A device is disclosed for detecting and imaging an object comprising a sensor node including a sensor for sensing the object and a camera for recording an image of the object. A wireless sensor radio is connected to the camera for transmitting the recorded image of the object to a display node for displaying the image of the object at a remote location.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to remote sensing and more particularly to an improved device for detecting and imaging an object and for transmitting the recorded image of the object to a display node at a remote location.
2. Background of the Invention
During the last decade, the art of remote sensing has been applied in a wide variety of applications and uses. Remote sensing devices may be classified as either passive remote sensing devices or active remote sensing devices. In a passive remote sensing device, a passive sensor responds to an emission from an object. The emission from the object may be an acoustical emission or an electromagnetic transmission from the object.
In an active remote sensing device, an acoustical or an electromagnetic pulsed beam is transmitted from the active remote sensing device. A sensor in the active remote sensing device detects a reflection of the pulsed beam for the object interrupting the beam. The active remote sensing device may provide the distance to the object by timing the duration between the transmission of the pulsed beam and the detection of a reflection of the pulsed beam from an object interrupting the beam.
Many passive remote sensing devices sensitive to acoustical emission or infrared electromagnetic transmission have been used in intrusion alarms, perimeter surveillance and the like. Other passive remote sensing devices have been used to photograph an object.
One particular problem with many of the remote sensing devices is the false actuation of the remote sensing device. The remote sensing devices are susceptible to two different false actuations. A first type of false actuation occurs when the remote sensing beam indicate the beam is interrupted when in fact the beam has not been interrupted by any object. This first type of false actuation may be referred to as a false-false actuation. A second type of false actuation occurs when an undesired object interrupts the remote sensing beam. For example, in some instances, it is desirable to determine whether an animal or human being has interrupted in the remote sensing beam.
The following United States patents represent some of the attempts of the prior art to provide a remote sensing device for the remote sensing art.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,207 to D. V. Missio et al. discloses an optical intrusion detector which in one package employs a radar-type concept with a time interval logic circuit to measure small changes in transmitted and received signals. A plurality of measured optical pulses are transmitted to a passive reflective target, such as a tree, fence, or other dense object, and reflected back to the same source. The rate of change between the transmitted and received—pulses is measured. When the rate of change in the transmitted and received signals varies from .a predetermined level, an alarm is actuated. 'The time interval logic employed in the detector employs three flip-flop circuits and associated circuitry. The associated circuitry with a first flip-flop circuit will cause a third flip-flop circuit to be actuated to generate an. alarm signal when the time interval between the pulses transmitted and received exceeds a predetermined level. A second flip-flop circuit functions in combination with the third flip-flop circuit to indicate when a decrease in the time between the transmitted and-received pulses is measured to actuate an alarm.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,332 to W. Mehnert discloses a monitoring method and apparatus for monitoring surfaces and spaces as well as objects present therein. A pulse transmitter delivers, by means of a beam deflection element, in a defined sequence and in defined directions pulsed directional beams, and received beams are directionally selectively received. Distance vectors and their changes are evaluated in a computer for surface or terrain, space and object measurement and/or object recognition and/or sounding of an alarm.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,009 to G. C. D'Ambrosia et al. discloses an intrusion detection device that comprises a radiation emitter arranged to project a beam of infrared radiation toward a field of view and means for receiving the radiation of the beam reflected from the field of view. The receiving means is arranged to generate a signal indicative of the distance from the device at which the beam has between reflected by the field of view during a selected time period. Means is also provided for storing a reference signal that is indicative of the distance of reflection of the beam from the field of view during a reference time period. Further means is provided for comparing a signal from a selected time period with the reference signal and for generating an output signal if the signal differs from the reference signal in a preselected manner.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,911 to G. C. D'Ambrosia et al. discloses a scanning intrusion detection device capable of monitoring a large volume of either interior or exterior space from a single relatively inexpensive unit. This intrusion detection device comprises a radiation emitter arranged to scan a beam of infrared radiation about a field of view and means for receiving the radiation of the beam reflected from the field of view. The receiver is arranged to generate a signal indicative of the distance from the device at which the beam has been reflected for each of a plurality of azimuth sectors of the field of view during a selected time period. A ram is also provided for storing a plurality of reference signals that are indicative of the distance of reflection of the beam from each azimuth sector of the field of view during a reference time period. The signals from a selected time period are compared with the reference signals and an output signal is generated if one of the signals is different from the respective reference signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,423 to R. J. Wangler discloses an object sensor and method using pulsed laser range imaging technology adapted for controlling an agricultural spraying system. A single laser sensor employs a continuously scanned pulsed laser transmitter and optical receiver to determine the presence or absence of foliage in predetermined spray zones to selectively control spraying only in those spray zones where foliage has been sensed. Range and distance data are also collected and stored in a microprocessor for use in determining the appropriate zones requiring spraying.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,525 to I. Saban discloses a method of protecting a predetermined area comprising the steps of providing a base station positioned essentially at the center of the area to be protected. The base station is provided with scanning laser beam generating and receiving means, image and signal processing units, memory means, voice receiving and transmitting means and image viewing means. A laser beam is generated by the base station to be reflected from the surveyed area into the receiving means of the base station. The received reflected light is processed to generate an image of the surveyed area. One or more scanned images is stored in memory means to be used as reference images. A real-time scanned image may be compared with one or more stored reference images at any given time to determine changes which have occurred on the image which exceed predetermined threshold values, and alerting the operator of the base station of any such changes. One or more moving stations may be provided with emitting/receiving laser generating means and signal processing means, and causing the moving station to generate an emitted signal to identify the moving station. A recognition means is provided within the signal processing means of the base station to recognize the signal generated by the moving station as a friendly signal, and to alert the operator of the base station whether a change in the image of the scanned area belongs to a friendly or to an unfriendly force.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,201 to E. E. Thompson, Jr. discloses a plurality of monitors distributed throughout a surveillance area chosen in the wild habitat of animals by a sportsman. Each monitor transmits at least one infrared signal to the surveillance area. An animal intersected the beam reflects incident radiation on a detector situated in the same housing as the transmitter. When the signal is detected, an RF transmitter is energized by an RF receiver at a remote site. The RF receiver includes a clock for establishing the date and time of the transmitted signal. In the preferred embodiment, each monitor is provided with three infrared transmitters, each with an associated receiver. The transmitters are driven by encoded signals that uniquely identify each transmitter of the monitor as well as the transmitters of all other monitors that may be in use thereby to enable detected directional movement in the surveillance area. The receiver includes a decoder for establishing the identity of the received RF signal. The storage medium is used to allow recovery of detected events through a read command.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,910,767 to Y. Frucht discloses a light beam, preferably from a laser, reflected from a target, which is a potential intruder. The time period required for the beam to return to a light detector, as well as the intensity of the reflected light, is recorded. The system includes a computer and software for analyzing the measurements of distance and intensity of reflected light. The algorithm for detecting the presence of an intruder is based on changes in the measured distance and/or intensity of reflected light from initial measurements made during a "learning" period. The system tracks targets using data collected in consecutive searches of the area to be protected. Preferably, an alarm is sounded and/or a video camera is slaved to the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,717 to J. G. Dunne et al. discloses a system for automatically capturing an image of a moving vehicle and recording data parameters, such as date, time, speed operator, location, etc. on the image. A capture window comprises a predetermined range of distances of the system from the moving vehicle can be set by the operator so that the image of the moving vehicle is automatically captured when it enters the capture window. The capture window distance can be entered manually through a keyboard or automatically using the laser speed gun. Automatic focusing is provided using distance information from the laser speed gun. A database is included to allow the user to search for specified parameters. Data records can be flagged for issuance of citations. A separate office unit is disclosed for retrieving and sorting data records so that field units are not occupied with such tasks. The office unit can be separately connected to licensing databases to retrieve information for issuance of citations.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,319 to Y. Frucht discloses an intruder detection system for detecting the presence of an intruder in a protected area. A light beam, preferably from a laser, is reflected from a target, which is a potential intruder. The time period required for the beam to return to a light detector, as well as the intensity of the reflected light, is recorded. The system includes a computer and software for analyzing the measurements of distance and intensity of reflected light. The algorithm for detecting the presence of an intruder is based on changes in the measured distance and/or intensity of reflected light from initial measurements made during a learning period. The system tracks targets using data collected in consecutive searches of the area to be protected. Preferably, an alarm is sounded and/or a video camera is slaved to the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,195,310 to A. Morgan, II discloses a monitoring device for assisting hunter's and other persons seeking to view animals in the wild along game trails and the intersection of multiple game trails. The monitoring device includes a monitoring assembly for detecting movement of an animal on or along the trail and a speaker used for generating an alerting sound to alert the individual of the approaching animal long before the animal appears. To assist individuals positioned at the intersection of multiple game trails the monitoring device is provided with a selection mechanism for allowing the user to select one sound from a number of different sounds. To prevent the sound from spooking the animal in the wrong direction the speaker is connected to the monitoring assembly by a length of cable greater than twenty feet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,512,993 to B. K. Kacyra et al. discloses an integrated system for generating a model of a three-dimensional object. A scanning laser device scans the three-dimensional object and generates a point cloud. The points of the point cloud each indicate a location of a corresponding point on a surface of the object. A first model is generated, responsive to the point cloud that generates a first model representing constituent geometric shapes of the object. A data file is generated, responsive to the first model that can be inputted to a computer-aided design system.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object that overcomes many of the deficiencies of the above United States patents and provides a significant contribution to the art.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object having a sensing node for detecting and imaging an object and for transmitting the image by a wireless transmitter to a display node at remote location.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object having a sensing node for detecting and imaging an object incorporating a passive or an active sensor for detecting an object.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object having a sensing node for determining the range of the object.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object having a plurality of sensing nodes for detecting and imaging an object with each of said plurality of sensing nodes communicating with the remaining plurality of sensing nodes.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved device for detecting and imaging an object having a display node for displaying the image of the object at remote location.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the present invention. These objects should be construed as being merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the invention. Many other beneficial results can be obtained by modifying the invention within the scope of the invention. Accordingly other objects in a full understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention and the detailed description describing the preferred embodiment of the invention.


An apparatus for measuring the time of flight of a signal is provided. The apparatus for measuring the time of flight of a signal comprises a transmitter for emitting a signal, a receiver for receiving the signal from the transmitter, and means for detecting the onset of the signal as it arrives at the receiver such that the period of time from emission by the transmitter to the time the receiver initially receives the signal can be determined. In another embodiment, the present invention provides a method for determining the time of flight of a signal comprising the steps of receiving a transmitted signal, operating on the received signal for generating a pre-conditioned signal, conditioning the pre-conditioned signal for removing irregularities therefrom for generating a conditioned signal, operating on the conditioned signal to form a discriminated signal, and determining the critical point of the discriminated signal such that the critical point can be used to determine the time of flight of the signal from the instant of transmission to the instant reception.

Many measuring techniques and devices require an accurate measurement of the time of flight of a signal. Any technique or device that measures the time of travel of a wave or signal requires a degree of accuracy in determining the measurement. The application dictates the degree of accuracy required. The quantitative determination of the time of travel of a wave or signal in some situations can be relatively easy, or can be difficult. Thus, the need for an accurate measure of the time of travel with respect to the more difficult applications has led to problems in accurate metering. For example, applications which require measurement precision of less than one period of the signal are difficult. Examples of such metering techniques requiring time-of-flight estimates are flow, level, speed of sound, and acoustic impedance measurements. The accurate measurement of the time of travel of the signal is a basic requirement for an effective technique or device.
The measurement of the time of flight of a sonic or ultrasonic signal has different complications than the measurement of the time of flight of a radar signal. In the example of radar, where the time resolution is long with respect to the period of the signal, the time of flight can be readily measured by viewing the envelope of the returning energy. The measurement when the time resolution is short with respect to the period of the signal is more difficult.
Such prior devices and methods which can be used with or are associated with the present invention include, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,724,269 to Kalmus entitled "Apparatus for Measuring Flow," U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,575 to O'Hair and Nolan entitled "Ultrasonic Flow Meter" and U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,018 to Gill entitled "System for Measuring the Time for a Signal to Pass Between Two Spaced Points in a Fluid." With respect to U.S. Pat. No. 2,724,269, the phase shift of a signal is associated with a reference. The '269 patent describes periodically interchanging the transmitter and the receiver. U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,575 describes using multiple paths of ultrasonic energy which paths are angularly disposed with regard to the flow and each other. U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,018 provides a system applicable for use in continuous-state wave applications. A phase shift is measured at a particular point in time and used to determine the time for the signal to pass between two spaced points.
It is, therefore, a feature of the present invention to provide method and apparatus for measuring accurately the time of flight of a signal where the period of the signal is long compared to the required time resolution.
A feature of the present invention is to provide an method and apparatus for enhancing the ability to select a specific part of the associated waveform for determining the time of flight of the signal.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide an method and apparatus which enhances the ability to process a signal to determine the time of flight of a signal.
Yet another feature of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for measuring the time of flight of a signal which measurement is not compromised by noise generated by turbine meters, compressors and valves.
Another feature of the present invention is the ability to accurately measure the time of flight of a signal, transmitted from, for example, an ultrasonic transmitter, when the signal is corrupted by the presence of noise.
Yet still another feature of the present invention is to provide an method and apparatus for measuring the time of flight of a signal which method and apparatus is adaptive to signal changes caused by external influences.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized by means of the combinations and steps particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

Method and apparatus for measuring the time of flight of a signal


The invention relates to vacuum cleaner filter bag with a bag wall made of a filter material, wherein the bag wall and/or the interior of the vacuum cleaner filter bag comprise fibres containing a biopolymer and having an antibacterial effect and/or a powder produced from a biopolymer and having an antibacterial effect.

In the manufacture of vacuum cleaner filter bags that are inserted into a vacuum cleaner and that are intended to hold the dust that is suctioned in, one of the main focuses of the development is to increase the dust-holding capacity and service life. To accomplish these, there are different approaches that concern the filter structure, i.e., the configuration of the filter material layers of the bag wall and/or the parameters of the individual layers themselves.
For example, EP 0 960 645 exhibits a multi-layer filter configuration in which a coarse filter layer is arranged before a fine filter layer, as seen in the direction of flow. In particular, larger quantities of dust are intended to be deposited in the coarse filter layer, which prevents the entire filter structure from becoming quickly blocked.
A further possibility is defined in WO 2005/060807, according to which a vacuum cleaner filter bag contains a material that can be swirled around in the presence of a given air flow.
From DE 10 2006 016 009, a vacuum cleaner filter bag with a deflective device is known by means of which the service life can likewise be significantly increased.
Another focus during the enhancement of vacuum cleaner filter bags consists of the suppression of the formation of unpleasant smells and/or bacteria growth for reasons of hygiene. In this connection, DE 20 2005 009 452 describes a vacuum cleaner bag, whereby one of the items arranged inside is a biocide. In particular, plant parts+powders of, e.g., chamomile, thyme or oregano are mentioned for this. Complete plant parts are not fibrous by nature and cannot be processed into nonwovens. In addition to active components, plant parts also contain high proportions of builders that reduce the effectiveness (dilution effect).
Known from DE 29 11 004 is a filter bag which has a coating with a nonwoven on its interior side, whereby said nonwoven is provided with antimycotic or antibacterial agents. Various synthetic substances are used thereby as antibacterial and antimycotic agents.
The disadvantage of a filter bag of this type lies in the fact that the use of synthetic bactericides and fungicides is ecologically and economically problematic. The active substances are expensive and frequently cause allergic reactions. The manufacturing processes for the filter bag are further complicated by the additional layer, and the filter characteristics of the filter bag also change unpredictably, because, in particular, the oily biocides can influence the characteristics of the successive filter layers. For example, the persistence of an electrostatic charge of a nonwoven is reduced by contact with oily substances.


Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) operation is optimized for signals based on signal error statistics. Forward Error Correction (FEC) may provide feedback of error statistics or error correction statistics to a SerDes tuner, which uses the statistics to selectively tune or adjust SerDes operating parameters, such as vertical and horizontal sampling or slicing offsets, gain and equalization, to decrease the bit error rate (BER). Statistics report which bits and patterns are corrected and to what values. Knowledge of expected and actual signals is leveraged to correlate detected errors with underlying problems and solutions to optimize SerDes operation. Each node in a network, such as a Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON), is enabled to fine tune its operation independently for each logical or physical channel.

A passive optical network (PON) is a point-to-multipoint network fiber architecture for providing broadband services to business and residential subscribers. A PON comprises an optical transmission line (e.g., a fiber or optical link) coupled to an upstream node, such as an optical line terminal (OLT) located at service provider premises or central office (CO), and coupled to a downstream node, such as an optical network units (ONU), located at service subscriber or end-user premises.
A PON may implement a variety of topologies, such as tree, ring, or bus topologies. In a tree topology, one optical fiber couples the OLT to a passive optical splitter, which distributes downstream optical signals from an OLT to ONUs and combines upstream optical signals from ONUs to the OLT. The splitter merges or multiplexes upstream communications onto the shared optical link. A splitter may use a time division multiple access (TDMA) protocol where packet communications from ONUs are assigned time slots for transmission to the OLT. Alternatively, a splitter may use a distinct frequency for each ONU, such as in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). An OLT may couple an optical access network to an external network, such as a metro backbone belonging to an internet service provider (ISP) or a local exchange carrier.
Communication in a PON comprises upstream traffic transmitted from ONUs to an OLT and downstream traffic transmitted from the OLT to the ONUs. ONUs share channel capacity and resources provided by the shared optical link coupling the passive optical splitter and the OLT. The passive optical splitter may divide (separate) and distribute downstream communications (optical signals) from the OLT to each ONU or may broadcast downstream communications transmitted by the OLT to all ONUs where each destination ONU extracts data frames from communications based on Logic Link Identifiers (LLIDs) assigned to each ONU. An LLID establishes a logical link between an ONU and OLT, which accommodates specific service level agreement (SLA) requirements. An LLID carries physical address information for a frame to determine which ONU is allowed to extract the frame.
An Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) combines Ethernet technology with inexpensive passive optics. An EPON offers the simplicity and scalability of Ethernet with the cost-efficiency and high capacity of passive optics. In particular, due to the high bandwidth of optical fibers, EPONs are capable of accommodating broadband voice, data, and video traffic simultaneously.
Each ONU can accommodate a number of networked devices, such as personal computers, telephones, video equipment, network servers, etc. One or more networked devices belonging to the same class of service are typically assigned an LLID.
Because a PON adopts passive optical transmission technology, which excludes signal amplification and regeneration, a PON is subject to power limitations and various transmission impairments. As a result, the signal-to-noise ratio of a PON suffers as the network increases in size, resulting in more frequent bit errors. Fortunately, forward error correction (FEC) techniques can mitigate these undesirable effects and can help increase the power budget.
FEC is a transmission error correction technique allowing a receiving device to detect and correct errors. A receiving device, such as each ONU and each OLT in a PON, utilizing FEC has the capability to detect and correct any block of symbols that contains fewer than a predetermined number of error symbols. A transmitting device supports FEC by adding bits to each transmitted symbol block, using a predetermined error correction technique. One exemplary technique is the use of Reed-Solomon code. A Reed-Solomon code is specified as RS(1, k) with s-bit symbols, which means that the encoder takes k data symbols of s bits each, and adds (1-k) parity symbols to make an 1-symbol codeword. A Reed-Solomon decoder can correct up to t symbols that contain errors in a codeword, where 2t=1-k. For example, RS(255, 239) with 8-bit symbols means that each codeword contains 255 bytes, of which 239 bytes are data and 16 bytes are parity. The decoder can automatically correct errors contained in up to 8 bytes anywhere in the codeword.
Communication protocols vary between 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps EPON standards. According to the 10 Gbps EPON standard (10G-EPON), two connection configurations are supported, including "symmetric," which operates at a 10 Gbps data rate in both upstream (customer to provider) and downstream (provider to customer) directions, and "asymmetric," which operates at 10 Gbps in the downstream direction and 1 Gbps in the upstream direction. 10G-EPON supports line encoding. According to the 1 Gbps EPON standard (1G-EPON), 1 Gbps data rates are supported in the upstream and downstream directions. In a 1 Gbps EPON, an FEC-coded Ethernet frame may begin with a start FEC (SFEC) code sequence. Following SFEC is an Ethernet frame, which includes a preamble/start-of-frame delimiter (SFD) field, a data frame, and a frame-check-sequence (FCS) field. FCS field typically contains a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) sequence. Following FCS field is an end-of-frame delimiter terminate FEC (TFEC) indicating the end of the Ethernet frame. TFEC may delineate the Ethernet frame from subsequent FEC parity bits.
A serializer/de-serializer (SerDes) is an integrated circuit (IC or chip) transceiver that converts parallel data to serial data and vice-versa. A SerDes may be incorporated into each OLT and ONU in a PON. A transmitter section of a SerDes has parallel data input and serial data output. For example, a transmitter section of a SerDes in a gigabit Ethernet system may include 10 parallel input data lines clocked at 125 MHz and serial data output lines clocked at 1.25 GHz. A receiver section of the SerDes is the reverse of the transmitter section, i.e., serial data input and parallel data output. The receiver section recovers a clock embedded in a received signal for use in the decoding process. A gigabit Ethernet SerDes may use an 8B/10B coding scheme that maps 8-bit symbols to 10-bit symbols to achieve DC-balance on a transmission line.
A SerDes may require calibration for communication channel attributes, such as offsets, etc. Traditional calibration uses comparators and accumulators to adjust SerDes settings. A comparator receives the same input as a SerDes component to compare to a threshold while an accumulator counts the number of comparator events greater or less than the threshold for use in adjusting the component. Traditional calibration is done without regard to the accuracy of received bits relative to transmitted bits. The characteristics of transmitted data bits and patterns, e.g., frequency, edge, and errors in received characteristics, are not factored into calibration. Thus, traditional calibration is coarse, incapable of making fine adjustments. As a result, bit error rate (BER) may remain unacceptably high. A substantial quantity of input comparators may also increase the capacitive load of the input circuit.


A compactor includes test data inputs that are connectable to circuit outputs of an electrical circuit, test comparison inputs, and test data outputs. The compactor further includes a number of H matrix XOR gates arranged as a switching mechanism between the test data inputs and the test data outputs such that data applied to the test data inputs is produced at the test data outputs compressed in accordance with coefficients of an H matrix of an error-correcting code, and compensation XOR gates arranged between the test data inputs and the test data outputs, each compensation XOR gate including an input for receiving a compensation value.

It is typical for modern VLSI circuits to have a very large number of outputs and, in particular, a very large number of outputs of scan paths. DE 195 36 226 A1 discloses how errors can be identified by supplying an external comparison vector in the test mode, by direct comparison of the actual test results at the outputs of the circuit with a comparison vector which is supplied to the circuit. When an error is identified, the result of the bit-by-bit comparison is emitted, once again bit-by-bit, in order to diagnose the result. In this case, the respective externally supplied comparison vector has the same word length as the test response vector which is emitted from the tested circuit and as the test results which are produced at the circuit output. The procedure described in the aforementioned document is accordingly complex for circuits having a large number of outputs. The long word length of the supplied test vector which is required in this case, the bit-by-bit comparison for the large number of bits to be compared and, in the case of diagnosis, the outputting of the large number of bits are in this case complex. This becomes clear if one considers circuits with about 1,000 to 2,000 outputs which, for example, may be outputs of scan paths. These outputs must be monitored during testing and, all the more, during diagnosis. Furthermore, the number of test input vectors is frequently on the order of several hundred to several thousand test vectors. A further disadvantage is that this method cannot be used in all situations.
DE 101 37 745 describes the storage of diagnosis data on a chip. However, this is not feasible with modern chips, owing to the additional area requirement.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Circuit for compression and storage of circuit diagnosis data


A radio communications system has subscriber stations and a base station that is provided with an antenna system with a plurality of antenna elements that emit a downlink signal in a weighted manner with coefficients of a weighting vector. In order to form a beam, a plurality of weighting vectors is determined at the subscriber station and the determined weighting vectors are transmitted to the base station. In a subsequent working phase, the subscriber station selects a dominant vector among the determined weighting vectors and transmits an indicator of the selected weighting vector to the base station.

The invention relates to a method for beamforming in a radio communications system having a base station whose associated antenna device has a number of antenna elements, so that spatial resolution is possible in the beamforming.
In radio communications systems, messages (speech, picture information or other data) are transmitted via transmission channels by electromagnetic waves (radio interface). The transmission takes place both in the downlink direction from the base station to the subscriber station and in the uplink direction from the subscriber station to the base station.
Signals which are transmitted using electromagnetic waves are subject, inter alia, to disturbances due to interference during their propagation in a propagation medium. Disturbances caused by noise may be caused, inter alia, by noise in the input state of the receiver. Due to diffraction and reflections, signal components pass over different propagation paths. Firstly, this means that a signal can arrive at the receiver more than once, in each case from different directions, with different delays, attenuations and phase angles, and, secondly, components of the received signal may be superimposed coherently with changing phase relationships in the receiver, leading to cancellation effects on a short-term timescale (fast fading) there.
DE 197 12 549 A1 discloses the use of intelligent antennas (smart antennas), that is to antenna arrangements having a number of antenna elements, in order to increase the transmission capacity in the uplink direction. These allow the antenna gain to be deliberately aligned in a direction from which the uplink signal is coming.
Various methods for spatial signal separation for the uplink and downlink directions are known from A. J. Paulraj, C. B. Papadias, "Space-time processing for wireless communications", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, November 1997, pages 49–83.
Particular difficulties occur in the downlink direction, that is to say from the base station to the subscriber station, since the beamforming has to be carried out before the transmitted signals are influenced by the radio channel. An algorithm for beamforming in the downlink direction is known from R, Schmalenberger, J. J. Blanz, "A comparison of two different algorithms for multi antenna C/I balancing", Proc. 2nd European Personal Mobile Communications Conference (EPMCC), Bonn, Germany, September 1997, pages 483–490, which is based on a direct propagation path (visual link) between the base stations and the subscriber stations and iterative calculation of beamforming vectors. The entire, complicated, iterative calculation must be repeated whenever the characteristics of the transmission channel change.
DE 198 03 188 A discloses a method in which a spatial covariance matrix is defined for a link from a base station to a subscriber station. An eigen vector is calculated in the base station from the covariance matrix, and is used as a beamforming vector for that link. The transmission signals for the link are weighted with the beamforming vector and are supplied to antenna elements for emission. Intracell interference is not included in the beamforming process owing to the use of joint detection, for example in the terminals, and any corruption of the received signals by intercell interference is negligible.
In an environment with multipath propagation, this method clearly determines a propagation path with good transmission characteristics and concentrates the transmission power of the base station physically on this propagation path. However, using this approach, it is impossible to prevent the possibility of interference on this transmission path leading to signal cancelation, and hence to interruptions in the transmission, in the short term.
The recommendations from the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project, http://ww.3gpp.org) therefore provide methods in which the subscriber station estimates a short term channel impulse response hm for the channel from the m-th antenna element to the subscriber station, and calculates weighting factors wm which intended to be used for weighting the transmission signal before it is transmitted by the m-th antenna element. Corresponding concepts are also dealt with in M. Raitola, A. Hottinen and R. Wichmann, "Transmission diversity in wideband CDMA", which appeared in the Proceedings of the 49th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf. Spring (VTC 99 Spring), pages 1545–1549, Houston, Tex. 1999.
One serious problem with this procedure is that the vector of the weighting factors which is estimated by the subscriber station must be transmitted to the base station and that, in accordance with the Recommendations from the 3GPP, only a narrow bandwidth of 1 bit per time slot (slot) is available for this purpose. The vectors can thus be transmitted in only a coarsely quantized form. If the channel changes quickly and the weights need to be updated from one time slot to the next, only two different relative phase angles of the antenna elements can be set. If the channel is changing relatively slowly and, for example, four time slots are available for transmission of the vector, 16 different values of the vector can then be represented.
However, the known concepts reach their limits when the number of antenna elements at the base station is greater than 2, since the bandwidth which is required for transmission of the vector increases with its number of components, that is to say with the number of antenna elements. This means that, although a large number of antenna elements would be desirable on the one hand in order to make it possible to align the transmission beam as accurately as possible, the limited available bandwidth on the other hand means that the weighting vector cannot be updated sufficiently often as would be necessary for matching to fast fading.


A new and distinct Begonia rex named ‘Fedor’ is disclosed, characterized by its unique silver foliage with dark veins, medium sized leaves and ease of propagation. The new cultivar is a Begonia rex, typically suited for ornamental container use.

The new cultivar is the result of a planned breeding program of Begonia rex. The new variety originated from the crossing of the female parent, the unpatented variety of Begonia rex 'Volcano' with the pollen parent, the unpatented proprietary seedling referred to as 'U288.' The new variety was discovered by the inventor in the summer of 2005 at a commercial greenhouse in Lent, the Netherlands.
After selecting and isolating the new cultivar, asexual reproduction of the new cultivar 'Fedor' was first performed in the same commercial greenhouse by vegetative cuttings in the winter of 2005. 'Fedor' has since produced several generations and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type.


A system and process for removing contaminants from water and wastewater, where the water or wastewater is transformed into purified water that can be discharged to the environment. Wastewater is transported through several stations for purification, including an electrochemical cell.

The present invention relates generally to the field of water and wastewater treatment systems, and more particularly to systems utilizing an electrochemical cell to facilitate flocculation of particles in the water or wastewater to permit the discharge of treated wastewater to the environment or purification of potable water.
Contamination occurring in aqueous-based solutions has become a serious concern to society. In particular, problems associated with the disposal of industrial wastewater have been mounting. Disposing of the wastewater is not only very expensive and time consuming, but also extremely harmful to the environment. Some areas of concern in the disposal of wastewater, which are particularly suited to treatment using the subject system, are:
a. Removal of emulsified oils, both petroleum hydrocarbons and food base oils.
b. Partially dissolved contaminants which add to turbidity and color of water.
c. Negatively charged metals such as arsenic, molybdenum, and chromium.
d. Positively charged heavy metals such as copper, cadmium, nickel, lead, and zinc.
e. Contaminants such as ammonia, mercury, arsenic and iron which react with oxygen.
f. Contaminants which react with aluminum or iron such as chlorinated organics.
g. Poorly settling TSS (total suspended solids) such as silt, ink, wood extractives, clay and microorganisms.
One example of a particular contaminant of concern is petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants in shipyard wastewater, including the oily wastewater resulting from cleaning out ship bilges and fuel tanks. The primary concern with this wastewater is finding an effective method for its disposal. While various methods have been developed to deal with this oily waste, none have been entirely successful given the extremely varied nature and content of the contaminants in the water, with oil content ranging anywhere from 0.5% to 50% in volume. Included among the methods attempting to control these waste streams are a wide variety of chemical and physical procedures.
Chemical procedures have attempted to cause a predetermined reaction between chemical additives and impurities contained within the waste stream. The most common reactions are designed to cause the impurities and the chemical additives to coagulate, wherein the particles increase in size and then separate by either floating on or settling below the treated water. The most popular chemical utilized is alum, which when added to the wastewater, separates much of the waste out of the water. There are several problems with chemical coagulation in general, including the generation of very large quantities of residuals that need to be disposed of and imprecision because the amount of chemical necessary for a given volume must always be estimated due to the varying nature of the waste streams.
Physical procedures are designed to achieve similar results as chemical additive procedures, but to a lesser degree of purity in the final aqueous solution. Filters, centrifuges, plate separators, and clarifiers are the most common physical procedures employed to remove contaminants from aqueous solutions. In most cases, the impurities that are removed physically are suspended solids or poorly emulsified contaminants.
While the chemical and physical procedures of treating waste streams were thought to be adequate at one time, the results of disposal of solutions treated in this manner have been disastrous. Oceans, streams, lakes and underground wells have all fallen victim to the contamination resulting from the impurities that were not removed by these methods. In fact, because of the dumping of contaminated solutions, many rivers and streams are considered waste sites and entire lakes have been drained so that the lakebeds can be hauled away to be treated as hazardous waste. The main problem is that regardless of whether chemical procedures, physical procedures, or a combination of the two are utilized, the content of impurities in the wastewater remains in an unacceptable range.
While it was known that the purification of waste streams, and in particular the coagulation of contaminants without the addition of chemicals, could be accomplished through electrolytic treatment in a process called electrocoagulation, the wide range of contaminants, varying contaminant concentrations and large and variable volumes of wastewater in the industrial waste streams generally discouraged its use. However, patents directed to electrolytic treatment apparatuses, methods and systems can be found dating back to the early part of this century. Electrocoagulation is the process of de-stabilizing suspended, emulsified or dissolved contaminants in an aqueous medium by introducing an electrical current into the medium. Electrocoagulation generally takes place inside a substantially sealed treatment chamber, where the impurities are coagulated out of the aqueous medium.
Many other systems and cells have been disclosed and patented, each trying to convert contaminated water to purified water by separating the contaminants from the water. Unfortunately, none of these systems have been able to solve the problems of variability, number and concentration of contaminants associated with the treatment of industrial wastewater. These previous systems created large quantities of metal sludge and other contaminant sludge that added to the cost of disposal. Even systems that were able to overcome these problems had other problems such as high labor cost (batch and dump methods); large areas necessary for increased residence time, and high capital costs due to electrical power and maintenance (on-line electrical systems); and low efficiency (dilution with non-conductive materials). Other systems suffered from design problems such as not accounting for the production of generated gases or the build up of impurities onto the working electrodes, or creating an electrolytic cell that is too complex and which cannot be easily maintained.
Accordingly, there is a need for a wastewater treatment system and process that removes contaminants, such as petroleum hydrocarbons, resulting in a product with impurities of considerably less than 15 parts per million (PPM), that is cost effective, energy conscious, easy to use and easy to maintain.
The present invention is directed to a treatment for water and wastewater and a process for removal of contaminants by utilizing chemical, mechanical, and electrolytic devices.
It is an object of this invention to provide a treatment system and process of removal that removes impurities from water and wastewater.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a treatment system and process of removal of contaminants from wastewater that is cost effective and energy efficient.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a treatment system and process of removal of contaminants from water and wastewater that is easy to use and easy to maintain.
In general, the subject invention has potential application to treat water and wastewater rather than using chemical methods such as inorganic cationic coagulants including the salts of aluminum (aluminum sulfate or xe2x80x9calumxe2x80x9d, aluminum chloride, or poly aluminum chloride), iron (chlorides or sulfates), or calcium (chlorides or sulfates). In addition, sediments may be removed in the preparation of potable water. The subject invention may also be used as an aid to clarify water following biological treatment of wastewater.
A more complete understanding of the waste water treatment system and process for the removal of contaminants will be afforded to those skilled in the art, as well as a realization of additional advantages and objects thereof, by a consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments. Reference will be made to the appended sheets of drawings, which will first be described briefly.

Water and wastewater treatment system and process for contaminant removal


The cap-integrated pumping type cosmetic container is provided, which has features in that as a cap integrated with a rotation member ascends and descends when a rotation member engaged to the top of a container body rotates, a discharge port is opened and closed, so the present invention makes it possible to open and close the discharge port in an easier way.

The present invention relates to a cap-integrated pumping type cosmetic container, and in particular to a cap-integrated pumping type cosmetic container in which a cap integrated with a rotation member ascends and descends when a rotation member engaged to the top of a container body rotates, for thereby opening and closing a discharge port, which makes it possible to open and close a discharge port in an easier way.
A pumping type cosmetic container is generally designed to discharge contents outside with the aid of a pumping operation of a pumping member engaged to the top of a container body. The pumping type cosmetic container comprises a container body which stores contents, a pumping member which is engaged to the top of the container body and makes the interior of the container body a vacuum state for thereby pumping up the contents with the aid of the pumping operation, and a button part which is positioned at the top of the pumping member and ascends and descends as a user pressurizes for thereby transferring a pressure to the pumping member.
The thusly constituted pumping type cosmetic container has features in that an over cap is engaged to the top of the container body and is detachable covering the button part for the purpose of preventing impurities from being inputted through a discharge hole formed at the button part and preventing the error operations of the pumping member which happen as the button part is pressurized irrespective of a user's intention.
Since the above mentioned over cap is detachably engaged to the container body, the over cap may be detached and lost or the over cap may be damaged due to a user's carelessness in a state that the over cap is disengaged.
The Korean Utility Model Registration No. 20-0345994 discloses "a cosmetic container with an appearing and disappearing type discharge port which is designed to improve the problems encountered in the earlier described cosmetic container.
The above mentioned Utility Model has features in that the cosmetic container characterized in that a discharge port engaged to a pump body of a container appears and disappears from an outer container as the container with the pump body ascends and descends in the outer container comprises:
an outer container configured in such a way that an input concave groove into which a discharge port engaged to a stem of the pump body of the container passes through the center of the top whose shoulder portion is smoothly curved, and at the bottom of the inner side is formed in an opposing direction a vertical guide groove guiding in a vertical direction a vertical guide protrusion formed at an intermediate portion of the outer surface of the container, and a rotation cap is undercut-engaged to the bottom and has a helical groove guiding the guide protrusion of the bottom of the container; and
a container configured in such a way that to its top is engaged a pump body which mounts a discharge port 123 positioned at the input concave groove of the outer container, and at its intermediate portion of the outer surface is formed a vertical guide protrusion positioned at the vertical guide groove of the outer container, and at its lower side is formed a guide protrusion which is guided by the helical groove of the rotation cap when it ascends and descends.
The above described Utility Model has features in that as the rotation cap rotates, the guide protrusion of the container inserted in the helical groove of the rotation cap moves along the helical groove, so the container can ascend and descend. Since the discharge port is configured to appear and disappear from the outer container as the container ascends and descends, the error operations of the pumping member can be prevented unless an over cap is additionally provided, and the impurities can be prevented from inputting inside through the discharge hole.
The above described Utility Model is configured in a dual container structure formed of a container which stores contents, and an outer container containing the container, so the container itself storing the contents can ascend and descends by means of the rotation of the rotation cap. In this case, it is not easy to open and close the discharge port 123 due to the weight of the container.
The above described Utility Model is formed in a dual container structure, so the number of necessary parts increases, which leads to the increased manufacture costs. For the complicated assembling structures, productivity is bad.

Cap-integrated pumping type cosmetic container


An automatic trim control system for a marine jet drive adjusts trim in response to water pressure in the jet drive duct immediately upstream of the impeller. The preferred system includes a mechanical actuator consisting of a spring biased link rod mounted to a resilient diaphragm located in an actuator housing. The diaphragm separates the chamber within the housing into a front portion and a rear portion. The front portion of the housing communicates through a water pressure tap line with the water pressure in the jet drive duct immediately upstream of the impeller. When the watercraft is traveling at high speeds on plane, water pressure in the jet drive duct is sufficient to push the diaphragm rearward against the spring biasing force, thus positioning the jet drive in a trim-up position. However, when the watercraft is accelerating at low speeds and the impeller is creating suction within the jet drive duct, water pressure within the front portion of the chamber of the actuator housing is insufficient to push the link rod against the spring biasing force and the jet drive remains in a trim-down position. Alternatively, a pressure sensor and an electronically controlled servomotor trim actuator can be used to carry out the invention.

Marine jet drives are used in many applications, including propulsion for personal watercraft and jet boats. Marine jet drives typically have an engine driven jet pump located within a duct in the hull of the watercraft. A jet of water exits the duct rearward of the watercraft to propel the watercraft. The jet pump generally consists of an impeller and a stator located within the duct followed by a nozzle. The impeller is driven by the engine and rotates within a wear ring which forms a portion of the duct. The rotating impeller provides thrust energy to the water flowing through the jet drive. The water then flows through the stator and the nozzle before exiting rearward through a generally tubular rudder that can be rotated about a vertical axis to steer the watercraft.
To improve acceleration at low speeds, it is often desirable to trim the tubular rudder downward. In other words, it is often desirable to rotate the tubular rudder downward about a horizontal trim axis so that the jet of water exiting rearward of the watercraft has a downward angle of discharge. The downward angle of discharge tends to hold the bow of the watercraft lower in the water as the watercraft transitions to on plane. Without trimming the jet drive downward, some hull configurations are likely to pitch up, which is not only unstable, but also reduces speed of acceleration.
The accelerating pitch for the watercraft can change dramatically depending on the weight in the watercraft, especially in personal watercraft.
The term "porpoising" is used in the art to describe oscillations of the longitudinal pitch attitude of the watercraft with respect to the surface of the water. Without trimming the jet drive downward, the watercraft bow will normally oscillate between a relatively high position and a relatively low position. The period of these oscillations can vary depending on the watercraft and conditions, but one cycle per second would be a typical rate of oscillation.
When the watercraft accelerates to the point that the watercraft is on plane, it is no longer desirable to trim the jet drive downward to the degree required for acceleration. When the watercraft is on plane, excess downward trim of the jet drive simply wastes thrust and compromises watercraft performance. The planing speed for watercraft normally changes with respect to the weight in the watercraft. For instance, in a personal watercraft having one person, the planing speed is typically about 15 mph. On the other hand, if two or three people are on the personal watercraft, the planing speed may be 20-25 mph. In addition, heavily loaded watercraft typically have a higher pitch attitude during low speed acceleration before the watercraft is on plane.
Both manual trim adjustment systems and automatic trim adjustment systems are known in the art. The invention is an improved automatic jet drive trim adjustment system.

Automatic trim control system for jet propelled watercraft


A portable electronic unit has a transmission-side section that transmits a signal and a receiving-side section that receives a signal from the transmission-side section. The receiving-side section includes a gain control amplification device that amplifies and outputs a signal from the transmission-side section. The gain control amplification device has a first amplification circuit that amplifies and outputs a signal from the transmission-side section, a detection circuit that detects and outputs a signal from the first amplification circuit, a gain control amplification circuit that amplifies and outputs a signal from the detection circuit, and a gain control circuit that controls a gain in the gain control amplification circuit in response to a level of a signal from the detection circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to portable electronic units and, more specifically, to a portable electronic unit having transmission-side means for transmitting a signal and receiving-side means for receiving a signal from the transmission-side means, at least one of which is carried and used by a user, and to a portable electronic unit used as a portable biological information measurement unit such as a heart rate meter for measuring biological information such as a heart beat, for example.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, portable biological information measurement apparatuses have been developed for measuring human biological information about heart beats, pulses, and the number of steps taken. The portable biological information measurement apparatus typically has transmission-side means for detecting and wirelessly transmitting biological information about a user and receiving-side means for receiving and reporting biological information from the transmission-side means. A user of the portable biological information measurement apparatus carries and uses at least one of the transmission-side means and receiving-side means thereof.
For example, a portable heart rate measurement apparatus has been developed, which is a kind of a portable biological information measurement apparatus. The heart rate meter itself for detecting a heart beat and wirelessly transmitting heart rate information is pressed and attached to the chest of the user with a chest belt. A wristwatch type unit is used, which has a receiving portion and a reporting portion. Heart rate information from the heart rate meter is received by the receiving portion of the wristwatch type unit and reported by the reporting portion thereof.
The receiving portion typically includes an antenna for converting an electric wave signal received from the heart rate meter into voltage, a high-frequency amplification circuit for amplifying a miniature voltage generated at the antenna, a detection circuit for detecting an amplified signal, a low-frequency amplification circuit and a comparator for demodulating heart rate data. The configuration described above allows the user to know heart rate information detected by the heart rate meter using the wristwatch type unit located away from the heart rate meter itself.
If an electric wave is radiated from a miniature dipole antenna, the electric field strength Eθ at a point a distance r away from the antenna is expressed by the following equation:Eθ=j·(60πl/λ)·Ie(−jβr)·(1/r+1/(jβr2)+1/((jβ)2r3))If, for example, a long wave signal with a signal frequency of about 100 kHz is used, in short-range communications within 1 m or less, a change in electric field strength reaches about 30 dB in a range of 10 cm to 100 cm and increases to 60 dB, another 30 dB up in a range of 1 to 10 cm. To allow data receipt at a distance of 1 m, a receiving circuit requires an amplification degree of at least 60 dB. A change in a communication distance between the transmission side and the receiving side from 1 cm to 1 m will result in a change in input voltage of 60 dB or so at the receiving side.
Meanwhile, a large number of battery-powered portable units cannot take a dynamic range because these portable units have a low source voltage of 2 to 3V. For a receiving circuit with a fixed gain, a change in data pulse width will therefore result, which may cause a problem that a digital signal cannot be demodulated accurately during short-range communications.
To solve the problem described above, a method is commonly used in which a gain control amplification circuit is used in a receiving circuit.
In the invention described in Non-Patent Document 1. a high-frequency amplification circuit is composed of a transistor-based gain control amplification circuit. A gain is controlled by controlling a collector current (or emitter current) of the transistor.
This allows the construction of a gain control amplification circuit having a relatively simple configuration. However, such a gain control amplification circuit requires a large collector current (e.g., 0.5 to 2 mA), thus resulting in problematic large power consumption. The use of a transformer in the high-frequency amplification circuit also makes it problematically difficult to reduce the size of such a circuit, for example.
In an automatic gain control unit described in Patent Document 2, the control amplifier is controlled using an automatic gain control section that uses an output signal from a mixer, i. e., a signal from the upstream side of the intermediate-frequency filter. The automatic gain control section includes a particular weighting filter, which is connected to the output side of the mixer to output a control signal for a control amplifier for gain control through a detector. The detector is an average-value or peak-value rectifier that includes a diode and a capacitor connected to the downstream side thereof.
The configuration described above allows gain control. Besides a detection circuit for signals received, however, a separate detection circuit for gain control is required, which problematically makes the configuration of the unit complicated and the unit expensive.
In addition, the high-frequency amplification circuit will require gain control. The use of the same circuit configuration as described in the above-mentioned Non-Patent Document 1 will therefore raise problems as described above, such as larger consumption.
<Non-Patent Document 1> Transistor Technology, published by CQ Publishing Co., Ltd., Vol. 350. page 351. October 1998
<Patent Document 2> JP-T-2005-513903. paragraphs (0011) to (0019), FIG. 1
The present invention contemplates eliminating the problems described above. An object of the invention is to provide a portable electronic unit that consumes less power. Another object of the invention is to provide a portable electronic unit that has a smaller size.


A condom for detection of STDs, including an interior condom surface having a control band and a test band, and an exterior condom surface that also has a control band and test band. Each test band allows binding and subsequent detection of STD antigens. A separate developing antibody produces a color change if bound to the antigen/antibody conjugate. The developing antibody may be present on the condom or applied separately after use.

Condoms are used during sexual acts both to prevent pregnancy and to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (also referred to as sexually transmitted infections). This is effected by preventing the exchange of bodily fluids between sexual partners. Currently, marketed condoms do not make the man wearing a condom or his partner informed about the presence of agents associated with sexually transmitted diseases.


Methods of manufacturing a diagnostic layer containing an array of sensing elements. The sensing elements, associated wires, and any accompanying circuit elements, are incorporated various layers of a thin, flexible substrate. This substrate can then be affixed to a structure so that the array of sensing elements can analyze the structure in accordance with structural health monitoring techniques. The substrate can also be designed to be incorporated into the body of the structure itself, such as in the case of composite structures.

The diagnostics and monitoring of structures, such as that carried out in the structural health monitoring field, are often accomplished by employing arrays of sensing elements. Such sensing elements, i.e., various types of sensors, actuators, and the like, detect and analyze the behavior and response of various structures. Accordingly, structures often must have a variety of sensing elements placed at various locations. Because individual sensing elements must often be placed separately, affixing a large array of such sensing elements can be tedious and time consuming. In addition, as each individual sensing element can require one or, commonly, multiple wires, large arrays of sensing elements can require a large number of individual wires, which may be difficult to handle and keep track of. The securing of such large numbers of wires can often be painstaking and time consuming, as well.
It is therefore desirable to package such sensing elements and their wires together in such a manner that the abovementioned difficulties are avoided, or at least reduced. Similarly, it is also desirable to develop methods of achieving such packaging. In this manner, the need to handle large numbers of sensing elements individually can be reduced, thus increasing the speed and efficiency with which structures can be prepared for structural health monitoring.

Method of manufacturing a structural health monitoring layer


An electronic ballast circuit for a discharge lamp, comprising a plurality of transistors connected in series across a DC power line, a driving circuit for alternately turning on/off the transistors and a first LC series resonance circuit connected to an output of the driving circuit, the first LC series resonance circuit having a coil and a plurality of condensers. According to the invention, the electronic ballast circuit comprises a damping circuit connected across the coil for absorbing an instantaneously excessive preheating current or a high voltage pulse. The electronic ballast circuit also comprises a plurality of impulse voltage absorbing devices connected at their one sides to an output side of the coil and at their other sides to a high frequency zero potential point of the DC power line for absorbing a contact high voltage pulse generated across the discharge lamp. The electronic ballast circuit further comprises a second LC series resonance circuit connected across the discharge lamp for enhancing a crest factor of a current flowing through the discharge lamp. Therefore, filaments of the discharge lamp are not subjected to a damage resulting from a high crest factor current or a high voltage pulse. This results in an increase in the life of the discharge lamp.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to electronic ballast circuits for discharge lamps, and more particularly to an electronic ballast circuit for a discharge lamp which is capable of preventing blackening of the discharge lamp to lengthen the life of the discharge lamp.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a discharge lamp of the cathode-preheating type such as a fluorescent lamp, an excessively large amount of preheating current may instantaneously be applied to both preheating cathode electrodes or filaments of the discharge lamp at the start of lighting of the discharge lamp, or a high voltage pulse may be applied to the filaments of the discharge lamp before normal preheating, as shown in FIG. 3A. Also, supply power across the discharge lamp must be turned on/off when the discharge lamp is to be replaced with a new one under the condition that it remains at its lighted state as an electronic ballast circuit therefor is operated. In this case, a contact high voltage pulse or spark may be generated across the discharge lamp, as shown in FIG. 4A. The high voltage pulse causes a thermion emitting material coated on the filaments such as a barium oxide to be broken away from the filaments, being evaporated or damaged. The thermion emitting material broken-away from the filaments causes a fluorescent material applied in the discharge lamp to be transformed resulting in blackening of the discharge lamp. The life of the discharge lamp is shortened due to the blackening. Moreover, the high voltage pulse exerts a bad influence on components in a circuit for lighting the discharge lamp, namely, damages the circuit components.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a circuit diagram of a conventional electronic ballast circuit for a discharge lamp. In operation, upon application of a commercial alternating current (AC) power to a well-known rectifying circuit, a rectified direct current (DC) voltage from the rectifying circuit is applied across transistors Q1 and Q2 in different polarities. At this time, a high frequency current is generated from the transistors Q1 and Q2 and then flows to a LC series resonance circuit which is comprised of a coil L1 and condensers C1-C3. The high frequency current through the LC series resonance circuit is instantaneously applied by an excessively large amount to filaments H1 and H2 of the discharge lamp, as shown in FIG. 3A, resulting from a voltage multiplied by a Q value of the LC series resonance circuit. The instantaneously large amount of current results in generation of a very high pulse voltage multiplied by the Q value of the LC series resonance circuit across the condenser C1. As mentioned above, the filaments of the discharge lamp are subjected to the damage resulting from the high voltage pulse.
A non-sinusoidal wave or distorted wave current flows through the discharge lamp even upon application of a sinusoidal wave voltage across the discharge lamp because the discharge lamp has a negative resistance according to its natural characteristic. For this reason, the current flowing through the discharge lamp is high in crest factor even in the normal lighting of the discharge lamp, thereby causing the thermion emitting material coated on the filaments to be broken away from the filaments. The thermion emitting material broken-away from the filaments causes the fluorescent material applied in the discharge lamp to be transformed resulting in the blackening of the discharge lamp. As a result, the life of the discharge lamp is shortened due to the blackening.

Electronic ballast circuit for discharge lamp


In an approach, a processor, in response to detecting a new customer resource (CR) file: requests, the computing environment to deploy a plurality of function deployment components in the computing environment, where: the CR file indicates information of a plurality of functions of an application; the plurality of function deployment components request the computing environment to deploy a plurality of function components in the computing environment; and the plurality of function components execute the plurality of functions of the application; determines that each of the plurality of function components has been deployed in the computing environment; and in response to determining that each of the plurality of function components has been deployed in the computing environment, requests the computing environment to delete each of the plurality of deployed function deployment components.

The present invention relates generally to the field of cloud computing technologies, and more particularly to application deployment in a cloud computing environment.
Cloud computing environments, such as Kubernetes or other cloud computing environments, are widely used today. A growing number of applications may need to be deployed in cloud computing environments. In addition, information technology (IT) architectures used by these applications may also be moved to modern cloud computing environments.
A disadvantage of current solutions is that single operators and single customer resources are used. Multiple threads are not supported and roles are processed sequentially resulting in time consuming deployment.

Application updating in a computing environment using a function deployment component

International Business Machines Corporation


A priority queue structure and algorithm for managing the structure which in most cases performs in constant time. In other words, most of the time the inventive algorithm performs its work in an amount of time that is independent on the number of priority classes or elements that exist in the queue. The queue itself consists of a linked list of elements ordered into subqueues corresponding to priority classes, with higher priority subqueues appearing earlier in the queue. An array of priority pointers contains an entry for each subqueue that points to the last element of each subqueue. Elements are removed for processing from the top of the queue. Removal takes constant time. Items are inserted into an appropriate subqueue by linking it at the end of its respective subqueue. The only case that requires a variable amount of time depending on the length of the queue and the number of priority classes occurs when an item is added to an empty subqueue which is of lower priority than the element at the top of the queue. All subsequent additions to that subqueue consume constant time until the subqueue becomes empty once again. A feature of the invention prevents the possibility of perpetually locking out lower priority items in the queue by promoting the priority of a preempted item residing directly below a newly inserted item on the queue.

A priority queue is a queue in which queue elements, items that each represent a task to be served, are stored and serviced according to different levels of priority that are assigned to different ones of the queue elements. There are a number of known ways of managing priority queues. The most obvious way is to assign a separate queue to each priority class and service each queue separately according to its priority class. This method has serious performance limitations when there are more than just a few priority classes. Algorithms for managing priority queues are described in many text books, such as DATA STRUCTURES and ALGORITHMS, Aho et al, Addison-Wesley, 1983, Section 4.10-4.11; and ALGORITHMS, Sedgewick, Addison-Wesley, 1983, Chapter 11.
Sedgewick describes the conventional data structure, called a heap, heretofore considered the most efficient for a priority queue able to handle an unlimited number of priority classes. A heap is a tree structure with each node of the tree having at most two child nodes. Nodes represent transactions and each has a priority class. Nodes are added at the first available position progressing left to right and top to bottom through the heap. The heap must follow the rule that a parent node can have a priority class which must be equal to or greater than the priorities of its children. When a node is added to the first available position left to right and top to bottom, the above rule respecting the priorities of parents and children may be broken. If this is true after a node is added, the algorithm then exchanges the added node with its parent. If the rule is still broken with respect to the parent and its parent, the exchange is repeated for these two nodes, and so on up the tree, until all nodes satisfy the rule. It can be shown that this heap algorithm performs in O(Log N) time, where N represents the number of nodes of the heap. In many real implementations of priority queues and heaps, the number of priority classes can become quite large, often in the hundreds. In such situations, it is often true that the processing time for managing priority queues and heaps still represents too much of system resources. Thus, a need exists to further improve the operation of priority queues.


A marking system may hold a container from which markers are dispensed and identify a marker characteristic regarding the markers in the container. The marking system may also receive activation of a trigger, dispense a marker from the container when the trigger is activated, and store the marker characteristic and time data when the trigger is activated.

Underground man-made objects, such as utility lines and pipes (hereinafter "utility lines"), are very susceptible to damage from excavation activities. Local and federal laws require that notification be given to owners of underground utility lines in an area to be excavated before any excavation takes place. The owners of the utility lines typically must locate and mark the location of any underground utility lines.
The tasks of locating and marking underground utility lines can be performed by either the utility line owner or by third party contractors. A marking tool is typically used to mark the ground, pavement or other surfaces in order to provide a visual indication of the location of underground utilities. Paint is commonly used as the marker, and it is typically applied using a paint marking tool. The color of the paint is typically chosen based on the type of utility line being marked (e.g., red for a power line). However, other types of markers, such as other types of liquids, flags and stakes are also used, and different visual or other characteristics of the marker are used for representing different types of underground utility lines. For example, the color, shape or other characteristic of a flag marker can represent a particular type of underground utility line (e.g., a square shaped flag can be used to mark a power line).
When paint is used as the marker, a worker marks the location of an underground utility line using a paint marking tool to spray paint on the ground above the utility line. The paint marking tools typically used have a paint canister holder that is adapted to hold a single aerosol can of paint in an axial orientation with respect to the long axis of the aerosol can. The paint marking tool is typically designed to enable a user to walk or stand erect while dispensing the paint.
When an underground utility line is located, the worker will load a paint can of the appropriate color for the utility line being marked into the paint marking tool. When it is time to mark a different type of utility line, the worker must change the paint can to one of the appropriate color for the new utility line being marked.


The present disclosure is directed toward regulation of voltage for semiconductor memories. In an embodiment, a circuit for providing a controlled voltage level comprises a PMOS transistor coupled to a first voltage coupler (VPP), the gate of the PMOS transistor being coupled to the drain of the PMOS transistor; a MOS sub-threshold current source, coupled to a second voltage coupler (ground); and a bias independent current source coupled to the MOS sub-threshold current source and the PMOS transistor intermediate the MOS sub-threshold current source and the PMOS transistor. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract which will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

Variances in process, temperature, and/or voltage may affect operational characteristics of the circuits fabricated by the processing. Prior art methods and circuits often use negative and positive temperature effect current sources to bias a detection circuit to ameliorate variances caused by process used, temperature, and/or voltage variations. This, however, often focuses only on temperature compensation and/or on voltage tracking. Often a bipolar device is used to generate a positive temperature effect current source.
In the described examples, the positive supply voltage is designated as supply voltage VDD and the ground supply voltage, having a nominal value of 0 Volts is designated as supply voltage VSS.
FIG. 1 is a representation of a prior art DRAM memory cell. The memory cell includes a p-channel access transistor 101 and a p-channel storage transistor 102 that is configured as a storage capacitor. The gate of the access transistor 101 is connected to word line 103 and the drain of the access transistor 101 is connected to the bit line 105. The source of access transistor 101 is coupled to the source region of transistor 102. The gate of transistor 102 is connected to receive a negative boosted bias voltage VBB. The Bias voltage VBB is limited by the break down voltage of the gate oxide of capacitor 102 and the highest voltage stored on the electrode. In general, bias voltage VBB is set to a voltage that is greater V1 minus Vbd. In general V1 is equal to the positive supply voltage VDD. N-well is biased to a boosted positive voltage VPP that is greater than the VDD supply voltage by a voltage that is approximately equal to the absolute value of the threshold voltage of p-channel access transistor 101.
Certain voltage levels, e.g. VPP, need to be at desired levels in order for the circuit (FIG. 1, for example) to work correctly. VPP needs to be at a level that will turn off a transfer gate well, VBB needs to be deep enough to turn on transfer gates, and so on. However, at fast corner processing, for example, or at high temperature, threshold voltages may shrink, meaning a gate may be turned on with a shallower voltage VBB but may need a greater voltage VPP to turn off the gate. The inverse may be true at slow corner processing. Therefore, VPP often needs to track VDD variations, e.g. maintain a constant voltage differential.
Table 1 is an example of desired VPP and VBB levels for variation in operations, temperature vs. baseline conditions which reflect the events above.
TABLE 1ConditionsDesired VPPDesired VBBBaseline @ 25° C., VDDVPPVBBProcessSlow cornerDecrease VPPIncrease VBBFast cornerIncrease VPPDecrease VBBTemperature@ 125° C.Increase VPPDecrease VBB@−40° C.Decrease VPPIncrease VBBSupply Voltage+20% VDD+20% VDDVBB−20% VDD−20% VDDVBB
A problem with the prior art is that the methods and circuits used to compensate for process-voltage-temperature (PVT) variations cannot reflect real world demands placed in word line voltage in the existence of process variations. For example, the prior art methods and circuits cannot work for a low voltage process because of the numerous components, e.g. two MOS transistors, a resistor, and a bipolar transistor connected in series between VDD and VSS voltage sources for positive temperature effect current source.
Further, often the prior art maintains voltages at set levels, e.g. VPP=VDD+|VTP| and VBB=VSS−|VTP|. If the threshold voltage VTP becomes small, such as from environmental changes, off-currents may increase due to a smaller turn off voltage operated in a leaky condition. FIGS. 2 through 4 are representative of prior art solutions.
FIG. 2 is a prior art VPP detection circuit which uses INTE and IPTE current sources. FIGS. 3a and 3b are prior art current sources associated with prior art solutions, such as shown in FIGS. 2 and 4. FIG. 3a shows a prior art circuit for INTE and FIG. 3b shows a prior art circuit for IPTE where INTE=|VTP|/R is negative and IPTE=kT/q×Ln(m) is positive. FIG. 4 is a prior art VBB detection circuit. These prior art solutions use negative and positive temperature effect currents sources to bias the detection circuit and only focus on temperature and voltage tracking and thus cannot reflect the real demand on word line voltage from process variations.
Therefore in order to obviate the deficiencies in the prior art, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a circuit that provides desirables word line voltage levels VPP and VBB over P.V.T variations.
These objects and other advantages of the disclosed subject matter will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the disclosure pertains from a perusal or the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.

On chip word line voltage with PVT tracking for memory embedded in logic process

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.


A Schmitt Trigger (ST) based, fully differential, 10-transistor (10T) SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) bitcell suitable for sub-threshold operation. The Schmitt trigger based bitcell achieves 1.56× higher read static noise margin (SNM) (VDD=400 mV) compared to a conventional 6T cell. The robust Schmitt trigger based memory cell exhibits built-in process variation tolerance that gives tight SNM distribution across the process corners. It utilizes fully differential operation and hence does not require any architectural changes from the present 6T architecture. The 10T bitcell has two cross-coupled Schmitt trigger inverters which each consist of four transistors, including a PMOS transistor and two NMOS transistors in series, and an NMOS feedback transistor which is connected between the inverter output and the junction between the series-connected NMOS transistors. Each inverter has one associated NMOS access transistor.

Aggressive scaling of transistor dimensions with each technology generation has resulted in increased integration density and improved device performance. Unfortunately, leakage current increases with the reduction of the device dimensions. Increased integration density along with the increased leakage necessitates ultra-low power operation in the present power-constrained design environment. The power requirement for battery operated devices such as cell phones and medical devices is even more stringent. Reducing the supply voltage reduces the dynamic power quadratically and leakage power linearly to the first order. Hence, supply voltage scaling has remained the major focus of the low power design. This has resulted in circuits operating at a supply voltage lower than the threshold voltage of a transistor. However, as the supply voltage is reduced, the sensitivity of the circuit parameters to process variations increases. Process variations limit the circuit operation in the sub-threshold region, particularly in memories, as discussed, for example, in the following paper: A. Bhavnagarwala et al., "The Impact of Intrinsic Device Fluctuations on CMOS SRAM Cell Stability," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 36, pp. 658-665, April 2001. Embedded cache memories are expected to occupy 90% of the total die area of a system-on-a-chip. Nano-scaled SRAM bitcells having minimum sized transistors are vulnerable to inter-die as well as intra-die process variations. Intra-die process variations include random dopant fluctuation (RDF), line edge roughness (LER) etc. This may result in a threshold voltage mismatch between the adjacent transistors in a memory cell. Coupled with inter-die and intra-die process variations, lower supply voltage operation results in various memory failures, i.e., read failure, hold failure, access time failure and write failure. See, e.g., S. Mukhopadhyay et al., "Modeling of Failure Probability and Statistical Design of SRAM Array for Yield Enhancement in Nanoscaled CMOS," IEEE Transactions on Computer Aided Design, pp. 1859-1880, December 2005. Memory failure probability is predicted to be higher in the future technology nodes.
Adaptive circuit techniques such as source biasing, dynamic VDD have been proposed to improve the process variation tolerance, as discussed by H. Kawaguchi et al. in "Dynamic Leakage Cutoff Scheme For Low-Voltage SRAMs," VLSI Circuit Symposium, pp. 140-141, June 1998. Self-calibration techniques to achieve low voltage operation while keeping the failure probability under control are also proposed. See, e.g., S. Ghosh et al, "Self-Calibration Technique for Reduction of Hold Failures in Low-Power Nano-Scaled SRAM," Proc. of 43rd Design Automation Conference, pp. 971-976, July 2006.
A 6-transistor (6T) cell which uses a cross-coupled inverter pair is the "de facto" memory bitcell used in current SRAM designs. A typical 6T cell has four MOSFET transistors arranged to form the cross-coupled inverters, and two additional MOSFET transistors which serve to control access to the cell during read and write operations. One such example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,328,413 to Kim et al., issued Feb. 5, 2008, to the assignee of the present invention. The patent discloses a 6T SRAM cell with an added sleep transistor to reduce leakage and increase read stability. FIG. 1 herein also illustrates a typical 6T cell configuration, with the cross-coupled inverters and with the two access transistors electrically connecting the inverter pair to respective bit lines (BL), and with a word line (WL) that controls the access transistors. Different types of SRAM bitcells have been proposed to improve the memory failure probability at a given supply voltage (FIG. 1). 6T and 7T bitcells utilize differential read operation while 5T, 8T and 10T bitcells employ single ended reading scheme. 8T and 10T cells use an extra sensing circuit for reading the cell contents; achieving improved read SNM. A comparison of various SRAM bitcells is shown in TABLE 1.
TABLE 1Comparison of various SRAM bitcellsSr. No.5T6T7T8T10TReadSingleDifferentialDifferentialSingleSingleEndedEndedEnded#WL11122#BL12233Area0.81—1.31.66#PMOS22223#NMOS222 or 323in ReadPath
Further details regarding 5T, 7T, 8T and 10T bitcells may be found in the following papers, respectively:                1. Carlson et al., "A High Density, Low Leakage, 5T SRAM for Embedded Caches," Proc. of 30th European Solid State Circuits Conference, pp. 215-218, September 2004.        2. R. Aly et al., "Novel 7T SRAM Cell for Low Power Cache Design," Proc. of IEEE SOC Conference, pp. 171-174, 2005.        3. Chang et al., "Stable SRAM Cell Design for the 32 nm Node and Beyond," Symposium on VLSI Technology, pp. 128-129, 2005.        4. B. H. Calhoun et al., "A 256 kb Sub-threshold SRAM in 65 nm CMOS," Proc. of International Solid State Circuits Conference, pp. 628-629 & 678, February 2006.
In spite of efforts by various groups, a need remains for improvements in SRAM technology. More specifically, a need remains for mechanisms and techniques for improving the stability of the inverter pair in a SRAM bitcell operating at lower supply voltages.

Memory cell with built-in process variation tolerance


A reciprocating pencil sharpener has a stationary member, a cutter and a ratchet mechanism. The cutter includes a blade secured to a blade holder. The ratchet mechanism is mounted between the stationary member and the cutter and allows the cutter to rotate relative to the stationary member in one direction only. When a user desires to sharpen a pencil, the user can keep the pencil in the hand and rotate the pencil in reciprocating rotation, thus obtaining the sharpened point of the pencil. Consequently, it is convenient for the user to apply a rotational force and a high efficiency of sharpening operation is achieved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pencil sharpener, and more particularly to a reciprocating pencil sharpener to facilitate applying a rotational force and to perform an efficient pencil sharpening operation.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
A pencil sharpener is a device for sharpening the point of a pencil. A conventional pencil sharpener comprises a blade holder and a blade. The blade holder includes a conical bore therein to receive the point of a pencil. The blade is secured to the blade holder so that its cutting edge enters the conical bore. When it is desired to sharpen a pencil, the point of the pencil is inserted into the conical bore of the blade holder. The pencil is then rotated against the blade which cuts away the wood and lead of the pencil, thus sharpening the pencil.
However, the pencil must be rotated in continuous unidirectional rotation to be sharpened, and human wrists have limited ranges of motion. Thereby, after a user's hand holding the pencil rotates an angle, the hand should loosen and re-hold the pencil again to repeat rotating motion until sharpening operation is achieved. Each time re-holding the pencil changes the point of application of a rotational force. Re-holding the pencil frequently makes it difficult to apply a rotational force, affects the smoothness of pencil sharpening operation and thus reduces the efficiency of pencil sharpening operation.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a reciprocating pencil sharpener to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.