An object of the invention is to reduce necessary costs in a merchandise retail store, and to reduce customer inconvenience and waiting time. A customer entering a merchandise retail store borrows a RFID portable terminal at the store entrance. The customer selects a sample commodity from a store sales area, and a commodity code is read out from a wireless tag in a wireless tag label and stored with the RFID portable terminal, which simultaneously relays that information to the outside. An information-processing apparatus in the store receives this message, and prepares the commodity that the customer wishes to purchase. The customer returns the RFID portable terminal to the sales counter, settles payment, and receives his wrapped commodity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for merchandise retail management, and a portable terminal for use in stores retailing commodities to customers and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In stores retailing commodities to customers, it is important that commodities purchased by customers can be sufficiently confirmed, and that when customers purchase a commodity, no waiting time is incurred at the time of settling payment or receiving commodities, for example. Additionally, anti-theft measures are also important.
As a general method for the selection of commodities by customers in the retail industry, like in a supermarket for example, customers directly choose commodities from a sales area and bring commodities to the cash register counter. However, when the commodities increase in size, the area necessary for the sales area increases, and customers are forced to bear the hassle of bringing commodities to the cash register counter. Consequently, a large-sized commodity is purchased in various manners. For example, desired commodities are directly pointed out to a store employee, and the store employee prepares the commodities; a paper slip which is attached to a sample display commodity of a desired commodity and is imprinted with the name and barcode thereof is brought to the cash register counter; and the method of selecting a commodity is selected from a catalog for the selection of commodities placed on the store counter.
FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B are views of a wireless tag 1 developed as a replacement for barcodes with technology for identifying articles such as commodities. As shown in FIG. 16A, the wireless tag 1 is formed by printing the conductor pattern of an antenna 3 on the surface of an insulating substrate 2, and further mounting an IC chip 4 on the insulating substrate 2 to serve as a semiconductor integrated circuit. The insulating substrate 2 has a size of about 60 mm×10 mm, for example.
As shown in FIG. 16B, an electromagnetic wave 6 is radiated from a reader 5, and if power is supplied to the antenna 3 of the wireless tag 1, a reflected wave of an intensity changed according to previously set data inside the IC chip 4 is radiated from the antenna 3. The reader 5 detects the reflected wave and can perform the contactless recognition of data.
FIG. 17 schematically shows the electrical configuration of the wireless tag 1 and the reader 5 shown in FIG. 16A and FIG. 16B. The wireless tag 1 includes a send/receive portion 7, a controller 8, and a memory 9 within the IC chip 4. The reader 5 includes an antenna 10, a send/receive portion 11 and a controller 12, and is also capable of data communication with a host computer 13. The memory 9 is a flash memory, for example, and can store the content of written data, the data having been written on it. The memory capacity of the memory 9 can easily be set to around 1024 bits (128 bytes), for example, and can display a large amount of information in comparison to regular one-dimensional barcodes only capable of displaying information of 13 digits in JAN code, for example. Additionally, contactless readout can be performed between the reader 5 and the wireless tag 1, and data can be read at a distance of around 30 cm to 1 m, for example. Data can be easily rewritten if a dedicated writer is used.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 10-162247 (1998) discloses a purchased commodities registration system that uses wireless tags, and a purchased commodities payment settlement system using this registration apparatus. In this conventional technology, a wireless tag is attached to each commodity, and the commodity is organized on an open display shelf. A wireless tag reading apparatus is provided at the commodity takeout opening of the display shelf. A customer IC card is inserted into the wireless tag reading apparatus, and when a commodity is retrieved from the opening when the customer IC card is inserted in the wireless tag reading apparatus, the wireless tag reading apparatus detects this and information is registered onto the customer IC card. Because the customer brings the commodity and the IC card together to the sales counter, settling payment can be simplified.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 2000-30150 (2000) discloses a related art technology wherein a wireless tag is attached to each commodity displayed in the sales floor for the purpose of prevention of theft as well as payment for commodities.
In the retail industry, when commodities are placed in a store and retailed, the retailer has numerous details to consider, including securing a space for placing commodities, managing inventory, methods of display, preventing damage and uncleanliness, preventing theft of the commodities, maintenance such as updating information and prices, and the distribution of appropriate store employees capable of explaining the commodities. Cost is also important.
Additionally, customers wanting to purchase a commodities are forced to endure troublesome inconveniences and waiting times, such as bringing commodities for purchase to the sales counter, making purchase requests to store employees for large commodities that is difficult to move, determining which store employees are knowledgeable of a particular commodity when desiring an explanation of that commodity, time spent waiting at the cash register counter when payment is being settled, and time spent designating goods to be delivered, designating the payment method, and waiting until wrapping is finished.
As in JP-A 10-162247 and JP-A 2000-30150, for example, by using wireless tags there is the possibility that a portion of the aforementioned problems can be solved. With these examples of conventional technology, however, the feature of each commodity being individually displayed and the customer bringing a selected commodity to a cash register counter is identical to the conventional format of supermarkets, for example, and improving the aspect of forcing the customer to carry the purchased commodity and wait for the wrapping is problematical. Moreover, a wireless tag must be attached to each commodity, and numerous reading apparatus must be provided, so the cost required by the store increases instead.

Method and system for merchandise retail management and portable terminal


A bridge deck unit and a process for constructing a bridge deck using the unit, wherein deviation and deflection of reinforcements are prevented, and problems of complicated operation and high cost are solved. Connecting plates for connecting portions of main reinforcements are disposed at a predetermined distance from each other in a longitudinal direction of the main reinforcements such that upper and lower ends of the connecting plates are respectively secured to side surfaces of the main reinforcements.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transportable bridge deck unit in which a framework and reinforcements for forming a deck are previously assembled, for constructing the deck on bridge girders of a road bridge, railway bridge, or other bridges constructed across river or sea, or on land.
2. Related Art
A deck made of reinforced concrete which is often used for a bridge such as a road bridge is basically produced by mounting a reinforcement assembly formed by assembling necessary reinforcements such as main reinforcements, distributing bars, and the like inside a framework, and depositing concrete within the framework.
Conventionally, a framework member is made of plywood and all operational step, from assembly of the framework to construction are carried out on the bridge girders. The operations in such an environment is not only very dangerous, but also inefficient, affected by weather, and consuming wood resources in large quantities.
Also, it is laborious for workers to regularly dispose the main and distributing bar at predetermined spatial positions, to constantly dispose the reinforcements in a state in which the main reinforcements and the like are lifted with a space from a reference surface by a constant distance, and to keep the whole shape of the reinforcements in a grille configuration, on a construction site.
Furthermore, the reinforcements are assembled by welding them or tying them with wire.
In a case of using a welding method, a defective area may be generated in both of the reinforcements to be tied together.
In a case of tying the reinforcements with wire, on the other hand, such operation is manually carried out on the construction site and thus, the positions to which the reinforcements should be arranged are easily deviated.
In addition, in order to obtain further unit earthquake resistance, sufficient coupling strength between the reinforcements can not be obtained by coupling same using welding method or wiring method, and such welding or fastening with were are inefficient.
Consequently, some constructors use a prefabricated deck in which the entire deck or a portion thereof is fabricated in a plant.
However, any producing process of the prefabricated deck is complicated in structure, and the structure is not rational because it requires extra support members and too many main members.
The prefabricated deck is accompanied by various problems regarding construction on the construction site, and cost required for construction of the prefabricated deck is higher as compared with the conventional deck.
Therefore, in order to solve the various problems accompanying the above-described deck constructed on the construction site or a prefabricated deck, a process for constructing a new type of prefabricated deck, which is a compromise process between the process for constructing the deck on the construction site and the process for prefabricating the deck, is disclosed in the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (KOKAI)No. 8-113917.
In that, framework to be used for a concrete framework is first formed and then a deck assembly is formed by fixing main reinforcements in a framework which will serve as a bottom plate of the deck unit for a long time, and it is transferred to the construction site and concrete is deposited into the framework.
However, because the main reinforcements are conventionally maintained in the framework using wire or grasping means in the above-described new type of process for constructing the prefabricated deck, fastened portions wire are liable to become loose at the time of transfer, for example, thereby allowing the reinforcements to move.
In the case of using the grasping means, a portion caulked by a hook of the grasping means, which is generally called a shear gripping met liable to loose and because the grasping means (a shear gripping method) per se, requires a folded portion to form the hooked portion reducing the means to support heavy weight and thus the reinforcements are deflected by load due to the considerable weight of the grasping means thereby degrading the strength, durability, and earthquake resistance of the framework.

Bridge deck unit and process for construction bridge deck using the unit


A memory system uses a dynamic RAID scheme to dynamically encode RAID address space geometries. The dynamic RAID scheme solves issues with the algorithmic layout approach and flat virtual address space used in conventional RAID systems. The dynamic RAID scheme can be used for any RAID algorithm and does not require static mapping. In other words, there is no requirement that each strip be located in the same relative location in memory devices and there is no requirement that stripes use the same combination of memory devices.

Computer memory systems may be either of the persistent or non-persistent type. Examples of persistent memory types are magnetic cores, disk drives, tape drives and semiconductor flash memories. Non-persistent memory types may be semiconductor memories such as DRAM or the like. Non-persistent memory typically has rapid access times for both reading and writing of data and is used as computer main memory or cache memory.
Computer database systems, data centers, distributed data systems, the Internet, etc., and the storage devices associated therewith may store vast amounts of data. Fast response times are needed from servers in data centers when servicing user requests. Bottlenecks in data centers are often due to excessive data access latency of the persistent storage media. While having significantly lower latency than a disk device, flash memory remains limited in access time by the design and method of operation of currently available memory modules.
Redundant Arrays of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks (RAID) protects against the loss of data by adding redundancy. In a properly configured RAID architecture, the loss of any single disk will not interfere with the ability to access or reconstruct the stored data.
Instead of keeping a full duplicate copy of the data as in RAID-1, data may be spread over several disks with an additional disk added. The data on the additional disk may be calculated (using Boolean XORs) based on the data on the other disks. In RAID-5, if any single disk in the set of disks is lost, the data stored on that disk can be recovered through calculations performed on the data on the remaining disks. RAID-6 is similar to RAID-5 but uses dual parity. These implementations are less expensive than RAID-1 because they do not require the 100% disk space overhead that RAID-1 requires. However, because the data on the disks is calculated, there are performance implications associated with writing, and with recovering data after a disk is lost.
Fundamental to RAID is striping, a method of concatenating multiple drives (memory units) into one logical storage unit. Striping involves partitioning storage space of each drive into stripes which may be one sector or smaller, or as large as several megabytes. These stripes are then interleaved so that the combined storage space is comprised of stripes from each drive in the stripe.
A traditional RAID mapping uses an algorithmic approach to map data stripes to a set of fault domains (memory modules, drives), and default locations within the memory modules. For example, a first stripe might be stored at offset 0 in a same set of memory modules, a second stripe might be storage at offset 4 KB in the same set of memory modules, etc.
A strip refers to the amount of data written by RAID to a single physical device in a same stripe. Whether a particular strip within the stripe contains data or parity is usually also algorithmically determined by simply rotating through memory modules. Stripes are collected together into a virtual address space to support the algorithmic mapping. For example, 10×1 TB drives in RAID6 8+2 might expose a flat virtual address space of 0-8 TB with granularity of 4 KB.
Being algorithmic, this mapping is difficult to change for a given established RAID array. This makes implementing certain features either prohibitively difficult or expensive at runtime, such as dynamically expanding or shrinking (adding/removing) memory modules, supporting memory modules of differing capacities, etc.


An active muffler for use in motor vehicles comprises a sensor, an electronic control responsive to the signal generated by the sensor for producing a drive signal delivered to a transducer which emits cancellation pulses phased 180.degree. from the sound pressure pulses passing through a conduit, where both front and rear sides of the transducer are acoustically coupled to the conduit to improve the efficiency of the transducer operation. Preferably, the acoustic coupling comprises an enclosed chamber including a port for communicating with the conduit which can be tuned to resonate at predetermined frequencies. When both sides of the transducer are so coupled to the conduit, the transducer has increased efficiency over a broad band of frequencies, and the frequency band can be broadened at the low end as required to accommodate the frequencies generated by a source of noise. A tandem transducer mounting arrangement according to the present invention reduces vibration of the housing while minimizing the mass and size of the transducers by juxtaposing or consolidating the magnet structure for a pair of transducer diaphragms. The system is particularly suitable for use in adapting noise cancellation techniques to replace or be combined with passive mufflers on motor vehicles.

Internal combustion engines typically used in motor vehicles generate a substantial amount of noise due to the combustion occurring within the engine. Conventionally, the noise generated is suppressed by a passive muffler system in which the sound waves are broken up by resonance with baffles, passageways and the like or absorbed by fibrous material. However, such techniques of reducing the sound level also obstruct the free flow of exhaust gases through the exhaust conduits and therefore substantially interfere with efficient operation of the vehicle engine by interfering with the release of combustion products and inhibiting the replacement of the combusted gases with fresh fuel in the engine cylinders. Nevertheless, despite the reduction in economy and performance, the need for substantially reduced noise levels requires the use of mufflers on all production motor vehicles.
Although active noise cancellation systems have been employed with large ducts used for heating and ventilation in large buildings, the previously known systems are not well adapted for use in the environment of motor vehicles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,906 to Warnaka et al discloses numerous prior art sound attenuation system embodiments. In general, sensed sound pressure produces a signal adapted to drive a loudspeaker for inputting cancellation signals into the duct. The cancellation signal is an acoustic pulse signal 180.degree. out of phase with the signal passing past the speaker through the duct. The prior art embodiments also illustrate improved noise attenuation performance by reducing the effect of the feedback of the cancellation signal which arrives at the sensor. The patent discusses the inclusion of additional transducers and electronic controls to improve the performance of the active acoustic attenuator.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,677 to Eriksson further improves attenuation by including an adaptive filter with on-line modeling of the error path and the canceling speaker by using a recurslye algorithm without dedicated off-line pretraining. U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,676 adds a low amplitude, uncorrelated random noise source to a system to improve performance. Likewise, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,876,722 to Decker et al and 4,783,817 to Hamada et al disclose particular component locations which are performance related and do not adapt active attenuator noise control systems to motor vehicles.
However, none of these improvements render the system applicable to muffle engine noise in the environment of a motor vehicle. For example, such systems often employ extremely large transducers such as 12 or 15 inch loudspeakers of conventional construction. Such components are not well adapted for packaging within the confines of the motor vehicle, and particularly, within the undercarriage of the motor vehicle. Moreover, since the lowest frequency of the signal to be cancelled is on the order of 25 hertz, a large loudspeaker is used to generate sound signals with sufficient amplitude in that range, and such speakers are not practical to mount beneath a motor vehicle. Moreover, although the highest frequencies encountered are easier to dissipate because of their smaller wavelength, the highest frequency to be cancelled is on the order of 250 hertz.
Moreover, many of the above-mentioned systems locate the speakers within the ducts subjected to the sound pressure signal. The loudspeakers conversationally employed in those systems would not fit within conventional exhaust conduits for motor vehicles. Furthermore, the harsh environmental conditions within such a chamber would adversely affect the described known systems and diminish their performance in a motor vehicle.
Although there have been known techniques for increasing the efficiency of audio loudspeakers, those teachings have not been considered readily applicable to active noise attenuating systems. French Patent No. 768,373 to D'Alton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,549,631 to Bose and the Bandpass Loudspeaker Enclosures publication of Geddes and Fawcett presented at the 1986 convention of the Audio Engineering Society acknowledge the phenomena of tuning loudspeaker output by the use of chambers including ports. The recognition of this phenomena has been limited to its effect upon audio reproduction, and particularly dispersion of the audio signal to an open area outside the loudspeaker enclosure. The closed conduit system of motor vehicle exhaust systems, and the harsh conditions associated with such systems, is a substantially different environment.
In addition, my above-identified copending applications discuss improvements and the advantages to be obtained by ported communication of multiple transducer faces with an exhaust conduit. However, the mounting of multiple transducers increases the packaging problems, material costs and assembly complexity of the vehicle. Furthermore, a back to back alignment of transducers may position the magnets so that the magnetic fields can interfere with efficient operation of the transducers.


A heater comprises a cap 20 formed by joining and fixing together curved peripheries 10a as peripheries of two semi-elliptical heat-generator-containing sheets 10 of generally the same shape. The heat-generator-containing sheet 10 comprises a waterproof inner layer sheet 2, an air-permeable sheet 5 disposed so as to cover the entire surface of the inner layer sheet 2, and a plurality of heat generators 3 interposed between and held by the inner layer sheet 2 and the air-permeable sheet 5, which generate heat when in contact with an air. The heat generators 3 are disposed substantially over the entire surface of the cap 20. The heat-generator-containing sheets 10 are joined and fixed together with the respective inner layer sheets 2 being the inner surface. The heater realizes a simple handling when in use, a small temperature variation, and simple fabrication process.

The present invention relates to a heater which easily heats one""s hair or scalp and which is suitable for use in hair treatments such as hair curling or waving, treatment, hair softening, the straightening of curled hair, resilience rendering, the improvement of a hair condition, and a coloring; and hair treatments such as hair growing and fostering treatments, and a scalp care, and a method for fabricating the same.
A hair cap which is used for performing hair curling or waving at home with ease has been proposed as a hair heater. As a heat source thereof, an iron powder pocket warmer, a heat reservoir such as paraffin or polyethylene glycol, a heat generator which generates heat by the flow of electricity, for example, to a nichrome wire, or the like, has been proposed. In particular, the iron powder pocket warmer is superior to others in terms of its convenience, safety, durability, etc. Therefore, a variety of hair heaters which use iron powder pocket warmers have been proposed.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-108719 discloses a cap for heating the hair and scalp, which is used by inserting commercially available pocket warmers into pockets provided along an inner surface or outer surface of a cap member. However, the cap has such problems that the handling of the cap when in use is complicated; it is impossible to completely cover a head with a plurality of commercially available quadrilateral-shaped pocket warmers; and a temperature variation is likely to occur in the hair because the pocket warmers are insufficiently fitted to the hair.
Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 62-23602 discloses a heating cap comprising an inner skin, an outer skin, and a heat generating powder filled therebetween. However, the cap has a structure such that the heat generating powder is difficult to be divided into portions. As a result, it is difficult to fill the heat generating powder uniformly, so that a temperature variation is likely to be caused. Also, there was a problem such that the cap cannot be folded.
Moreover, the iron powder pocket warmer has a characteristic such that it generates heat when exposed to an air containing oxygen. Therefore, especially when a cap which employs a pocket warmer as a heat generator is fabricated, an additional time is required to incorporate the pocket warmer into the cap, as compared to the case where a sheet-like pocket warmer is fabricated. Thus, the problems of the heat generation and the deactivation of the pocket warmer powder due to the heat generation become more acute. Therefore, the fabrication of a heater which employs an iron powder pocket warmer as a heat generator needs to be simple.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a heater which is easy to handle when in use, which has a small temperature variation, and which is easy to fabricate.
The present invention is to provide a heater, comprising a cap having a heating section,
wherein said heating section comprises a waterproof inner layer sheet, an air-permeable sheet disposed so as to cover said inner layer sheet, and a plurality of heat generators which are interposed between and held by said inner layer sheet and said air-permeable sheet and which generate heat when in contact with an air, and
said heat generators are arranged substantially over an entire surface of the cap.
By providing such a heater, the above-described object is achieved.
The heater of the present invention can minimize the loss of iron powder due to the heat generation during the fabrication thereof; is easy to handle when in use; has a small temperature variation; and is easy to fabricate.


A device, which provides a differential output signal having a first output signal component and a second output signal component based on a plurality of input signals, includes a pair of signal sources and a controller. The pair of signal sources includes a first activatable signal source for providing the first output signal component and a second activatable signal source for providing the second output signal component. The controller is operably coupled to the pair of signal sources and is configured to activate either the first signal source or the second signal source of the pair of signal sources depending on the plurality of input signals.

In digital radio-frequency transmission architectures, different digitally controlled signal paths can be combined at a common output load. A typical example of such a transmission architecture is a digital direct modulator. On account of the overlap of I-Q clock signals or digital noise shaping, it can happen that part of the signal current is generated in both sides of the differential load, which leads to an undesired common-mode signal or self-cancellation of the signal. Since this portion of the signal does not generate a desired RF signal, the current consumption of the modulator increases and, furthermore, the efficiency is reduced by the current required for generating this undesired portion.

Device for providing a differential output signal and method for providing a differential output signal


The present invention relates to a wireless mouse having a storing structure for storing a wireless signal receiver therein. The wireless mouse includes an upper housing, a wireless signal receiver, a lower housing and a torsion spring. The lower housing has a depression structure for receiving the wireless signal receiver therein. A perforation is disposed in a sidewall of the lower housing and communicated with the depression structure. Due to the torsional force resulting from said torsion spring, the wireless signal receiver is clasped and fixed in the depression structure.

Nowadays, mice, keyboards and earphones become essential peripheral devices of computer systems. Conventionally, these peripheral devices are communicated with the host computer via wire linkage. The wire linkage is very troublesome and inconvenient because an additional signal wire is employed to connect the computer with the peripheral device. For solving these drawbacks, wireless peripheral devices are developed to communicate with the host computer according to a wireless transmission technology. Since no additional wire is required to connect the wireless peripheral devices with the host computer, the space utilization is enhanced.
Take a wireless mouse for example. The signals generated from the wireless mouse are transmitted to the host computer according to wireless communication protocol. The wireless mouse has a wireless emitter therein for emitting a wireless signal. When the wireless mouse is operated, a corresponding wireless signal receiver is used for receiving the wireless signal issued from the wireless mouse. Nowadays, with increasing development of wireless communication technologies, the volume of the wireless signal receiver is largely reduced and convenient for portability. Due to the reduced volume, the probability of losing the wireless signal receiver is increased. For a purpose of solving such a problem, it is important to provide a storing structure for storing a wireless signal receiver therein.
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic perspective view illustrating a wireless mouse having a storing structure for storing a wireless signal receiver therein. The upper housing 1 of the wireless mouse may be uplifted to accommodate the wireless signal receiver 2 into the receiving portion thereof. Generally, the upper housing and the lower housing of the wireless mouse are combined via corresponding studs and screws. Before wireless signal receiver 2 is accommodated within the receiving portion, the upper housing should be detached from the lower housing to expose the receiving portion. If the process of removing/inserting the wireless signal receiver from/into the receiving portion of the wireless mouse is repeatedly done for a long term, the studs may be abraded. Due to the reduced strength of the studs, the upper housing is no longer secured fixed on the lower housing vie the studs. Moreover, frequent operations of detaching the upper housing from the lower housing are not user-friendly.
FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view of another wireless mouse having a storing structure for storing a wireless signal receiver therein. The wireless mouse 3 has a receiving portion 4 for accommodating the wireless signal receiver 5 therein. After the wireless signal receiver 5 is detached from the wireless mouse 3, an entrance of the receiving portion 4 is exposed. The entrance of the receiving portion 4 is detrimental to the overall aesthetic appearance of the wireless mouse 3. If no additional sheltering door is used for sheltering the entrance of the receiving portion 4, the inner components of the wireless mouse 3 are possibly contaminated. Moreover, for fixing the receiving portion 4 in the receiving portion 4, a fixing element such as a doorlock element is disposed in the receiving portion 4. After the wireless signal receiver 5 is accommodated within the receiving portion 4, the wireless signal receiver 5 is clasped and fixed by the doorlock element. For withdrawing the wireless signal receiver 5, the doorlock element is disengaged from the receiving portion 4 by exerting an external force toward the doorlock element. Since the doorlock element is not cost-effective, the cost of the whole wireless mouse is increased.
Therefore, there is a need of providing a wireless mouse having a storing structure for storing a wireless signal receiver therein, in which the storing structure has an aesthetic appearance and is cost-effective.

Wireless mouse having storing structure for storing wireless signal receiver therein


To provide a cable or the like protection and guide device in which even if link frame bodies receive torsion and deflection during a linear movement or a bending movement, a mutual connection can be reliably maintained and a connection and assembly operation for the link frame bodies is easy and a stable molding accuracy and a small cost load on a molding mold can be obtained. In a cable or the like protection and guide device 100 in which a large number of rectangular link frame bodies 110 each comprising a pair of spaced link plates 111, 111, and connecting plates 112, 112 bridged the pair of link plates 111, 111 respectively are articulately connected to each other, when said link frame bodies 110 are connected to each other in a linear state, a link disconnection preventing groove portion 111g engaged with an inner circumferential side edge 111h of the link plate 111 is provided on the both left and right ends 112a, 112a of the connecting plate bridged over the bending inner circumferential side of said link frame body 110, respectively, and when said link frame bodies 110 are connected to each other in a bending state, a link disconnection preventing cutaway portion 111k engaged with an inner circumferential side edge 111h of the link plate 111 is provided on the both left and right ends 112a, 112a of the connecting plate bridged over the bending inner circumferential side of said link frame body 110, respectively.

In such kinds of cable or the like protection and guide devices, link plates in each of which a pair of oppositely spaced link plates were connected by connecting rods are articulately connected to each other in plural numbers by overlapping the link plate ends, and a snap mechanism, which engages the link plate and the connecting rod so that these link plate and connecting rod are not disconnected by torsion or deflection, which is generated during articulate movement has been provided (see for example Patent Reference 1).
This snap mechanism comprises a holder-shaped connecting rod inserting portion protruded inside the link plate and engagement pawls formed on both sides of the ends of the connecting rod. In the snap mechanism after the engagement pawl is pushed into the connecting rod inserting portion to once widen an opening of the connecting rod inserting portion forcibly or to deform the connecting pawl inwardly or these deformations are simultaneously caused to engage a hook formed at the opening to the engagement pawl, the connecting rod is connected to the link plate while holding an end of the connecting rod with the connecting rod inserting portion, so that a pair of spaced link plates are prevented from being excessively spaced away from each other in their width direction and the mutual connection between the link plates are prevented from being disconnected from each other. Thus, the bending movement is smoothly performed.
Patent Reference 1: Specification of Japanese Patent No. 2,589,014 (on page 4, FIG. 2).


A method of securely and accurately adjudicating claim payouts in a risk-sharing event pool having a claim benefit account. The method includes receiving a request for a claim payout from a claimant participating in the event pool along with information regarding the claim. Members of the event pool serving as jurors analyze the information and vote to validate or reject the claim. A predetermined number of votes are randomly selected and tallied to determine if the claimant is successful in the request for a claim payout. The method also includes the step of locking the claim benefit account where members cannot withdraw from the event pool until the term has ended. The method further includes the step of unlocking the claim benefit account to share all remaining funds equally among members when the claim benefit account balance is greater than zero and the term of the event pool expires.

Today's economy has seen the bloom of the so-called sharing-economy. Under traditional business models, businesses with large capital are able to bear the costs and infrastructure of providing services to consumers. Under the share-economy theory, individual consumers pool their resources and knowledge to provide similar services.
One industry that the share-economy has recently encroached upon is the loss mitigation and insurance industry. Under traditional insurance models, an individual wishing to protect himself from the risk of loss may pay a monthly premium to a high capital backed insurance company. If the individual experiences a covered loss during his coverage period, his insurance provider will cover all or a portion of his losses.
Under a share-economy risk pool, individual members seek to insure each other. Individuals in a pool will deposit funds into the pool, and if any member of the risk-sharing pool experiences a loss, the members will use the pool funds to cover the member's expenses. Members may find the risk-sharing pool attractive, as in many cases, risk pools can reduce costs by forgoing business overhead and staffing costs associated with a traditional insurance company.
Utilizing modern social networking and the widespread access afforded by the internet, share-economy companies seek to provide risk coverage to a wide range of individuals that may otherwise not have traditional insurance coverage. Due to the flexibility of a shared-risk pool, members can insure losses for virtually any risk, granted there are enough members interested to insure the loss. Risk-sharing pools can now utilize the internet to expand their reach to increase the number of potential members globally, and members are no longer restricted to geographic communities.
In both the share-economy and traditional insurance realm, the costs associated with a loss can far exceed an individual's monthly premium or pool contribution. This creates an incentive for fraud and abuse. Under the traditional insurance model if a consumer experiences a loss, the individual will file a claim with his insurance company. A traditional insurance provider may then employ the services or a loss adjustor or loss assessor to determine the price and validity of the consumer's claims.
Under a true risk-pooling model, members can cut pool costs by not employing loss assessors. Additionally, by utilizing social media networks and the internet, risk sharing pools are able to connect members globally, making the hiring of trusted loss assessors prohibitively costly. For example, if individuals from around the globe form a risk-sharing pool, and a geographically isolated member files a claim with the pool, pool members may have to rely solely on the claimant or on an assessor of the claimant's choosing to determine the value of the claimed loss. This situation can lead to a perceived conflict of interest if not an actual conflict and can cause members to become hesitant or lose confidence in the risk-sharing pool. In the share-economy industry, a member's confidence in the platform is paramount.
This application incorporates by reference U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/122,611 (611) filed Aug. 30, 2016, as if fully set forth herein. Pat. App. '611 discloses a computer implemented method of creating peer-to-peer risk sharing pools. '611 discloses gathering members with like insurance needs and creating a risk-sharing pool in which the members each contribute funds to the pool to be used by members to recover from covered losses.
In light of the shortcomings in the prior art, there clearly exists a need for an improved method of adjudicating loss claims in a risk-sharing pool that minimizes fraud and increases the accuracy and efficiency of the pool.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of securely and accurately adjudicating claims for payout in a risk-sharing pool


In a two-cycle heat-insulating engine of the present invention, each of combustion chambers defined by the lower surface of a cylinder head and a cylinder line has an adiabatic structure, each of exhaust valves is disposed in each exhaust port formed in the cylinder head, an intake valve for preventing the backflow of an exhaust gas is disposed in each intake port formed at the lower part of a cylinder, each of these valves is actuated for opening and closing by electromagnetic force of each electromagnetic valve driving device, and a controller controls the opening/closing timing of the intake and exhaust valves, the valve opening/closing time, etc, in response to detection signals from detection means for detecting the operational conditions of the engine. Particularly when the engine is driven at a low number of revolution, the exhaust valve is opened near the lower dead point so as to exhaust all at once the exhaust gas and to suck the intake air, to limit any thermal influences on the intake air and to prevent the drop of the intake air quantity.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a two-cycle heat-insulating engine which actuates intake valves and exhaust valves for opening and closing by electromagnetic force.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, a valve mechanism which constitutes electrically intake/exhaust valves and actuates them electrically as a valve mechanism of an internal combustion engine is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 183805/1983. The valve mechanism of this internal combustion engine includes a detector for detecting the operational condition of the internal combustion engine and actuates the intake and exhaust valves on the basis of the detection signal of the detector. The detector for detecting the operational conditions of the internal combustion engine is accomplished by detecting a rotation state of a crank shaft or by detecting an acceleration opening. The operation of the intake and exhaust valves by the electrical motion means is accomplished by regulating the opening degree of the valve portions in response to the operational conditions of the internal combustion engine such as the intake state of a fuel and an exhaust state of an exploded and burnt matter.
In the operations of gasoline engines and Diesel engines in general, the cycle of the four operations, i.e., an intake stroke, a compression stroke, a combustion stroke and an exhaust stroke, is repeated. Among them, it is only the combustion stroke where power is generated and torque is applied to a crank shaft. In the other three states, rotation is effected by the force of intertia. Two kinds of systems, that is, a four-cycle engine and a two-cycle engine, exist as the operation principle of each of these strokes. Incidentally, in the two-cycle engine, the intake stroke and the exhaust stroke are effected at part of the combustion stroke and the compression stroke and one cycle is completed in the two strokes of the piston or in other words, one revolution of the crank shaft. Accordingly, since the number of combustion strokes or the number of times of explosion is twice in the two-cycle engine in comparison with the four-cycle engine, the output becomes about 1.5 times that of the four-cycle engine at the same exhaust quantity.
In a heat-insulating engine having the heat-insulating structure wherein the cylinder head and the combustion chambers defined by cylinders formed in the cylinder block are made of a heat-insulating material, a ceramic material, or the like, volume efficiency drops due to high heat generated inside each cylinder and the engine output drops. The reason is as follows. Since the cylinder head and the upper part of the cylinder have the heat-insulating structure, the upper part and wall surface of each combustion chamber attain a high temperature and fresh air sucked into the cylinder receives the heat from inside the cylinder or from the wall surface and is heated and undergoes expansion so that volume efficiency drops. Moreover, the intake air quantity sucked into the combustion chamber is reduced by 20% or more by the influences of the wall surface which is at the high temperature.
In engines having the two-cycle operation, when the exhaust port is opened and the exhaust gas is discharged through the exhaust port for air exchange, a pressure wave or a pulse wave occurs inside the cylinder and purges the exhaust gas. Accordingly, the fresh air flows into the negative pressure zone generated at the trailing stream portion of this exhaust gas from the lower part of the cylinder but since the lower part of the cylinder does not attain such a high temperature as the cylinder head, the fresh air is not much affected by the wall surface temperature at the lower part of the cylinder. This provides the advantage particularly in the heat-insulating engine in that if the fresh air is sucked from the lower part of the cylinder by effecting the two-cycle engine operation, the scavenging air quantity or the intake air quantity is not reduced.
On the other hand, the temperature of the exhaust gas in the heat-insulating engine is very high. Therefore, if the intake valves and the exhaust valves are disposed in the cylinder head and are adjacent to one another as they are in a four-cycle operation engine, the intake ports are more likely to be affected by the thermal influences of the exhaust ports and exhaust gas so that the intake air undergoes expansion due to the thermal influences and the intake air quantity drops drastically.


A mixer for combining digital video signals allows four real-time signals to be combined. At each layer, a digital key signal may be generated from the input video signal using chroma or luminance keying. In addition, the video signal may be combined with drop shadows, a border and a fill to produce first-stage composite video and composite key signals. A composite key signal is produced by supplying two key signals to a comparator and a selector via respective switchable invertors. The comparator produces a selection signal which is supplied to the selector via a switchable invertor. The selector switches an input signal to produce an output signal which is supplied to an output port via a switchable converter.

The present invention relates to combining digital key signals, to form a composite digital key signal for combining a first digital video signal with a second digital video signal.
Systems are known in which a first video image may be combined with a background video image in real time, to produce a real time video output signal. A known application of this technique involves removing a particular object from a first video image and placing said object against a different background. In order to remove the object, a particular characteristic of the signal, representing the object, may be selected, such as its color or its brightness. A first known technique generates a key in response to the presence of a particular color and this technique is commonly referred to as chroma keying. Alternatively, the technique of using brightness levels to generate a key signal is referred to as luminance keying. Thus, in chroma keying, a key signal may be derived from all areas of the picture in which a particular color is present (usually a saturated blue) and the output signal is produced by adding the two input signals together, after the background image has been multiplied by the value of the key k and the foreground image has been multiplied by the key value subtracted from unity, 1-k.
Keying is also employed when a video signal is manipulated by a video effects machine. Video effects machines are arranged to manipulate complete frames to produce an image which is smaller than the full video picture. The manipulated image is then usually placed against a background image and, therefore, the video effects machine must generate a key signal defining the shape of the manipulated image, which is then used to combine the manipulated image with a background image, using two multiplying stages and an adding stage, as described above.
In recent years, in both television broadcasting and video post-production, there has been a move away from conventional analog processing and towards digital processing. Thus, original video recordings may be made using a digital format, or photographic films may be converted to digital video, whereafter all of the mixing and post-production manipulations may be performed in the digital domain, thereby allowing many more manipulations to be made without degrading the integrity of the video signal.
A digital video signal defines an array of discrete picture point data and, unless great care is taken, images may be created which cannot be properly represented by the picture points, resulting in aliasing which expresses itself in the form of visible jaggies. Thus, for example, key signals may be produced which have very sharp transitions and, unless said transitions occur at boundaries between adjacent picture points, they cannot be properly represented by the digital signal and undesirable artefacts will be introduced. It is known to produce key signals with so-called "soft" edges, in which a transition between two extreme levels occurs over a plurality of picture points, such that a boundary exists over which, rather than a sharp transition occurring between the two images, the images actually merge together and, although an actual borderline between the images does not exist, such a border is still perceived by the eye, to the extent that the newly-combined foreground and background components are accepted as being part of a common image.
With techniques available for combining two video images, demand has grown for systems which are capable of combining more than two images. However, a particular problem which is encountered when attempting to provide such a facility is that a composite key must be produced for keying previously combined images against additional images or against a background. In accordance with a known technique, signals may be combined by multiplication. However, if two linear keys, having values ranging between zero and unity, are multiplied together, the result is non-linear and if such a non-linear key is used to combine partial images against the background, a visible border may be produced between the combined images and the background. Furthermore, as more and more key signals are combined together in this way, undesirable artefacts of this type become more and more apparent, easily resulting in a totally unacceptable end-product.
An alternative approach to combining key signals is to add the key signals together. However, if two key signals are to be combined which lie within the range of zero to unity and the output is also to lie within this range, sums greater than unity, when produced, will result in the new key saturating. Thus, a result of such a process is to effectively increase the gradient of the key signal which, although producing a linear key, produces harder edges which in turn may introduce artefacts due to aliasing, as previously described. Again, as the number of key signals added together increases, the problem becomes worse and worse and soon becomes clearly visible in the final picture.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved apparatus for combining digital key signals to form composite digital key signals. In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for the multiple combination of digital key signals, without introducing undesirable artefacts.


An image processing method, an image processing circuit, and a display apparatus using the same are discussed. The image processing method can include sensing a viewing distance of a user and determining a predetermined viewing distance mode, upon determining that the viewing distance corresponds to a short distance mode, performing blurring processing on four-color data of each pixel of an input image for each color channel by applying a predetermined blurring mask to reduce data of an edge portion of the input image and to output the image, and upon determining that the viewing distance corresponds to a long distance mode, performing sharpening processing on white data of four-color data of each pixel of the input image by applying a predetermined sharpness mask to increase the white data of the edge portion of the input image and to output the image.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display apparatus, and more particularly, to an image processing method, an image processing circuit, and a display apparatus using the same, for providing optimum image quality to a viewer by adjusting sharpness according to image characteristics and a viewing distance.
Discussion of the Related Art
Representative examples of an image display apparatus include a liquid crystal display (LCD), an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display apparatus, and so on.
Recently, a transparent display apparatus has been developed along with the development of display apparatuses. Since the transparent display apparatus allows light to pass therethrough in both forward and backward directions, information can be displayed in both the directions and users who face each other across the display apparatus can also look over the transparent display apparatus.
The transparent display apparatus can be applied to various applied products such as a car window, a building window, an electronic display board, a cooler door, and a screen door and, thus, there are various user environments. In addition, a commercial transparent display apparatus includes a touch panel coupled thereto so as to increase a degree of freedom of a viewing distance to a proximity distance from a long distance.
Accordingly, when a user uses the transparent display apparatus at a proximity distance for a touch or the like, pixels are recognized, or when the user uses the apparatus at a long distance, sharpness of an image is degraded and, accordingly, there is a problem with degraded user perceptual quality.
Furthermore, the aforementioned problem can also occur in various display apparatuses as well as a transparent display apparatus and, thus, the present invention is not limited to a transparent display apparatus.

Image processing method, image processing circuit, and display device using the same


A two-stage negative level shifting circuit for preventing field breakdown due to an excessive voltage shift. The first stage has a first voltage distributor and a first driver and the second stage has a second voltage distributor and a second driver. In the first stage, an input voltage shifting between a positive voltage and a ground voltage is converted into a voltage shifting between a first negative voltage and the ground voltage. In the second stage, the voltage is further converted into a voltage shifting between the ground voltage and a second negative voltage, which has a larger absolute magnitude than the first negative voltage.

This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application serial no. 90102336, filed on Feb. 5, 2001.
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a negative level shifter. More particularly, the present invention relates to a field breakdown-free negative level shifter.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of a conventional negative level shifter. As shown in FIG. 1, the negative level shifter consists of a pair of PMOS transistors 10 and 12 and a pair of NMOS transistors 14 and 16. An input voltage is fed to a point A of the circuit. The source terminal of the PMOS transistor 10 and the gate terminal of the PMOS transistor 12 are connected to point A. The gate terminal of the PMOS transistor 10 is connected to a ground voltage Vss. The source terminal of the PMOS transistor 12 is connected to a supply voltage Vdd. The drain terminal of the PMOS transistor 10 is connected to both the drain terminal of the NMOS transistor 14 and the gate terminal of the NMOS transistor 16. In addition, the drain terminal of the PMOS transistor 12 is connected to both the gate terminal of the NMOS transistor 14 and the drain terminal of the NMOS transistor 16. The source terminal of the NMOS transistors 14 and 16 are connected together for receiving a negative voltage (for example, xe2x88x925V or xe2x88x9210V).
In operation, an input voltage within the range 3.3V to 0V is applied to the input terminal at point A. When 3.3V are applied to point A, the PMOS transistor 10 having its gate terminal connected to a ground voltage Vss is conductive. The PMOS transistor 12 is disabled. Since the PMOS transistor 10 is conductive, 3.3V are applied to point B, leading to the conduction of the NMOS transistor 16. Hence, the negative voltage connected to the source terminal of the NMOS transistor 16 is transmitted to point C as an output voltage and the NMOS transistor 14, whose gate terminal is connected to point C, is disabled. Conversely, when 0V is applied to point A, the PMOS transistor 10 is disabled. However, the PMOS transistor 12 is conductive so that a supply voltage (for example, 3.3V) is directly transmitted to point C. In the meantime, the NMOS transistor 14 is conductive and the negative voltage at the source terminal of the NMOS transistor 14 is transmitted to point B. Hence, the NMOS transistor 16 is disabled.
According to the aforementioned operation, a negative shifting of xe2x88x925V or xe2x88x9210V is obtained. One critical problem for this type of circuit is field breakdown because most circuit breakdown at a change in field voltage smaller than 12V. Therefore, when an input voltage change from 3.3V to 0V or vice versa occurs, if the desired negative voltage is large, such as xe2x88x9210V, output voltage must vary between xe2x88x9210V to 3.3V. The 13.3V voltage fluctuation at the output terminal exceeds the greatest permitted breakdown voltage.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a field breakdown free negative level shifting circuit for preventing too much output voltage variation when the output negative voltage desired is large.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the invention provides a two-stage negative level shifting circuit for preventing field breakdown. The two-stage negative level shifting circuit includes a first stage circuit having a first voltage distributor and a first driver and a second stage circuit having a second voltage distributor and a second driver. The first voltage distributor converts an input voltage shifting between a ground voltage and a positive voltage to a corresponding first distributor voltage or output voltage shifting between a first negative voltage and a positive voltage. The first driver is connected to the first voltage distributor for converting the first distributor voltage shifting between the positive voltage and the first negative voltage into corresponding first driving voltage or output voltage shifting between the first negative voltage and the ground voltage. The second voltage distributor is connected to the first driver for converting the first driving voltage shifting between the ground voltage and the first negative voltage into a corresponding second distributor voltage or output voltage shifting between a second negative voltage and the ground voltage. The second driver is connected to the second voltage distributor for converting the second distributor voltage shifting between the second negative voltage and the ground voltage into a corresponding second driving voltage shifting between the ground voltage and the second negative voltage. The absolute value of the second negative voltage is greater than the first negative voltage.
The first voltage distributor includes a first PMOS transistor, a first NMOS transistor, a second PMOS transistor and a second NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the PMOS transistor receives the input voltage and the gate terminal of the PMOS transistor receives the ground voltage. The drain terminal of the first NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the PMOS transistor and the source terminal of the first NMOS transistor receives the first negative voltage. The source terminal of the second PMOS transistor receives a supply voltage and the gate terminal of the second PMOS transistor receives the input voltage. The drain terminal of the second PMOS transistor serves as an output for the first distributor voltage and connects with the gate terminal of the first NMOS transistor. The drain terminal of the second NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the second PMOS transistor and the gate terminal of the second NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the first NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the second NMOS transistor receives the first negative voltage. The supply voltage is a positive voltage having a magnitude of 3.3V and the first negative voltage is xe2x88x925V, for example.
The first driver includes a third PMOS transistor and a third NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the third PMOS transistor receives the ground voltage and the gate terminal of the third PMOS transistor receives the first distributor voltage. The drain terminal of the third NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the third PMOS transistor to serve as an output for the first driver voltage. The gate terminal of the third NMOS transistor receives the first distributor voltage and the source terminal of the third NMOS transistor receives the first negative voltage.
The second voltage distributor includes a fourth PMOS transistor, a fourth NMOS transistor, a fifth PMOS transistor and a fifth NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the fourth PMOS transistor receives the first driving voltage and the gate terminal of the fourth PMOS transistor receives the first negative voltage. The drain terminal of the fourth NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the fourth PMOS transistor and the source terminal of the fourth NMOS transistor receives the second negative voltage. The source terminal of the fifth PMOS transistor receives the ground voltage and the gate terminal of the fifth PMOS transistor receives the first driving voltage. The drain terminal of the fifth PMOS transistor serves as an output for the second distributor voltage and connects with the gate terminal of the fourth NMOS transistor. The drain terminal of the fifth NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the fifth PMOS transistor and the gate terminal of the fifth NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the fourth NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the fifth NMOS transistor receives the second negative voltage. The second negative voltage is xe2x88x9210V, for example.
The second driver includes a sixth PMOS transistor and a sixth NMOS transistor. The source terminal of the sixth PMOS transistor receives the ground voltage and the gate terminal of the sixth PMOS transistor receives the second distributor voltage. The drain terminal of the sixth NMOS transistor connects with the drain terminal of the sixth PMOS transistor to serve as an output for the second driving voltage. The gate terminal of the sixth NMOS transistor receives the second distributor voltage and the source terminal of the sixth NMOS transistor receives the second negative voltage.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.


An electric power generating installation has a plurality of generator/motor units, each of which has a motor for converting kinetic energy into turning torque, a generator connected mechanically to the motor and connected electrically to an electric power system for converting turning torque into electric energy. A control system is provided for controlling the motor and the generator in such a way that they can be operated stably and continuously. The control system controls the different generator/motor units in different control modes so as to minimize cross current and resonance or beat phenomena.

The present invention relates to control equipment and methods for a power generation unit which supplies effective power to a power system connected electrically to the power generation unit for a load unit to which the effective power is supplied.
Generally, it is well known that a circulating current flows between generators when the reactive power in a power system is varied by external disturbances in a system with a plurality of synchronous generators with the same specifications and characteristics connected to the same power system and operated in parallel. Hereinafter, the circulating current will be referred to as a cross current.
An example of a cross-current suppressing system is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 58-54837 (1983).
While it is possible to recover the variation of the reactive power by using the method mentioned above, the recovery method may take several seconds, because it adopts a two-step loop control.
It is desired to instantaneously recover the electric power system when the disturbance of the power system occurs, since otherwise social activities dependent on electrical power are interrupted. A variable speed pumping-up power generation system was developed in order to comply with such a high speed requirement. This variable speed system adopted a secondary excitation induction dynamo electric machine. It becomes possible to recover the effective power of the disturbed power system within some milli-seconds by using the variable speed pumping-up power generation system. When the cross-current flowed between the variable speed generator/motors by the disturbances, etc. in the variable speed pumping-up power generation system under the parallel operation, it is very difficult to eliminate the cross-current in a short time utilizing the prior art techniques mentioned above. Accordingly, the advantages of high speed response of the variable speed pumping-up power generation system are not practically attainable in such systems having a plurality of such variable speed generator/motor units.
Further, when a plurality of variable speed generator/motor units are operated utilizing a same operation control method, resonance or "beat" may occur between the variable speed generator/motors. Accordingly, it is undesirable to operate the plurality of variable speed generator/motor units under the same operation condition.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved control system for electrical power generating installations having a plurality of variable speed generator/motor units operating in parallel, in which the resonance or the beat does not occur.
In order to achieve this object, a variable speed pumping-up power generation system including at least two variable speed generator/motor units operated in parallel, is divided into at least two groups. Each of the groups is controlled by using physical quantities representing operating conditions of respective variable speed generator/motor units concerned which are different from each other, to which a feedback control is performed, or control quantities different from each other are used in the control equipment of each group, or both of them are combined.
According to the present invention, each group of the variable speed pumping-up power generation system is controlled in a different way or control mode. Therefore, the resonance or the beat does not occur between the groups each including the variable speed generator/motor unit. Further, the cross-current produced by an external disturbance can be quickly eliminated. As a result, the instantaneous recovery of the variable speed pumping-up power generation system becomes possible.
As described above, according to the present invention, the stable operation condition of the variable speed pumping-up power generation system can be maintained, thus the stability of the power system can be improved.

Electrical power generating installation and method of operating same


A computing device, such as a headset, provides for selective sound level reduction or sound level amplification for sounds made in a local area. The computing device includes a speaker assembly and a controller. The controller receives an audio signal from a second computing device, such as a second headset, via a wireless connection with the computing device. The audio signal describes a sound made by a user of the second computing device. The audio signal arrives at the computing device prior to the sound. The controller determines an audio filter to selectively adjust an amplitude of the sound and applies the audio filter to the audio signal to generate audio content. The controller presents, via the speaker assembly, the audio content to a user such that the presented audio content combines with the sound to selectively adjust the amplitude of the sound.

Audio assemblies, such as those used in headsets, provide audio content to users. A user may wear a headset with an audio assembly in a variety of different environmental conditions, including noisy environments where there are multiple sound sources. Sound from undesirable sources may interfere with sound from sources that the user is trying to hear. As such, it is desirable for the audio assembly to control the loudness of nearby sound sources to enhance hearing ability of the user.


This application describes a virtual machine deployment method and an operation and maintenance management (OMM) virtual machine. The method includes: obtaining, by an OMM virtual machine, a quantity and a specification of service virtual machines created in virtual network function application software to which the OMM virtual machine belongs; and determining, by the OMM virtual machine based on load that needs to be carried by the application software and the quantity and the specification of the service virtual machines, a module to be configured for each service virtual machine. The described implementations avoid or reduce waste of virtual machine resources.

In a network functions virtualization (NFV) telecom cloud system, a network functions virtualization IaaS (NFVI) provides an interface defined by a virtual machine specification for management and orchestration (MANO), so that each virtualized network function (VNF) can define, based on different capacities, the virtual machine specification and a module deployed on a virtual machine. For example, an MRPHRU virtual machine specification defined by a VNF controlled by media is 6vCPU+12GMem+10GDisk configured with a high-speed routing unit (HRU), a protocol control unit (PCU), and a connection management unit (CMU). A CSRDB virtual machine specification defined by a VNF responsible for a call session control function (CSCF) is 4vCPU+28GMem+100GDisk configured with four remote distributed database (RDB) modules. In the NFV telecom cloud system, virtual machine life cycle management (e.g., application, releasing, and maintenance) and orchestration (e.g., anti-affinity and deployment) are mainly implemented by a virtualized network function manager (VNFM). A procedure for the VNFM to perform the virtual machine life cycle management for a VNF is as follows.
(1) The VNFM selects, from VNF descriptors (VNFD) supported by the VNF, a VNFD that matches a level of a project capacity of the VNF, and determines a required quantity of service virtual machines of each type, defined in the matched VNFD, and the matched VNFD defines a service virtual machine of a specific specification suitable for the VNF and a specific module that need to be configured in the service virtual machines.
(2) The VNFM creates one flavor for each type of service virtual machine defined in the matched VNFD.
(3) The VNFM creates a required service virtual machine based on the required quantity of virtual machines of each type and the flavor.
(4) After an operation and maintenance management (OMM) virtual machine is started, software required by the OMM virtual machine is installed and modules required by the OMM virtual machine are configured.
(5) The VNFM notifies VNF information of the VNF to the OMM virtual machine, and the OMM virtual machine loads, from a file transfer protocol (FTP) server based on the VNF information, a service software package and other information required by the VNF.
(6) The VNFM notifies instance information (e.g., an instance ID, a virtual machine type, and an actual virtual machine specification) of each created service virtual machine to the OMM virtual machine. The OMM virtual machine configures required modules for each created service virtual machine.
(7) The OMM virtual machine installs the required software for each created service virtual machine based on the service software package, and loads a module program and a data file for the service virtual machine based on configuration of the OMM virtual machine, to run a service module.
The inventors found that the virtual machine specification selected by the VNFM for the VNF from the VNFD in conventional systems is generally quite different from a virtual machine specification actually provided by a public cloud or a private cloud. For example, a virtual machine specification actually provided by the public cloud is 8vCPU+16GMem, but a virtual machine specification closest to the specification 8vCPU+16GMem in the VNFD is 6vCPU+12GMem. As a result, when the VNFM configures the virtual machine based on 6vCPU+12GMem, the VNFM actually selects the virtual machine with the specification 8vCPU+16GMem to provide resources, thereby causing a waste of 2vCPU+4GMem resources. Thus, in conventional systems, there is a large waste of resources.

Virtual machine deployment method and OMM virtual machine


Disclosed are signal transmitting apparatus and method capable of generating polarizations that can be controlled in real time by allocating weights to signals. A signal transmitting method for generating variable polarizations having any vector through a plurality of radiating elements vertical to each other includes: receiving an input signal and separating the input signal into a plurality of separated signals according to the number of radiating elements; and allocating weights for controlling vectors of the variable polarizations to each of the plurality of separated signals, wherein the vectors of the variable polarizations are represented by a vector sum of the plurality of separated signals allocated with weights.

1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to signal transmitting/receiving apparatus and method for controlling polarizations, and more particularly, to a signal transmitting/receiving method and apparatus for transmitting/receiving variable polarizations having any vector using a plurality of radiating elements.
2. Description of Related Art
Types and usage of wireless communication services have been continuously increased and frequency resources that are the most important resources in wireless communications has been depleted accordingly. A MIMO communication technology that is the one of communication methods to overcome a lack of frequency resources is to increase traffic through independent multi-channel transmission using a multiple antenna.
However, an antenna of a communication terminal or a repeater/base station of most of the MIMO communications uses an antenna system having fixed variable polarizations and therefore, is difficult to cope with the degradation in communication quality occurring at the time of inter-service interference due to the expansion and broadband of service. In addition, the antenna system in accordance with the related art has a limitation in overcoming the lack of the frequency resources.

Signal transmitting/receiving apparatus and method for controlling polarization

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


A compact flash lamp array includes a housing defining a plurality of cavities. Each cavity has a light emitting opening and a primer vent opposite the light emitting opening. A combustible mass is deposited in each cavity over the primer vent and a primer mass is deposited on the outside of the housing over each primer vent. A primer is cover secured over each primer mass, and a sheet of transparent material is bonded over the cavities in the housing.

Currently available single use cameras with flash illumination are provided with electronic flash. The electronic flash unit is relatively expensive, representing a significant portion on the overall cost of the camera, and requires a relatively large capacity battery for operation. Although the electronic flash unit may be recovered and recycled a number of times, thereby reducing the effective cost of the electronics, the battery is replaced each time the camera is re-manufactured to insure proper operation of the flash unit. It has been observed that an array of chemical flash lamps could be an attractive alternative to electronic flash in single use cameras and related applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,347,053 issued Aug. 31, 1982, to Fohl et al. discloses a flash illumination assembly having a plurality of electrically fired flash lamps located in a circular housing. The combustion products from the individual flash lamps are vented into a common central expansion chamber. The electronically fired flash lamps have the drawback of requiring a source of electricity such as a battery for ignition.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,751,656 issued Aug. 7, 1973, to Buckler et al. discloses percussively fired flash illumination devices that are formed of transparent sheet plastic, wherein a pair of opposed walls are marginally secured together to define a first cavity for retaining a combustible mixture. In one embodiment the pyrotechnic material is ignited by a primer body contained in a second cavity communicating with the first cavity by a small passage. The flash illumination device is fired by striking the primer through the wall of the second cavity with a firing pin which crushes the second cavity against an anvil to ignite the primer. Combustion products from the primer ignite the combustible mixture through the small passage. These flash illumination devices do not readily lend themselves to a compact array such as would be required for a single use camera.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,439,992 issued Apr. 22, 1969, to J. W. Shaffer et al. discloses a flash illumination device having a cup shaped base for containing the primer material and an anvil having passages for allowing the combustion products from the primer to ignite a combustible mass contained in a lamp envelope. The cup shaped base is sealed to the lamp envelope by crimping. Although these lamps could be formed into an array, the resulting structure is relatively complex, and therefore expensive to manufacture.
There is a need therefore for an improved percussively fired array of flash lamps.