for a fixing band which has been hitherto used by the present applicant.
That is, the present applicant has proposed a method for fixing a boot in which the boot made of rubber is wound with a steel belt, and an overlapped portion of the steel belt is irradiated with a laser beam so that the overlapped portion is welded and fused (see Japanese Patent Publication No. 58-34710). When the method for fixing the boot proposed by the present applicant is applied to a boot made of rubber for a tripod type constant velocity universal joint on the inboard side as shown in FIG. 27, while a boot made of resin is used for a bar field type constant velocity universal joint on the outboard side, then it is demanded that the tightening position for the fixing band for fixing the boot made of resin resides in an identical positional relationship with respect to the position for the welding and fusion effected by radiating the laser beam.
In other words, the laser beam apparatus for welding and fusing the steel belt to the boot made of rubber is arranged in the substantially horizontal direction (lateral direction) with respect to the constant velocity universal joint on the inboard side. Therefore, in view of the layout at the installation place, if the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-251336 is applied, an inconvenience arises such that the equipment investment is excessive, and the production cost is expensive.
If the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-251336 is applied, it is necessary to change the existing production line. Also in this viewpoint, the excessive equipment investment is required.
When the boot made of resin is fixed by tightening the fixing band from a position disposed in the substantially horizontal direction (lateral direction) with respect to the constant velocity universal joint on the outboard side, it is demanded that the projection of the fixing band is positioned at a position other than the upper and lower portions of the boot, for example, at a position disposed in the substantially horizontal direction (lateral direction) to tighten the fixing band.
The boot made of resin is produced by means of the blow molding or the injection molding. A plurality of boots made of resin are accommodated and transported in a bucket after the production. For example, a hollow portion of a boot made of resin, which is stacked on the lower side during the transport, is crushed, and a bellows section of the boot made of resin is deformed in some cases, probably because of the following reason. That is, no sufficient cooling time is consumed during the molding process for the resin for the boot made of resin. Therefore, when the plurality of boots made of resin are stacked, then any load is applied to the bellows section, and the bellows section is deformed.
If the fixing band is installed to the boot made of resin deformed as described above by using the band-fixing apparatus concerning the conventional technique described above, the following inconvenience arises as shown in FIG. 43. That is, when the projection of the fixing band is forcibly nipped, the pawl mechanism makes approach to contact with the deformed portion of the bellows section of the boot made of resin. As a result, the bellows section is damaged. When the pawl mechanism contacts with the bellows section, the back and forth movement of the pawl mechanism is obstructed. It is feared that any trouble occurs, for example, such that the operation of the band-fixing apparatus is stopped.
When the large diameter annular attachment section of the boot made of resin is installed to the outer circumferential surface of an outer cup together with the loosely fitted fixing band having a large diameter, and the fixing band having the large diameter is tightened, if the large diameter annular attachment section of the boot made of resin is installed in a state of being deviated from a normal position with respect to the outer circumferential surface of the outer cup, then the following inconvenience arises. That is, the large diameter annular attachment section is fixed by the fixing band in a state in which it is subjected to any positional discrepancy. Similarly, another inconvenience also arises such that the small diameter annular attachment section is fixed by the fixing band in a state in which it is subjected to any positional discrepancy.
The technical concept, in which the projection is provided at a portion at which the fixing band for the boot for the constant velocity universal joint is installed, is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Publication No. 1-75629, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 63-11429, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 62-16541, and Japanese Utility Model No. 2598540.
In the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Publication No. 1-75629, a projection is provided in order to avoid the occurrence of crack at a portion at which a band is installed. In the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 63-11429, a projection is provided in order to improve the installation performance by giving the flexibility to a boot made of hard resin. In the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 62-16541, a projection tab is provided in order to improve the strength and the sealing performance. In the technical concept disclosed in Japanese Utility Model No. 2598540, a small projecting strip is provided in order to facilitate the assembling performance by decreasing the rigidity of the fixed end.
As described above, the technical concepts disclosed in these patent documents are completely different from the invention of this application in problem to be solved. Objects, constructions, functions, and effects of them are conspicuously different from those of the invention of this application.
That is, in the technical concepts disclosed in the preceding techniques, the projection is provided in order to improve the tightening force of the fixing band, or the projection is provided, for example, for the purpose of improving the installation performance, improving the sealing performance, or facilitating the assembling performance. On the other hand, the invention of this application is different from the above in the following points. That is, when a fixing band is constricted by using a fixing band-tightening apparatus, the frictional coefficient between a boot made of resin and the fixing band is increased in order to avoid the loose rotation of the fixing band with respect to the boot made of resin. The projection of the fixing band, which may be rotated integrally with the boot made of resin, is forcibly nipped, for example, in a state of being positioned at a position disposed in a substantially horizontal direction. By doing so, the fixing band is tightened and constricted.
In other words, it is enough that a frictional coefficient-increasing mechanism, which is one of the features of the invention of this application, persistently exhibits the function sufficient to integrally rotate the fixing band when the fixing band is constricted by using the fixing band-tightening apparatus. The frictional coefficient-increasing mechanism does not function to increase the tightening force for the fixing band. In this viewpoint, the invention of this application is clearly different from the technical concepts disclosed in the preceding techniques.
A general object of the present invention is to provide a constant velocity universal joint apparatus and an apparatus and a method for tightening a fixing band, which make it possible to harmonize the layout with an existing fixing band-tightening apparatus by tightening a projection of the fixing band in a state of being positioned at a position except for an upper portion and a lower portion of a boot so that the versatility is improved.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a fixing band-tightening apparatus which makes it possible to smoothly install a fixing band without making contact with a bellows section even when a boot made of resin is deformed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a fixing band-tightening apparatus which makes it possible to reliably install large diameter and small diameter annular attachment sections of a boot made of resin to predetermined positions subjected to positioning.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a fixing band-tightening method for a boot for a constant velocity universal joint, which is preferably used for the fixing band-tightening apparatus described above and which makes it possible to integrally rotate a fixing band and the boot made of resin in a reliable manner by increasing the coefficient of friction when the fixing band is tightened and fixed by using the fixing band-tightening apparatus.
The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.

Apparatus and method for tightening fixing band and constant velocity universal joint apparatus


In a conventional method of crystallization using a laser beam, variance (or dispersion) in a TFT characteristic becomes large, which causes various functions of a semiconductor device comprising TFTs as components of its electronic circuit to be restrained.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device using a crystalline semiconductor film crystallized by radiating an amorphous semiconductor film with a laser beam and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been a known technology for crystallizing an amorphous semiconductor film formed on a substrate such as glass by means of a laser process. The laser process means a method of recrystallizing a damaged or amorphous film formed on a semiconductor substrate or a semiconductor film, a method of crystallizing an amorphous semiconductor film formed on an insulating surface or a method of improving crystallinity of a semiconductor film (crystalline semiconductor film) having a crystalline structure. A gas laser represented by an excimer laser or a solid laser represented by a YGA laser is usually used as a laser oscillator device used for the laser process.
A feature of using a laser beam is in that a laser beam is used for radiation and an area absorbing an energy of the laser beam can only be heated selectively, different from a case of a heating process using radiating heating or conducting heating. For example, in a laser process using an excimer laser oscillator device, a process of crystallization or activation of a semiconductor film is achieved by heating a semiconductor film selectively and locally with almost no heat-damage to a glass substrate.
As an example of the laser process, there is a known method of processing a beam linearly by means of an optical system to use the beam for radiation like a laser processing device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-195357. Further, a method of crystallization with a solid laser oscillator device such as an Nd:YVO4 laser is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-144027. This document discloses that the second higher harmonic of a laser beam used for radiation from the solid laser oscillator device allows the crystalline semiconductor film to have a larger grain size than conventional cases.
Especially, application to a thin film transistor (hereinafter referred to as a TFT) in a method of crystallization using a continuous wave solid laser oscillator device is reported in "Ultra-high Performance Poly-Si TFTs on a Glass by a Stable Scanning CW laser Lateral Crystallization", A. Hara, F. Takeuchi, M. Takei, K. Yoshino, K. Suga and N. Sasaki, AMLCD '01 Tech. Dig., 2001, pp.227-230. This document discloses an example of a method of producing a TFT with a polycrystalline silicon film crystallized by means of the second higher harmonic of a solid continuous oscillator laser (YVO4) for diode excitation.

Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same

Abstract: A first shape of semiconductor region having on its one side a plurality of sharp convex top-end portions is formed first and a continuous wave laser beam is used for radiation from the above region so as to crystallize the first shape of semiconductor region. A continuous wave laser beam condensed in one or plural lines is used for the laser beam. The first shape of semiconductor region is etched to form a second shape of semiconductor region in which a channel forming region and a source and drain region are formed. The second shape of semiconductor region is disposed so that a channel forming range would be formed on respective crystal regions extending from the plurality of convex end portions. A semiconductor region adjacent to the channel forming region is eliminated.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.