The present invention relates to a tape attaching device used in attaching a tape to a car door sash, instead of painting. Tape attaching device comprises a drum block 2 having pressure drums 4, 6 and guide bars 8, 10, a drum cap 12 for adjusting the length of the pressure drums 4, 6 and guide bars 8, 10, an inner roller block 16 having a plurality of inner rollers 18 facing the pressure drums 4, 6 and mounted to a block housing 14 together with the drum block 2 so as for space to be adjusted, a slide support 22 mounted so as for space to be adjusted in the same direction as that of the inner roller block 16, and an outer roller block 26 mounted to the slide support 22 so as for height to be adjusted and having a plurality of outer rollers 24. It can apply to all kinds of car by simply adjusting the space between the pressure drums 4, 6 and inner and outer rollers 18, 24 and the height of outer rollers 24 according to the width and sectional shape of attaching surface of door sash portion 50. Further, smooth operation can be achieved without causing damage to and wear of contact surface since the inner and outer rollers 18, 24 as well as the pressure drums 4, 6 comes into perfectly rolling contact with the door sash portion 50.

The present invention relates to a tape attaching device used in attaching a tape to a car door sash, instead of painting.
Representative prior arts related to an attaching device devised to attach a tape to a car door sash include the Korean Patents No. 98-63283 and 99-64839. For these patents, a tape can be prevented from being damaged because they have flexibility enough to cope with the shape of the surface of a car door sash to which a tape will be attached. It has been pointed out, however, that they have some problems such as incapability of coping with changes in the shape of door sash portion, severe damage or wear of sash and rollers, and unsmooth sliding.
Patent No. 98-63283 states that a sliding block having pressure rollers and opposite to an end block having positioning rollers is elastically supported by a coil spring, so that the device can cope with changes in the shape of sash surface to which a tape will be attached. However, it cannot apply to the different kind of cars with a different basic shape of the sash portion, except the same kind of cars with a similar basic shape of the sash portion. For this reason a separate attaching device for a different kind of car is needed.
Further, if the elastic force of the coil spring supporting the sliding block is weak, the sliding block may be deviated from a specific position where a proper space between it and the end block is maintained. In this case, an adhesive tape may be attached to a wrong position. Too strong elastic force of the coil spring may interfere with the rotation of the rollers.
As shown in FIG. 3, the sash portion is in contact with the bottom of the pressure rollers and positioning rollers parallel to the pressure drums, and a pressure is working to bring the attaching surface into close contact with the pressure drums. If in this state the attaching device is slid straight or three-dimensionally along the sash portion, the rotary direction of the rollers and lengthwise direction of the sash portion are forced out of alignment with each other. In that case, the sash portion will be damaged, and quick wear of the rollers in contact with the sash portion will shorten its service life. In addition, space between the rollers and the pressure drums becomes wide, so that the pressure will not work properly. Accordingly air bubbles may occur when attaching a tape, and resultingly an increase in friction coefficient will lead to no smooth operation.
The device according to Patent No. 99-64839 is also designed to cope with changes in width or thickness of contact surface of the sash portion by adjusting the length of the rollers and height of the guide member facing the portion pressing a tape. Likewise, it cannot apply to the different kind of cars with a different basic shape of the sash portion, except the same kind of cars with a similar basic shape of the sash portion. For this reason a separate attaching device for a different kind of car is needed.
For the device, the attaching surface of the door sash portion is brought into contact in a state of being held between the rollers and plate pressure member. This construction will cause damage of the pressure member and the sash portion and wear of the pressure member at the time of sliding for attaching a tape. Resultingly space from the rollers becomes irregular and attaching defects will occur. In addition, an increase in friction coefficient due to sliding contact will lead to no smooth operation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a tape attaching device that can cope with changes of the basic shape of a door sash portion of each kind of car through simple adjustment and achieve smooth operation without damage of a sash portion and wear of rollers during movement for attaching a tape.
Further, it is an another object of the present invention to provide a tape attaching device that can properly cope with changes of the inclination angle the body of the sash portion has from the surface to which a tape will be attached and has a pressure drums that are able to give minimum pressure required to attach a tape even though no pressure is working, so that attaching defects due to lowered pressure and occurrence of air bubble resulting therefrom can be prevented.
To achieve the above-described objects, a tape attaching device according to the present invention comprises pressure drums and guide bars fixed perpendicularly to a drum block, a drum cap for adjusting the exposed length of the pressure drums and guide bars, an inner roller block mounted adjustably to a block housing together with the drum block and having a plurality of inner rollers facing the pressure drums, an outer roller block connected to the inner roller block through a slide support so as to be slided up and down from the slide support for adjustment and having a plurality of outer rollers, and a plurality of adjusting bolts having adjusting means for adjusting space between each block, drum cap and slide support or their heights.
Basically the pressure drums have soft synthetic resin layers in their outside. However, they may be so constructed that they have magnets inside of the soft synthetic resin layer, so that magnetic force can work when they come into contact with the door sash portion. It is desirable that the outer surface of the inner rollers, which come into contact with the inclined surface of the door sash portion, will be formed in the curved shape so that they can properly cope with different inclination angles according to different kinds of car.
On the other hand, the drum block and inner roller block mounted to the block housing so as to be slided for adjustment are provided for adjustment of space between the pressure drums and inner rollers. It does not matter if any block can be slided for adjustment from the other block that is fixed.


A skimmer for a swimming pool may include a skimmer housing having a water inlet opening coupled to an aperture in a wall of the swimming pool at a waterline thereof. The skimmer may also include a weir gate slidably moveable relative to the water inlet opening between open position and a closed position blocking the water inlet opening.

A swimming pool is a relatively popular structure for swimming or other leisure activities. To maintain a swimming pool in a relatively sanitary and clean condition, it is typically desirable to operate a filter system to remove pollutants or contaminants from the water of the swimming pool.
One part of a swimming pool filter system is a skimmer. A typical skimmer draws water from the swimming pool through an opening on the wall of swimming pool. Access to the skimmer may be provided from above through pool decking, for example. During operation, a filter pump draws water from the swimming pool over a floating hinged weir. The floating hinged weir typically is hinged and biased in vertical position. Suction from the pump causes the weir to rotate about the hinge away from the swimming pool. Thus, the skimmer may reduce the amount of collected debris from flowing back into the swimming pool.
A typical skimmer also has a removable skimmer basket. During operation, larger debris are collected in the skimmer basket, while smaller debris pass through to the filter pump.

Swimming pool skimmer including slidable weir gate and related methods


In one embodiment, a system receives a reference trajectory including a reference path in which the ADV is to follow. The system controls the ADV along the reference path using a path tracking algorithm, including: determining a first lateral distance error, determining a second lateral distance error based on the first lateral distance error using a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control system, where the second lateral distance error compensates for a lateral drift, and generating a steering command based on the second lateral distance error using the path tracking algorithm to control the ADV to minimize a lateral distance error, e.g., a lateral distance between an actual path taken by the ADV and the reference path.

Vehicles operating in an autonomous mode (e.g., driverless) can relieve occupants, especially the driver, from some driving-related responsibilities. When operating in an autonomous mode, the vehicle can navigate to various locations using onboard sensors, allowing the vehicle to travel with minimal human interaction or in some cases without any passengers.
An ADV can self-navigate using a driving trajectory. A driving trajectory can be divided into a longitudinal component and a lateral component. The longitudinal component refers to vehicle motions running lengthwise along a predetermined path of the driving trajectory. The lateral component refers to vehicle motions running in a lateral direction to a predetermined path of the driving trajectory. An LQR control system of the ADV can automatic steer the ADV to track the predetermined path of the driving trajectory, however, LQR controllers usually do not adequately handle feedback errors.

PID embedded LQR for autonomous driving vehicles (ADVS)


A liquid crystal display of a charge sharing mode comprises a control device for turning on the gates on the gate line in the black frame insertion timing. Each gate line of the liquid crystal display panel is connected with the control device. In the black insertion timing, the control device outputs to the gate line connected thereto a first control signal for controlling the gates on the gate line to be turned on, and the black frame insertion timing is a time when charge sharing is conducted among data lines from the gates on the gate line are turned off in the current frame until they are turned on in the next frame.

Embodiments of the present disclosed technology relate to a driving device and a driving method for a liquid crystal display (LCD).
A phenomenon of motion blur, which is known as "image trailing" or "after image", will occur when a general thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) displays a fast moving image. Generally, it refers to a phenomenon in which the edge of the profile of the image blurs in the image transition process. There are two reasons for the occurrence of the phenomenon of the motion image blur, one is the excessive long response time of the liquid crystal (LC), and the other is continuous driving of the thin film transistor (TFT).
Currently, the frequency doubling technology is mostly used to raise the frame frequency from 60 Hz to 120 Hz, in which black frames or motion compensation frames are interpolated between the original frames to prevent the occurrence of the motion blur phenomenon when the liquid crystal display displays a fast moving image. In the frequency doubling technology, it requires a memory with a relatively large storage capacity, and thus of a relatively high cost. Therefore, how to improve the motion blur phenomenon occurring when the TFT-LCD displays a fast moving image with a low cost is an urgent problem to be solved.

Driving device and driving method for liquid crystal display

Beijing Boe Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.


A blind rivet comprising a shank and a rivet body enclosing the shank, the rivet body containing in the cylindrical wall thereof wedge means and windows possessing spaces for admitting the wedge means such that, when the blind rivet is inserted through holes perforated in advance in the panels to be joined therewith and, subsequently, the shank is slid up the interior of the rivet body, the cylindrical wall of the rivet body is bent outwardly in the radial direction and, at the same time, the wedge means are raised and forced into the spaces of the windows, causing the cylindrical wall of the rivet body to be brought into tight contact with the edges of the holes in the panels and consequently enabling the blind rivet to be secured to the panels.

This invention relates to a blind rivet of the class so constructed that when the blind rivet is inserted through a fitting hole or fitting holes perforated in advance in one or more plate-shaped parts and the shank of the blind rivet which protrudes from one outer surface of the part is slid up the interior of the rivet body, the portion of the rivet body which protrudes from the opposite outer surface of the part is bent outwardly in the radial direction to the extent of securing the blind rivet fast of the part or uniting the two or more parts to one another, with ample allowance made for the size of the fitting holes perforated in the parts.
Various blind rivets of this class have been developed to date. In the light of the basic function these blind rivets are to fulfil in securing themselves in position relative to given parts or uniting such given parts to one another, however, those made of plastic materials prove to be advantageous over those made of other materials. Generally, the blind rivet of this class have a common basic construction which comprises a shank and a cylindrical rivet body formed round the shank by the two-stage plastic molding technique. Such a blind rivet is inserted through fitting holes perforated such as in panels until the flange or head of the rivet body thereof collides into the surface adjacent the edge of the fitting holes of the panels. Then, the shank alone is pulled up the interior of the rivet body with the aid of a tool. The pull of the shank causes the portion of the rivet body protruding from the other side of the panels to be bent outwardly and pressed against the panels, enabling the panels to be squeezed between the head and the bent portion of the rivet body.
Although these conventional blind rivets produce a force with which a plurality of panels will be pressed against each other, the stability with which these panels are secured to each other is insufficient unless the size of the fitting holes perforated in the panels and that of the shanks of the blind rivets inserted therethrough are substantially complimentary. If this tolerance is not controlled, the panels may possibly slip sidewise over each other and the blind rivets may possibly fail to give ample water-tightness to the fitting holes.
An object of the present invention is to provide a blind rivet of a plastic material which makes ample allowance for variations in the thickness of panels and the size of the fitting holes perforated in such panels; produces a strong force for holding the panels fast in position; provides high water-tightness to the fitting holes and manifests its effect to full advantage.


Described herein are introducer devices and methods for using an introducer device to facilitate passing an endoluminal instrument to a target region of a body cavity. An introducer device may include a tubular member having an inner wall that defines a channel configured to receive the endoluminal instrument and a plurality of projections disposed in the channel at perimetrically spaced apart locations around the inner wall, where the projections extend inward and are configured to offset the endoluminal instrument from the inner wall, thereby creating a space between the endoluminal instrument and the inner wall. A method for using an introducer device may include passing the endoluminal instrument to a first instrument insertion depth within the introducer device, advancing the introducer device in the body cavity, and advancing the endoluminal instrument to a second instrument insertion depth within the introducer device.

Low anterior resection (LAR) is a common surgical treatment for rectal cancer in which the cancerous segment of the rectum is removed and remaining segments of the rectum are reconnected. This procedure is commonly performed using minimally-invasive surgical techniques. Upon completion of an LAR surgery, the surgeon may want to perform a post-operative trans-anal examination of the suture line within the rectum, or the anastomosis. One purpose of the endoluminal examination is to confirm that the tissue surrounding the anastomosis is well perfused with blood, as such perfusion indicates that the healing process will be successful and that leaks (e.g., leaks of fecal matter into the peritoneum and resulting complications) are less likely to occur. Failure of the anastomosis, often taking the form of anastomotic dehiscence, is a devastating complication of LAR surgery. In the short term, sepsis resulting from fecal leaks can result in acute effects, and even death. Long term morbidities associated with anastomotic failure include stricture formation, bowel dysfunction and an increased chance of cancer recurrence. Ischemia of the tissue surrounding the anastomosis is the likely cause of the majority of complications. Accordingly, accurate post-operative examination of the anastomosis may be crucial to avoid these complications.
The post-operative endoluminal examination is commonly performed with the use of a conventional endoscopic imaging device such as a sigmoidoscope, proctoscope, rectoscope, or colonoscope, etc. There are modern fluorescence-capable laparoscopes that offer several advantages over these conventional instruments, such as higher camera resolution (e.g., high-definition image capability) and the added functionality of tissue perfusion assessment. However, these laparoscopes do not include many practical features that are useful for endoluminal examination. Most notably, these laparoscopes lack the ability to insufflate the rectum, as well as the ability to wash and aspirate fluids from the endoluminal surface to facilitate proper imaging of the anastomosis. To solve this problem, such modern laparoscopes may be used in combination with a surrounding introducer device providing these additional capabilities.
Existing laparoscope introducers typically suffer from the inability to adequately prevent the laparoscope lens from becoming obscured by debris during the insertion of the laparoscope/introducer combination into the rectum, and during the examination procedure itself. Such contamination or occlusion may interfere with visibility during the examination and make it difficult to perform a thorough and accurate assessment of the tissue in the body cavity. As a result, the endoluminal instrument must be removed, cleaned, and reinserted at intervals during the procedure, which complicates the examination procedure and wastes time.
Thus, an endoluminal introducer device and method for using an endoluminal introducer device that reduce the likelihood of debris contaminating and obscuring the laparoscope lens during an examination procedure of a body cavity are desirable.

Endoluminal introducer with contamination avoidance


Voice pitch is detected by passing a speech signal from a microphone 10 through a filter array 20 to a summing amplifier 22. The summing amplifier 22 provides a composite signal of the acoustic components of the speech signal and this composite signal is input to a multiplier 26 and from the multiplier 26 to a multiplier 36 having an output connected to a comparator 42. The comparator 42 compares the output of the multiplier 36 with a hysteresis signal, then provides an output to a phase locked loop 46. The phase locked loop 46 provides a first voltage output in analog form to a bar graph display 50 and provides a square wave output that is applied to a frequency-to-voltage converter 52 for driving a digital display 54.

The spectrograph is the time-honored tool for study of speech perception for visually displaying segregated frequency patterns in space. Recently, however, there is evidence to show that many differences exist between a speech spectrograph and a neural output of a cochlea. For example, the output of the cochlea is linear up to about 1,000 Hz and logarithmic above that, whereas the spectrograph is either logarithmic or linear. Thus, there is serious question whether the temporal processing of acoustic components of speech by the ear can be demonstrated by a speech spectrogram. This is not considered to be a trivial shortcoming of the speech spectrogram given that the fundamental frequency and the first formant information of speech are coded, at least to some extent, by temporal information.
Although it can now be shown that there is a basic problem with the use of the speech spectrogram for voice analysis, the primary problem appears to be that the exclusive use of the spectrograph for speech analysis confines the concept of the speech signal to a spatio-temporal display. Such a spatio-temporal display is now realized to be quite unlike the signal as it exists in space. An acoustic speech signal does have spatial property, but they are not necessarily related to the spatial separation frequencies manifested in the speech spectrogram. The acoustic speech signal is a frequency-integrated, complex waveform whose actual spatial properties are indicated by radiation and reflection, not by frequency. The acoustic world we live in is not fully represented by a speech spectrogram.
Heretofore, the reliance on the speech spectrograph as the sole source of information about the speech signal has restricted observations to an analog of the neural output of the cochlea. This has resulted in the missing of the hypothesized higher order free integration stage of perceptual analysis. It is now understood that a more complete analysis of a speech signal requires a study of the speech waveform in addition to the spectrogram. The spectrogram provides the components of the signal (spatial) and the waveform shows how the components are integrated in time and space.
A feature of the present invention is to provide apparatus for analyzing the speech waveform for kinds of information not readily observable from the spectrogram. Further, by the apparatus of the present invention, information available from the speech waveform can be applied to practical problems in speech science. Specifically, by examining the speech waveform, there is developed a real time speaker independent pitch extractor with a voice pitch display. Further, an examination of the speech waveform has been applied to the invention described and claimed in the co-pending patent application entitled, "Tactile Aid", Ser. No. 048,237, filed June 13, 1979, which is apparatus for speech reception aid for the deaf. A tactile aid to speech reception as described in this co-pending application is a device which presents information about the speech signal to the observer through the skin.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided apparatus for integrating redundant acoustic information in time. Such apparatus provides a technique for duplicating the operation of the perceptual system for integrating the periodicity of several spectral channels to aid in the perception of pitch frequencies. The apparatus of the present invention utilizes the basic principle that no matter how the speech signal is filtered, it will always have the periodicity of the fundamental frequency. This is due to the fact that all the resonances of the vocal tract are excited by the same source function and therefore must have the same periodicity. The system of the present invention evaluates true spectral pitch, that is, the periodicity of the fundamental component of a speech signal as an aid in the perception of speech.
Apparatus of the present invention operates on the premise that the common periodicities seen across spectral channels in response to a vowel sound are reflected in neural responses. A feature of the apparatus of the present invention is that it makes use of the observation that the amplitudes of the signals across the basilar membrane will be greatest at the beginning of each fundamental period of a speech signal and that the perceptual systems takes advantage of this redundancy about the pitch frequency of a sound signal. The system of the present invention adds waveforms in low frequency channels to take advantage of the redundancy about the pitch frequency.


The invention is directed to an electric appliance for personal use such as a dry shaving apparatus, a hair cutting machine or epilator, having a housing to accommodate an electric motor, a storage cell charging circuitry, at least one rechargeable storage cell designed to be connected to the electric motor, and a connector compartment in which a connector equipped with connector pins is pivotally mounted, wherein the connector pins are movably carried in a connector housing surrounding the connector pins, wherein the connector housing with the connector pins therein is arranged for pivotal movement out of and into the connector compartment, and wherein, with the connector in a position in which it is pivoted out of one of the broad sides of the housing, provision is made for the connector pins arranged side by side parallel to said broad side to be movable out of and into the connector housing by means of an actuating element movably disposed in the interior of the connector housing.

This invention relates to an electric appliance for personal use such as a dry shaving apparatus, a hair cutting machine or epilator, having a housing to accommodate an electric motor, a storage cell charging circuitry, at least one rechargeable storage cell designed to be connected to the electric motor, and a connector compartment in which a connector equipped with connector pins is pivotally mounted.
An electric appliance with a connector designed to be pivoted out of a connector compartment is known from Japanese patent publication 60-39390 B2. The connector comprises a connector housing and two leaf-shaped connector pins projecting from the connector housing.
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,381 there is known an electric appliance with a connector designed to be pivoted out of one of the broad sides of the housing, the two leaf-shaped connector pins being pivotally arranged in the connector housing, and the two round connector pins being fastened in extension of the connector housing to the connector housing. Inside the housing of the electric appliance is a connector compartment, and in an extension of the latter are two elongate recesses to accommodate the connector with the two round connector pins projecting therefrom.
From DE 35 35 564 C2 there is known an electric appliance with a connector housing designed to be pivoted out of one of the narrow sides of the housing of the electric appliance. The two round connector pins, which are slidably arranged within the pivotal connector housing, are associated with an actuating device with a connector pin pusher, which is retractably mounted in the housing of the electric appliance. When the connector housing is pivoted out, the connector pin pusher lies in the extension of the connector housing and is pushed into the connector housing in order to push the connector pins out of the connector housing into an operating position.
From German utility model G 83 29 691 (U1) there is known an arrangement in which the connector of a rechargeable shaving apparatus is slidably positioned at one end of the shaver housing so that the two leaf-shaped connector pins fastened to a connector housing are pushed out of one of the two narrow sides of the shaver's housing by means of an actuator switch arranged in the bottom of the housing in order to make the connection to a socket-outlet of a voltage source. To ensure that the connector pins projecting out of the shaver's housing sit securely and in particular do not wobble it is necessary to provide a suitable guide, a relatively long support section for the connector housing fixedly connected to the connector pins inside the shaver's housing, and the additional arrangement of a buffer. The amount of space required by such a connector construction is therefore considerable.
Electric appliances of the type initially referred to are known to be equipped with various connectors in conformance with various standards, e.g. connectors with relatively close lying leaf-shaped connector pins for 110 volts/125 volts or round connector pins for 220 volts, 230 volts/240 volts, which compared with the leaf-shaped connector pins are spaced further apart because of the higher voltage involved. The spacing to be observed for round connector pins to conform with applicable standards makes it impossible to replace leaf-shaped connector pins with round connector pins, for example, on the known arrangement of the connector arranged to be pivoted out of a broad side of the shaver's housing according to FIG. 18 of Japanese patent publication 60-39390 (B2) on account of the relatively slim shaver housing.


A computerized method comprising using hardware processor(s) for receiving, from a computerized search engine, digital input data comprising a group of relevancy score sets, where each relevancy score set comprises scores associated with computerized search terms and search field pairs found in electronic documents. Two or more statistical values are computed of the relevancy score sets, one or more of the two or more statistical values for each relevancy score set. Based on some of the two or more statistical values, some relevancy scores sets are reduced from the group to create a reduced group. The reduced group is sent to the computerized search engine for presenting a search result to a user on a computer display.

The invention relates to the field of information retrieval (IR).
Many information retrieval tasks involve retrieving documents based on multiple search terms, each searched for in many electronic documents. Each document may include multiple fields, each with a document field index, such as a tag, and a field text content. For example, searching for terms in the author, title, and abstract field among multiple documents. Each search term may include a search field index and a text string, the search field index indicating the document field to search in each electronic document for the text string. For example, a search term may be directed to search in an author name field for a text string "Tom Jones", a second search term may be directed to search in a keyword field for a text string "valve failure", and these terms are searched for in multiple electronic documents, such as a corpus of electronic documents. Within each document the search terms are searched for in the document author field, the document keyword field, and the like. Thus searches are performed routinely in medical record databases, maintenance systems, patent databases, academic journal articles, newspaper articles, online shopping sites, problem management records, and the like.
Methods for searching multiple fields of documents, such as multi-field searches, structured queries, or the like, may be performed using basic IR scoring techniques, such as field concatenation techniques, field combination techniques, divergence from randomness techniques, probabilistic techniques, fusion techniques, and/or the like.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the figures.

Multi-field search query ranking using scoring statistics

International Business Machines Corporation


A cover for use with an air register. The cover includes a base part which extends about the opening through the register and is positioned between the register and the floor. Hinged to the cover base part is a deflector part which extends upwardly over the top of the register so as to cover the register opening when there is no air flow through the register. Upon air flow through the register, deflector part is blown outwardly relative to the register so as to expose the opening in the register.

Most modern homes, office buildings and other structures use forced air heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems (HVAC systems) to provide heated air, cooled air or ventilation to the interior of the structure. In forced air HVAC systems, heated, cooled, or outside air is forced through a series of ducts and directed into the occupied spaces through a system of vents or registers. In most applications, the HVAC ducts are located beneath the floor of the structure, and thus the outlet vents or registers are usually located on the floor of the structure.
Although floor mounted heat registers provide an easy and cost effective method of providing conditioned air to the interior of structures, they do have a number of drawbacks. Typically, heat registers have a number of fins forming a grate which is intended to prevent large objects from falling through the register and into the duct work. However, in order to allow the free flow of air through the grate, the openings in the grate must be large enough so that air can flow through the register relatively unimpeded. Unfortunately, the register openings are large enough to also allow a wide variety of objects to fall through the grate and into the duct, such as dirt, coins, rings, dog and cat hair and other small objects. Consequently, many people, especially those with dust allergies, are forced to expend great sums of money on professional duct cleaning or on electrostatic filter systems in order to reduce the number of airborne contaminants in the dwelling.
Typically, the fins on the register are angled slightly in order to deflect some of the air in a predetermined direction in hopes of increasing the circulation of the conditioned air throughout the room or structure. Nevertheless, because the registers are usually located near the walls, in many homes the conditioned air gets trapped behind curtains, furniture and other obstructions. The obstructed air does not circulate and therefore does very little to heat or cool the living space. Accordingly, there exists a need for a cover plate for covering heat registers which prevents the accumulation of dirt and other objects in the ductwork and which helps to circulate air within the dwelling.

Self opening flexible protective covering for heat registers


A high energy KrCl laser for producing coherent radiation at 222 nm. Output energies on the order of 100 mJ per pulse are produced utilizing a discharge excitation source to minimize formation of molecular ions, thereby minimizing absorption of laser radiation by the active medium. Additionally, HCl is used as a halogen donor which undergoes a harpooning reaction with metastable Kr.sub.M * to form KrCl.

The present invention pertains generally to lasers and more particularly to excimer lasers.
Laser oscillations in KrCl were first achieved in electron beam pumped devices by J. R. Murray and H. T. Powell, Appl. Phys. Letts. 29, 252 (1976). As disclosed by Murray and Powell supra, Cl.sub.2 was used as a halogen donor and laser oscillations obtained were near threshold level. Using prior art e-beam excited lasers, KrCl has not shown promise of becoming a useful coherent source of ultraviolet radiation due to its low output energy.
Ishchenko et al. have reported lasing in XeCl and low-energy lasing in KrCl with BCl.sub.3 as the halogen donor, as reported in Opt. Comm. 21, 30 (1977). Use of HCl as a halogen donor in an electric discharge system was thought to be untenable in view of the fact that the dissociation energy of HCl and the photon energy of KrCl lasers is within 0.02 eV of the .sup.3 P.sub.1 resonance trapped state of Kryton. Consequently, harpooning reactions: Kr.sub.M *+HCl.fwdarw.KrCl*+H, were thought to be inefficient due to the minimal amount of energy available from Kr.sub.M *. Consequently, the use of HCl as a halogen donor in an electric discharge KrCl laser was not attempted.
Furthermore, the use of prior art e-beam excited KrCl lasers, unknowingly, forms an initially large number of atomic and molecular ions such as Kr.sub.2.sup.+, Ar.sub.2.sup.+ and Ne.sub.2.sup.+ which absorb the 222 nm laser radiation, thereby impeding generation of a high energy lasing output. Formation of atomic and molecular ions in prior art e-beam excited discharges is unavoidable since the e-beam excited discharge functions by dissociating CL.sub.2 and ionizing the Kr gas by deposition of a large amount of energy in the active medium to form free Kr.sup.+ and Cl.sup.-, which interact to form KrCl. Consequently, a large number of Kr.sub.2.sup.+, Ar.sub.2.sup.+ and Ne.sub.2.sup.+ molecular ions are initially formed by the e-beam device which have an absorption spectrum which overlaps the 222 nm output frequency, resulting in low output lasing energies.

High energy KrCl electric discharge laser

The United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy


An automated method and apparatus for performing biopolymer synthesis on a two-dimensional support surface whereby a two-dimensional matrix or array of biopolymers are obtained on the surface. An applicator in the form of a thick plate having in a surface at least one cavity in the form of an open chamber or channel is used for applying reagents to the surface of a solid phase support material. The applicator is positioned over the solid support material with the surface having the cavity sealed against the material surface. For each cavity, reagents for synthesis are introduced sequentially into one end of the cavity and collected from the other end of the cavity. A one-dimensional array of biopolymers are thus formed on the support material, where each element of the array contains a population of biopolymers having identical sequence. Further synthesis of additional biopolymers is performed by linearly moving or rotating the applicator relative to the support material and carrying out synthesis procedure so that another one-dimensional matrix or array of biopolymers are formed at an offset position to the previous array. At each overlapping region of the two arrays, a cell of biopolymers are formed which each comprises a strand from the first array and a strand from the second array. The result is a two-dimensional array of biopolymers of different sequences at each discrete cell. The arrays of discrete cell containing different biopolymers may be used to conduct hybridization reaction analysis of a biological sample.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to synthesis of biopolymers on a solid support surface, and analysis by hybridization reaction.
2. Description of Related Art
Biopolymers synthesis has been widely practiced by using solid phase substrates. One form of biopolymer synthesis is the synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") which can be performed on a particulate solid phase support in a reaction column. The process can be automated in which the relevant reagents are delivered to the reaction column under the control of a microprocessor. An example of such automated DNA synthesis instrument is the Oligo 1000 DNA Synthesizer developed and sold by Beckman Instruments, Inc. A description of this instrument may be found in copending U.S. Pat. application Ser. Nos. 07/936,976 and 07/909,232 which have been assigned to the assignee of the present application. The synthesized DNA strand is cleaved from the solid support in the column and collected for further processing or use.
DNA synthesis has also been performed using a flat sheet of solid phase support material. In international patent publication No. WO 89/10977, it disclosed that DNA can be synthesized onto a glass slide to form a structured one-dimensional matrix or array of polynucleotides. The synthesized material is left attached to the glass slide which is then applied in a hybridization reaction process for sequence analysis of unknown polynucleotide sequences. The process and apparatus disclosed require extensive manual steps.

Method and apparatus for creating biopolymer arrays on a solid support surface


A waste collection container fitted with an inlet point and an outlet point is used for receiving contaminated carrier air from a medical suction procedure. Heavier solids and liquids are collected within the waste collection container by gravitational precipitation. The carrier air now containing only aerosol contaminants is then bubbled through a disinfecting bath to sterilize the carrier air before it is exhausted into the immediate indoor environment or the outdoor atmosphere. An activated charcoal filter is then used to remove odors from the sterilized carrier air. An input and exit port of the waste collection container are initially sealed and are punctured by manually operated actuator apparatus to permit carrier air to flow through the container and the disinfecting bath. When the waste collection container is full, before removal another actuator is manually operated to discharge the disinfecting bath into the precipitated fluids and solids in the container to thereby sterilize them.

In hospital operating rooms, emergency treatment rooms, veterinaries, mortuaries, pathology laboratories, physician's offices and dentist's offices, millions of suction procedures are performed annually. Such suction operations or procedures are conducted for removal and/or collection and disposal of body fluids such as blood, urine, saliva, body treatment fluids, body tissues, organs, organ sections or portions, bone chips and contaminated vapors or fumes generated from cauterization or laser beam surgical procedures.
In all such suction operations, a pressure drop (vacuum) between the point of suction and the point of collection and/or precipitation is utilized in order to induce the flow through conduits from the suction point towards the collection point. When such vacuum induced flow for collection and/or precipitation of fluids, organs and vapors is conducted, a potential hazard arises since the carrier air (exhausted beyond the collection/precipitation point) may be contaminated with harmful pathogenic bacteria, germs, viruses, particles, fluid mists, vapors, and gases. When the carrier air is exhausted in a limited or finite space, such as within a dentist's or physician's office, or a small clinic, the immediate surrounding environment will be contaminated with such hazardous contaminants. When the carrier air is collected in a common or central location, for example in hospitals, it is usually exhausted outdoors, thus causing a potential outdoor contamination hazard, particularly in the immediate neighborhood.
Presently, suction procedures are conducted so that fluids, tissue and vapors are collected at a first collection point or container within the room at which the surgical or medical procedure is conducted. The precipitation and collection of the fluids and tissues is usually done in clear plastic canisters. A typical collection canister is of a truncated conical shape, with approximately 5 inches upper end diameter, 31/2 inches lower end diameter and 12 inches height. Such collection canisters are fitted with inlet and outlet hose connection nipples, and a cup shaped float which acts as an automatic shut-off valve and closes the outlet flow point when the level of material in the cannister reaches a certain point. This eliminates any overflow problems. When shut-off occurs the pressure drop or vacuum necessary for the suction process is stopped and the collection canister is disconnected and either emptied or replaced with an empty container.
The majority of prior art collection canisters utilize only gravity for precipitation and collection of fluid and tissue, thus permitting contaminated or hazardous fumes, mists and vapors to be exhausted where they contaminate the indoor environment or the outdoor atmosphere. More advanced types of prior art collection canisters utilize a highly efficient filtration system that traps up to 99.9% of aerosolized microorganisms and particulate matter in order to prevent airborne contamination. Unsolved problems still exist with such prior art systems.
A first problem is that even 0.1% or less of aerosolized microorganisms escaping through such filtration systems may be sufficient to contaminate the intermediate exhaust air conduits, and thus pose a contamination hazard for the indoor environment and/or the outdoor atmosphere. Further, since viruses range in size from 100 to 2000 Angstroms, it is virtually impossible to achieve complete filtration of the viruses from the carrier air before the carrier air is delivered to the intermediate exhaust air conduits.
A second problem is that bacteria trapped in the highly efficient filtration system can multiply at a high rate due to moisture in the filter resulting from trapping organic fluids such as blood and saliva. In effect, the filter acts as a favorable medium for the bacteria to multiply and subsequently escape into the intermediate exhaust air conduit as suction continues.
A third problem is that the contents of the collection cannisters are highly contaminated and disposal of the container poses a contamination hazard to the soil of its disposal site, and to the atmosphere surrounding the disposal sites.
Accordingly, a need exists for medical waste collection apparatus to collect and precipitate fluids, tissue, mists and vapors in such a manner that nothing harmful is allowed to escape to either the indoor environment or the outdoor environment, before or after disposal.
A need also exists for means in medical waste collection apparatus to disinfect the medical waste contents of collection containers in order to make the disposal of such containers non-contaminating to both the soil of the disposal site and to the atmosphere surrounding the site.
There is also a need for means in medical waste collection apparatus to disinfect suction carrier air passing therethrough prior to its exhaust to the indoor or outdoor environment.

Apparatus for collection and decontamination of hazardous and infectious waste and carrier air


A client device presents a resource to a user. In order to present the resource, the client device generates and renders one or more presentation strings. The client device generates a presentation string by identifying a template module that corresponds to an content resource object in a dataset downloaded by the client device. The client device then performs a template execution operation on the content resource object. The template module corresponding to the content resource object specifies the template execution operation.

As computer networks and computers have increased in speed and complexity, web designers have been able to create increasingly complex websites. Such complex websites can provide greater utility to users and can be more visually compelling. However, complex websites can be more difficult and expensive to design.
Moreover, it can be difficult and expensive to make changes to such complex websites after they are designed. For example, a website may utilize data from a given database. In this example, multiple parts of the website may need to be redesigned if a schema of the database is changed to include additional properties. In another example, a designer may want to change an appearance of a feature that appears in multiple webpages in a website. In this example, the designer may need to change separate pieces of code associated with each of the webpages.


The invention provides a method and apparatus for demodulating a composite AM DAB waveform which contains digitally modulated carriers and which employ (1) a mixer for converting a received signal into two signals (the first of these two signals represents an in-phase component and the second of these two signals represents a quadrature component); (2) two analog-to-digital converters for converting the two signals into digital signals; and (3) two fast Fourier transform elements for extracting data separately from the two digital signals. Complementary digital carrier signals are recovered from the quadrature component, and non-complementary digital carriers are derived from a sum of the complementary data and the output of the in-phase component FFT process. Leakage of the AM signal through a highpass filter is prevented from interfering with the demodulation of the complementary carrier signals' use of separated demodulation channels.

This invention relates to waveform demodulation, and more particularly to methods of and apparatus for receiving and demodulating digitally modulated signals and analog amplitude modulated signals within the same frequency channel assignment.
Broadcast and reception of digitally-encoded audio signals is expected to provide improved audio fidelity. Several approaches have been suggested. Out-of-band techniques provide broadcast of digital radio signals in a specially designated frequency band. In-band techniques provide broadcast within substantially vacant slots between adjacent channels in the existing broadcast band (interstitial approach) or in under-utilized portions within the same frequency channel allocations currently used by commercial broadcasters (in-band on-channel or IBOC approach). The in-band on-channel approach may be implemented without the need for additional frequency coordination and with relatively minor changes to existing transmitting equipment. It is also a requirement that any digital audio broadcasting (DAB) technique must not degrade analog signal reception by conventional analog receivers.
In-band approaches to digital audio broadcasting have thus far only been proposed in the FM band (88 MHz to 108 MHz), since the bandwidth of AM channels is relatively narrow as compared to the FM band allocation. However, high fidelity digital audio broadcasting in the AM band (530 kHz to 1700 kHz) would provide AM broadcasting stations with a means to compete with high-quality, portable audio sources such as cassette tapes and compact disc players. It would therefore be desirable to promote an in-band on-channel (IBOC) approach in the AM broadcasting band to provide enhanced fidelity through digital signalling without affecting reception by existing analog AM receivers.
An AM compatible digital broadcast waveform which satisfies the requirement of substantial orthogonality between a conventional analog AM signal and a digitally modulated signal set has been developed. The waveform is described in U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 08/206,368 filed Mar. 7, 1994, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AM COMPATIBLE DIGITAL BROADCASTING. The waveform spectrum consists of in-phase and quadrature components. An in-phase radio frequency (RF) carrier is modulated by an analog audio signal and the in-phase component of a digital signal. The quadrature-phase RF carrier is modulated by the quadrature component of the digital signal. The digital signal has an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) format. The in-phase signal consists of the conventional analog AM signal and selected digital carriers. The in-phase digital carriers are placed outside of the spectral region occupied by the analog AM signal. The quadrature-phase carriers are situated both within and outside the spectral region occupied by the analog AM signal (although not at the center frequency occupied by the unmodulated analog carrier). The quadrature digital carriers situated within the same spectral region as the analog AM signal are called complementary carriers. The above described arrangement is further described in U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 08/368,061 filed Jan. 3, 1995, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING AM COMPATIBLE DIGITAL BROADCAST ANALOG FIDELITY.
The context of the present invention is a need to demodulate the composite waveform with minimal crosstalk. The modulated composite waveform is produced by a modulation method in which an analog amplitude modulated (AM) signal and a digital signal which may be a representation of the analog audio signal (or it may be any other digital signal) are encoded together and transmitted simultaneously in the same frequency channel. This approach places some of the digital carriers in quadrature with the analog AM, thereby enabling the AM DAB data to be extracted and decoded with high fidelity and without crosstalk, assuming the receiver is capable of proper signal separation.
A receiver (which is not necessarily prior art) has been considered which converts the signal to baseband using conventional I and Q mixers, with the I channel signal being passed through a digital high pass filter to separate the digital signal from the analog signal, as hereinafter explained, a problem has been discovered related to crosstalk between the analog signal and the digital signal. In the receiver under consideration, the analog signal interferes with the demodulation of the complementary carriers if the demodulation of the I and Q component samples is carried out in a single common FFT processor. What is needed is a demodulation technique which minimizes the undesired crosstalk between the analog signal and the digital signals.

AM compatible digital waveform demodulation using a dual FFT


The present invention relates to the propagation of covalently closed circular recombinant DNA molecules such as plasmids, cosmids, bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs), bacteriophages, viral vectors and hybrids thereof, and more particularly is strain modifications that improve strain viability, plasmid stability, plasmid production yield, and plasmid-directed protein production yield, using said DNA molecules in fermentation culture.

E. coli plasmids have long been an important source of recombinant DNA molecules used by researchers and by industry. Therapeutic plasmids and plasmid based bacterial expression vectors typically contain a pMB1, ColE1 or pBR322 derived replication origin. In general, the replication origin needs to be protected from read-through transcription from adjacent genes, for example from cryptic promoters in an antigen gene insert, to prevent plasmid destabilization or reduced copy number (Engels P, Meyer P. 1993. Biotechniques 14: 324-5). This may be accomplished by inclusion of shielding transcriptional terminators. For example, transcriptional terminators shielding the prokaryotic replication origin from insert mediated transcriptional read-through reduce insert toxicity due to eukaryotic gene transcription (Brosius J. 1984. Gene, 27: 161-72; Chen W, Kallio P T, Bailey J E. 1993. Gene 130: 15-22; Chen J D, Morrision D A. 1987. Gene 55: 179-87).
However, a gene insert may contain DNA structures, proteins or peptides that are toxic to the host cell. Hydrophobic membrane spanning peptides are particularly toxic to bacteria. Expression of these peptides, by gene insert containing cryptic bacterial promoters or vector encoded cryptic bacterial promoters, will not be prevented by transcriptional terminators shielding the prokaryotic replication origin.
Translation of an insert encoded sense strand toxic peptide may be prevented by introduction of a reverse oriented promoter after the insert, to generate translation-disrupting antisense RNA (Weiner D B, Zhang D, Cohen A. 2005. U.S. Pat. No. 6,881,558; reviewed by Saida F, Uzan M, Odaert B, Bontems F. 2006. Current Protein Peptide Science 7: 47-56). This has the disadvantage of requiring vector modification to insert the promoter. As well, since not all insert borne toxic peptides are expressed from the sense strand, this strategy will detrimentally increase expression of toxic peptides encoded by the antisense strand.
Alternatively, stabilization of a plasmid containing an insert encoded toxic peptide may be achieved through insertion of an intron to disrupt bacterial production of a known toxic protein (Boyd A C, Popp F, Michaelis U, Davidson H, Davidson-Smith H, Doherty A, McLachlan G, Porteous D J, Seeber S. 1999. J. Gene Med. 1: 312-21). This method has the disadvantage of requiring vector modification to insert the intron, and requires knowledge of both the exact location of the toxic peptide, as well as a site within this toxic peptide in which insertion of an intron will disrupt toxicity.
Alternatively, stabilization of a plasmid containing an insert encoded toxic peptide may be achieved through expression of antisense RNA from a second plasmid. The antisense RNA from the second plasmid will bind to the mRNA encoding the toxic peptide (Futterer J, Gordon K, Pfeiffer P, Hohn T. 1988. Gene 67: 141-5). A disadvantage of this strategy is required dual selection for two plasmids, and two plasmids containing identical inserts would likely recombine (Weiner et al., Supra, 2005). As well, for plasmid production, contamination of the target plasmid with the antisense-RNA encoding second replicon would be unacceptable. The increased metabolic burden associated with maintaining a second plasmid is also undesired.
Even in view of the prior art there is a need to reduce insert-associated toxicity, to prevent plasmid destabilization or reduced copy number that would affect plasmid production, or plasmid directed protein production.

Bacterial strains with improved plasmid stability


A representative integrator includes an amplifier having an input and an output; a feedback loop coupled between the input and the output of the amplifier, the feedback loop comprising a compensated resistor circuit having a resistance value selected for reducing a loss factor of the integrator; and a control circuit coupled to an input of the compensated resistor circuit, the control circuit producing a control signal for controlling the compensated resistor circuit to substantially maintain the resistance value selected for reducing the loss factor of the integrator across a range of integrator temperatures.

In theory, an integrator is lossless but in practice the integrator is not. Typically, a resistor is inserted into the integrator to reduce a loss factor q. By reducing the loss factor q, the Q value of the integrator can be optimized. Another factor that affects the loss factor q and the Q value is temperature variation of the integrator. The resistance value of the resistor changes in response to temperature variation. One previous method uses a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to adjust the resistance value of the resistor. However, the DAC method typically matches the Q value at one temperature. If the temperature changes, the Q value of the integrator also changes.
Desirable in the art is an improved temperature compensated circuit that can improve the Q value of the integrator with temperature variation.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.


An image editing device of the present invention, for editing a combined photographic image formed by combining a plurality of images, comprises a combined photograph editing section for carrying out editing of the combined photograph using the combined photographic image and the images that have been expanded, an image quality control parameter calculating section, for calculating image quality control parameters for combined photograph data that has been edited by the combined photograph editing section, in accordance with first image quality control parameters for when creating the combined photograph, and second image quality control parameter for when creating the compressed image, wherein, in the case where a combined photograph that has been edited by the combined photograph editing section is subjected to image compression, the image quality control parameters that have been calculated by the image quality control parameter calculating section are used.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image editing device for editing an image such as a combined photograph made up of a plurality of photographs, and to an imaging editing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a photographic image is subjected to image compression and stored. It has been proposed to, at the time of image compression, when encoding with a standard encoding method, to perform compression from 1/8-1/80 by carrying out encoding with emphasis on low frequency components (refer to Japanese patent laid-open No. Hei.05-260314, for example).

Image editing device and image editing method


This invention relates generally to image projection methods and apparatus for creating color or gray scale images using spatial light modulators (SLMs) without color or gray capability. The basic concept is to divide the pixels on a single SLM into multiple groups and then illuminate each group with a different primary color. The content of the single SLM panel can then be programmed as if there are multiple sub-panels illuminated with different primary colors. The combined image on the single panel therefore displays images of many colors. Illumination can be achieved by projection of a pattern of color or gray scale distribution to the surface of the SLM panel and registering the pattern to corresponding pixel groups; or can be implemented by applying a proximity pattern close to the SLM surface. This technique can be applied to volumetric 3D displays, 2D displays, and optical correlators.

This invention relates generally to image projection methods and apparatus for creating color or gray scale images using spatial light modulators (SLMs) without color or gray capability. This technique can be especially useful for displaying color and gray scale images in volumetric 3D displays. A volumetric 3D display displays 3D images in a real 3D space. Each "voxel" in a volumetric image locates actually and physically at the spatial position where it is supposed to be, and light rays travel directly from that position toward omni-directions to form a real image in the eyes of viewers. As a result, a volumetric display possesses all major elements in both physiological and psychological depth cues and allows 360° walk-around viewing by multiple viewers without the need of special glasses. For examples, [Tsao et al. 1998] and [Tsao 1999] disclose principles of volumetric 3D displays based on an approach that, using an optical interfacing mechanism, smoothly delivers whole frames of 2D images, which are created on an SLM and projected from a non-moving projector, to a moving screen and displays them on the screen. The motion of the screen effectively distributes the 2D image frames displayed on the screen in a space. These spatially distributed image frames form a volumetric 3D image in the eyes of viewers due to the after image effect of human eye. In addition, this invention is also useful for 2D display applications, such as projection of 2D images and high frame rate image display for optical correlators.
Many SLMs do not have color or gray scale capability. For example, liquid crystal displays (LCD) generally use the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules in the pixel cells to modulate the amount of light transmitting through or reflected from the pixels. LCD devices are therefore only capable of binary images (black and white) or gray scale images, but not color images. To display colors using LCDs, the most common practice is to build a color filter mosaic over the pixel cells, which is sometimes called a color triad or color stripe structure. Color images can then be displayed using these colored pixel cells. Using color filter mosaic to create color triad structure has the shortcoming of low optical throughput since only about ⅓ of a white light passes any one of the color filters. Spatio-chromatic colored illumination techniques using diffractive optics or holographic elements have been developed to provide high optical throughput. For example, [Joubert] describes an arrangement using a grating system to separate R, G and B colors on a micro-scale and then using a micro-lens array to focus the R, G and B spots to different pixel locations. Equivalently, the function of the grating system and the micro-lens array can be integrated by using a holographic micro-lens array. Alternatively, a micro-lens array with built-in gratings can also be used for this function, as described in [Morris]. These techniques therefore can provide a color triad pattern with high optical throughput.
Alternatively, color images can be displayed by a combination of projections from several LCDs, each illuminated by a different color. For example, three LCDs, each illuminated by a light beam of red, green and blue color, can produce images of various color combinations by projection. For LCDs with high frame rate, such as display devices based on ferroelectric liquid crystals (called FLCD), a field sequential technique can be used to create color images using only one display device with no color triads [Displaytech].
In addition to LCDs, there are other devices that are capable of only binary images or gray scales images. For example, digital micro-mirror device (DMD) consists a matrix of actuated small reflectors. By striking the matrix with a light beam and switching the position of each reflector, arbitrary images can be generated on the device and can be projected [Thompson & Demond]. For another example, thin-film micro-mirror array (TMA) also consists of a matrix of piezo-actuated micro-mirrors and each mirror can be actuated at multiple positions to create gray scale [Kim & Huang]. And there are also many other micro-mirror based devices.
When used as the image source for volumetric 3D displays or for high speed optical correlators, the display device must have high frame rate. For volumetric 3D display, higher frame rate gives higher number of frames per image volume, hence higher resolution in the direction of screen sweep. For optical correlators, higher frame rate give higher processing (correlation) throughput. In these applications, display devices of binary image capability can give only limited color/gray capacity using conventional color forming practices. Particularly, field sequential technique is not suitable because each single frame has to have color/gray. Three display devices (R, G and B each) can be used to provide colors, but more display devices means higher cost. Color triad techniques can be applied, but fabricating color filter mosaic over display devices is costly, especially many high frame rate devices, such as FLCD and DMD, are reflective-type display and have fine pixels with pitch on the order of 10 micro-meters. The previously mentioned spatio-chromatic illumination techniques are also difficult to apply to these reflective type displays. The gratings and micro-lens (or equivalent holographic optical elements) used to create color patterns are generally attached or placed close to the back of a transmissive type LCD. Building the diffractive optics on the reflective SLM or attaching them to the SLMs are not very desirable.
When color triad techniques are applied to generate 2D color images, artifacts such as color aliasing such as Moire patterns can appear, because R, G and B sub-pixels are not perfectly mixed in space.
It is therefore the purpose of the current invention to provide methods and optical setups that allows the use of single binary SLM to create color and gray images without the need of color triad optics built-in on the display device. It is also the purpose of this invention to increase color/gray capacity of volumetric 3D displays that use, especially but not limited to, binary SLM. In addition, this invention can be applied to increase the resolution of volumetric 3D display systems in the screen motion direction. This invention can also be applied to 2D projectors, using a single display panel with color triad structure, to project images without color triad artifacts.

Pattern projection techniques for volumetric 3D displays and 2D displays


A process for growing a light-weight, transportable sod-mat and for facilitating the implantation of such a mat on a lawn bed comprises germinating lawn-grass seeds in a thin layer of growing medium spread over a mat of non-woven polypropylene laying on an impermeable membrane. After germination, the mat and the inseminated growing medium is installed over a layer of porous material such as decomposed granite covering a conditioned subsoil. Drip irrigation lines are run through the upper region of the porous material.

Transplantable sod is typically grown in heavy soil, then harvested with a machine that cuts a mat approximately 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) thick, 45 centimeters (18 inches) wide and 1.2 meters (48 inches) long. These mats are then stacked on pallets up to a weight of about 1 metric ton (2200 lbs.), then shipped for transplantation over a conditioned top soil where one pallet load will cover approximately 42 square meters (50 square yards).
The successful transplantation of such sod ribbons requires heavy watering and large quantities of fertilizer and other soil amendments.
There have been several attempts in the past to produce less cumbersome sod mats of larger size for easier installation, as exemplified by the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,526 Miyachi. However, in the growing and transportation of sod mats of the prior art, the weight reduction has been traded for a more complex and more labor and time-consuming process.


An arbitrary threshold value (Ei0) is established which defines a boundary as to activating an RF-AGC circuit (21) if the value of the field intensity (Ei) of a received signal is greater than what value while the value of the field intensity of a signal at a desired frequency being a predetermined value (Ei0) in a weak field area. The established value (Ei0) is used to provide a threshold value establishing/controlling part (22) that controls the ON/OFF of the operation of the RF-AGC circuit (21). In this way, a set maker or the like of an IC including an automatic gain control part (11) can perform a field test or the like such that a preferable value obtained by a result of the field test or the like can be used as an AGC start level (Ei0), whereby an optimum AGC control can be performed based on the preferable AGC start level (Ei0).

In general, a wireless communication apparatus, such as a radio receiver, has an AGC (Automatic Gain Control) circuit for adjusting the gain of a received signal. The RF (Radio Frequency) AGC circuit is designed to adjust the gain of an RF signal received by an antenna to keep the received signal at a constant level. The RF-AGC circuit will not be activated when the electric field intensity of the signal inputted to the antenna is smaller than or equal to a threshold value and hence will not reduce the gain of the received signal. However, when a signal having an intense field greater than the threshold value is inputted to the antenna, the RF-AGC circuit is activated to reduce the gain of the received signal (see the patent documents 1 and 2, for example).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-276116    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-48177
Such an AGC circuit is effective in reducing the level of interference waves contained in the received signal. For example, when a strong interference wave is inputted (and hence the received field intensity exceeds the threshold value), reducing the gain of the RF signal can reduce the signal level of the interference wave. However, the RF signal, the gain of which is to be reduced, contains a signal at a desired frequency as well as the interference wave noise signal. Therefore, activation of the RF-AGC circuit disadvantageously reduces the level of the signal at the desired frequency at the same time.
Thus, for example, when the received field intensity exceeds the threshold value as a result of reception of the strong interference wave even though the level of the signal at the desired frequency is small, the AGC circuit reduces the gain of the RF signal, resulting in further reduction of the level of the signal at the desired frequency, which is small in the first place. Reception sensitivity for the desired channel is therefore significantly reduced, resulting in a disadvantage of almost inaudible audio of interest.
To avoid such inconvenience, there has been proposed a technology in which the field intensity at a desired frequency is detected, and the AGC sensitivity is reduced when the detected field intensity is smaller than a threshold value, so that the AGC operation is not activated when the field intensity at the desired channel is weak (see the non-patent document 1, for example).
Non-patent Document 1: Development of High-performance FM Front End IC with improved interference characteristic; IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. 37, No. 3, AUGUST 1991 by Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
FIG. 1 shows the characteristics of an AGC operation achieved by the technology described in the non-patent document 1. As shown in FIG. 1, according to the non-patent document 1, in a medium/intense field area where the detected voltage Vcont corresponding to the field intensity at a desired frequency is greater than or equal to 2 [V], the AGC operation is turned on when the field intensity of the signal inputted to the antenna exceeds 60 [dBμ]. On the other hand, in a weak field area where the detected voltage Vcont is smaller than 2 [V], the threshold value at which the AGC operation is turned on is increased to 85 [dBμ], so that the AGC operation will not immediately be turned on even if the field intensity of the signal inputted to the antenna exceeds 60 [dBμ].
In the technology described in the non-patent document 1, however, the operation described above is achieved with an IC having an analog circuit configuration. The threshold value that defines the boundary between the medium/intense field area and the weak field area (hereinafter referred to as "weak field start level") is a fixed value, and this value cannot be changed once the IC has been designed. The threshold value that defines the boundary at which it is judged whether or not the AGC operation is activated in the weak field area (hereinafter referred to as "AGC start level") is also a fixed value, and this value cannot be changed once the IC has been designed.
In general, designers of ICs including AGC circuits do not know what products the ICs are applied to or what situations the ICs are used in. It is therefore difficult for the designers to determine a optimum value of the weak field start level and the AGC start level. In fact, conditions including reception of desired waves and the way interference waves are received are totally different depending on the usage of the IC, that is, whether the IC is used in a radio receiver, in a mobile phone, or in other wireless communication apparatuses. Even when the IC is used in products of the same category, for example, radio receivers, the reception of desired waves and interference waves is totally different depending on whether the IC is incorporated in a home-use audio apparatus or a car radio receiver. Thus, every product in which an IC including an AGC circuit is used has its own weak field start level and AGC start level required to perform optimum RF-AGC control without compromising reception sensitivity of a desired wave in a weak field area.
That is, it is desired in the first place that a manufacturer or the like of a product in which an IC is incorporated carries out a field test or the like and resultant optimum values are used as the weak field start level and the AGC start level. As described above, however, in the technology described in the non-patent document 1, the weak field start level and the AGC start level are fixed values, so that they cannot be customized. Optimum RF-AGC control without compromising reception sensitivity of desired waves in a weak field area is therefore practically not possible.

Automatic gain control apparatus for wireless communication apparatus


A processor simultaneously issues instructions to multiple threads in a same instruction execution cycle. An instruction issuer controls issuance of an instruction for each of the multiple threads. A detector detects, for each of the multiple threads, whether a loop processing is currently being executed. A unit causes the instruction issuer to increase a number of instructions to be issued when the detector detects that the loop processing is currently being executed.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a program execution control device which controls programs executed by a single or a plurality of microprocessors.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital appliances such as digital TVs, video cassette recorders, and mobile phones are required to execute digital processing such as speech processing, audio processing, video processing and coding processing, and Graphical User Interface (GUI) operation processing. Other than such a requirement, there are also requests, increasing in number and variety, for the digital appliances to be adaptable to JAVA®, and so on. To fulfill these requests, information processing devices are commonly used, examples of which include microprocessors (including microcomputers, microcontrollers and digital signal processors (DSPs)). To improve the processing performance in response to the increased application requests, the information processing devices are being improved in terms of the operation frequency of processors, and are becoming multithreaded and multi-core, for example. Along with this, the number of pipeline stages, the scale of circuitry, and power consumption of the processors are steadily increasing.
In general, as the number of pipeline stages increases, penalty cycles occur which continue until a new instruction is fetched in executing a branch instruction, and this is one of the reasons causing performance degradation. In order to improve efficiency in executing application programs, such performance degradation needs to be suppressed especially in loop processing in which many processes are performed. In an attempt to suppress performance degradation, a method is known which: predicts that a branch is always taken in a branch instruction used in loop processing (static branch prediction); and stores the beginning instruction of a loop in a loop instruction buffer, thereby suppressing the penalty cycles occurring when a branch from the end of the loop to its beginning is taken (refer to Patent Reference 1: Japanese Patent No. 2987311, for example).
FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B are diagrams each showing an example of a program executed by a processor. FIG. 1A shows a program written in C language, and FIG. 1B shows an assembly program corresponding to the program shown in FIG. 1A.
For example, in the example of the program shown in FIG. 1B, penalty cycles may occur when a branch is taken in executing a branch instruction at the end of a loop (BRZ instruction), (in this case, when branching to an L_HEAD label which is at the beginning of the loop) and also when it is not taken (when the execution proceeds from the BRZ instruction to the following ST instruction).
Further, a method is known which suppresses the penalty cycles caused by a branch not taken in the last iteration of a loop in the loop processing, which cannot be prevented even by the above mentioned static branch prediction or dynamic branch prediction for which a branch history table (BHT) is used. This method predicts with high accuracy the last iteration of a loop in the loop processing using a loop counter, thereby suppressing the branch penalty occurring at the last iteration of the loop where the loop processing is terminated (refer to Patent Reference 2: Japanese Patent No. 3570855, for example).
Meanwhile, to suppress increasing power consumption, a method is known which also focuses attention on the loop processing and reduces power consumption by suspending resources that are not used during loop execution (refer to Patent Reference 3: Japanese Patent No. 1959871, for example).
For example, a processor, having a loop instruction buffer in which instructions to be executed in loops are stored, iterates execution of the stored instructions during the loop execution. Thus, it is unnecessary to fetch instructions from an instruction memory. As a result, it is possible to stop the instruction memory system which includes a cache system, thereby enabling power saving.
Further, a multithreaded processor is becoming effective in suppressing the performance degradation caused by an increase in the number of penalty cycles resulted from an increase in the number of pipeline stages (refer to Patent Reference 4: Japanese Patent No. 3716414, for example).
However, even by means of the static branch prediction which fixes the prediction direction according to the type of the branch instruction (for example, with a loop branch instruction, branch is always predicted to be taken or by means of the dynamic branch prediction which is based on a branch history table and the like and predicts the next judgment based on the frequency with which the past branches were taken, a prediction error cannot be prevented from arising at the branch when the loop processing is to be terminated, and this results in a branch penalty.
Especially the increase in the number of penalty cycles resulted from the recent increase in the number of pipeline stages has increasingly facilitated the performance degradation caused by branch prediction errors.
Furthermore, application programs have a characteristic that a region processed at one time is becoming miniaturized despite an increase in the total amount of processing, as seen in the trend with the video codec standard, for example. For example, processing is performed on 16×16 pixel data in the conventional video codec standard, whereas in the new video codec standard, new processing is introduced which is performed on 4×4 pixel data. This indicates reduction in the number of processing cycles in a single loop.
In addition, the reduction in the number of processing cycles in a single loop is further achieved due to the trend that processors can execute an increasing number of instructions in parallel.
As described, while the improvement in the characteristic of application programs and the increase in the number of instructions that processors can execute in parallel lead to reduction in the number of processing cycles in a single loop, there is a trend that such factors cause an increase in the number of branch penalty cycles.
For example, in the case where there are four loop iterations in loop processing and each of the iterations takes eight cycles for instruction execution, it takes 32 processing cycles for single loop processing. In this case, when the branch penalty takes four cycles, for example, execution performance degradation by over 10 per cent occurs every time the loop processing is executed.
To prevent such execution performance degradation in loop processing, the method of predicting the last loop iteration using a loop counter, typified by Patent Reference 2 presented above as an example, has some advantage in being able to predict the last loop iteration with a relatively high frequency. However, this method entails a problem in terms of application targets, software productivity, and resource investment required for hardware implementation.
As for loops to which the last loop iteration prediction by the loop counter method can be applied, the loop counter needs to be incremented and decremented by either 1 or the number of steps fixed in advance. Such restriction is essential for predicting, based on the current loop counter value, that the next iteration is the last loop iteration, that is, in a counter decrementing method, predicting that the counter value in the next loop iteration becomes equal to or smaller than 0.
Consequently, depending on the types of loops, the method of predicting the last loop iteration using a loop counter is not applicable. Control on the prediction of the last loop iteration cannot be applied in the following cases, for example: as shown in FIG. 2A, the loop variable is not incremented and decremented by a value of 1; as shown in FIG. 2B, the loop variable is not incremented and decremented by a predetermined number of steps; as shown in FIG. 2C, the loop is a while loop in which the number of loop iterations is not predetermined; and as shown in FIG. 2D, there may be a jump (a break statement) from an inner loop to an outer loop.
With small-scale software as seen in the field of DSP application in the past, it has been possible to perform algorithm transformation on each loop into a for loop in which the loop variable increments by 1. However, in today's large-scale software application field, such individual algorithm tuning is not realistic from the viewpoint of software productivity. Further, there are cases where algorithm transformation is inherently impossible.
Moreover, although the prediction method using a loop counter enables small-scale circuitry in a single-threaded-program execution environment and when the method is applied only to the deepest for loop, such a prediction method results in an increase in the circuit investment when applied to multiple loops and multi threads.
For example, when triple for loops are to be implemented by the loop counter method, a recording device is needed as hardware which holds and manages a loop counter value of each of the three loops. It may alternatively be just one physical counter register that saves the loop counter value in a stack memory and the like according to the depth of the loop, and returns the loop counter value from the stack memory to the loop counter. However, in such a case, processing cycles are required for the saving and returning processing, and thus the program execution performance degrades.
Such an increase in resources is remarkable especially in multi-threaded processors. This is because stack memories for the loop counters need to be provided as many as the number of threads that the processor can concurrently execute.
Furthermore, other than the hardware configuration in which stack memories are used, there is also a hardware configuration in which a table associated with addresses (program counter values) is used, as shown in Patent Reference 2. However, this configuration also results in large-scale circuitry since the table is needed.
As described above, the control on the prediction of the last loop iteration using a loop counter has been effective in the traditional DSP field in the past, but not in today's high-performance processors with a premise of large-scale software development, from the viewpoint of its application, software productivity, and hardware investment.

Simultaneous multiple thread processor increasing number of instructions issued for thread detected to be processing loop