This invention is a method for speeding up block matching based motion estimation for video encoder. The invention 1) calculates statistics for a candidate motion vector for a predetermined fraction of the pixels of a macroblock, 2) makes an early decision based on this preliminary cost function, and 3) terminates the block matching process without calculating the cost function for other pixels if the preliminary cost function is not less than a predetermined threshold. This early decision for goodness estimation provides an economy of processing load when a large portion of data is left untouched (i.e. unprocessed). The present invention employs feedback control to reduce the predetermined threshold for quick convergence upon each detection of a better match.

Moving pictures such as video are composed of a number of consecutive frames of still pictures. In the NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) conventional television system each second includes 30 frames or 60 fields. Consecutive frames are generally similar except for changes caused by moving objects. Video coding experts call this similarity temporal redundancy. In the digital video compression temporal redundancy enables a major improvement in coding efficiency. Thus digital television can transmit 4 to 6 channels over an equivalent analog channel of the same capacity. The temporal redundancy reduction in digital video compression is achieved by motion compensation (MC). Using motion compensation the current picture can be modeled as a translation of prior pictures.
In the MPEG video coding standard employed in most of today's digital video applications, each picture is divided into two-dimensional macroblocks of M horizontal by N vertical pixels. In the MPEG video coding standard M and N are both set to 16. Each macroblock in the current frame is predicted from a previous or future frame called the reference frame by estimating the amount of the motion in the macroblock during the frame time interval. The MPEG video coding syntax specifies how to represent the motion information for each macroblock in vectors. This standard does not specify how these motion vectors are to be computed.
Due to the block-based motion representation, many implementations of MPEG video coding use block matching techniques. The motion vector is obtained by minimizing a cost function measuring the mismatch between the reference and the current macroblocks. The most widely-used cost function is the sum of absolute difference values (AE) defined as:
                                                                        AE                                  κ                  ,                  d                                            ≡                                                                            ∑                                      j                    =                    0                                                        N                    -                    1                                                                                ∑                                          i                      =                      0                                                              M                      -                      1                                                                                                                                                  f                        t                                            +                                              τ                                                                          (                                                                                x                                κ                                                            +                                                              d                                h                                                            +                              i                                                        ,                                                                                y                                κ                                                            +                                                              d                                v                                                            +                              j                                                                                )                                                                    -                                                                                f                  t                                                                  (                                                                                x                        κ                                            +                      i                                        ,                                                                  y                        κ                                            +                      j                                                        )                                                                                                      Eq        .                                          1
This equation represents the absolute difference where: d is the displacement (dh, dv) for the macroblock whose left-upper corner pixel is denoted by ft(x_,y_); ft+—(h,v) is the pixel at coordinates (h,v) in the reference frame; τ is the frame distance between the current frame and the reference frame. An alternate cost function is the sum of squared error values. This is defined as:
                                                                        SE                                  κ                  ,                  d                                            ≡                                                                            ∑                                      j                    =                    0                                                        N                    -                    1                                                                                ∑                                          i                      =                      0                                                              M                      -                      1                                                                                (                                                                  f                        t                                            +                                              τ                                                                          (                                                                                x                                κ                                                            +                                                              d                                h                                                            +                              i                                                        ,                                                                                y                                κ                                                            +                                                              d                                v                                                            +                              j                                                                                )                                                                    -                                                                                f                    t                                                                          (                                                                                x                          κ                                                +                        i                                            ,                                                                        y                          κ                                                +                        j                                                              )                                                  )                            2                                                          Eq        .                                          2
FIG. 1 illustrates the block matching process. Current frame 100 includes macroblock 101 having a size M by N. Reference frame 110 includes macroblock to be predicted 111 which is displaced by motion vector d from the corresponding position of macroblock 101.
Finding the motion vector d among the motion vector search window denoted by Wh×Wv that minimizes the absolute difference for each macroblock is called motion estimation (ME). Using the motion vector d, motion-compensated residual signals denoted by g(x_+i, y_+j), where 0≦i≦M−1, 0≦j≦N−1 are coded through successive transform coding process such as Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) are expressed as:g(xκ+i,yκ+j)≡ft(xκ+i,yκ+j)−ft+τ(xκ+dh+i,yκ+dv+j)  Eq. 3From equation 2 the best match minimizes the number of significant, i.e. non-zero, signals to be coded. This leads to a best coding gain among all possible matches.
Video coding standards such as MPEG do not specify how the motion estimation should be performed. The system designer decides how to implement among many possible ways. A common prior art technique employs a full search (FS) over a wide 2-dimensional area yields the best matching results in most cases. This assurance comes at a high computational cost to the encoder. In fact motion estimation is usually the most computationally intensive portion of the video encoder.
FIG. 2 illustrates the flowchart 200 of the prior art full search plain block matching. This block matching determines which candidate motion vector d provides the best match between the current macroblock and the reference frame. The process begins with start block 201. Block 202 initializes a variable AE_MIN correspond to the cost function minimum to a saturated value, the maximum possible value. Block 203 selects the next candidate motion vector d. Block 204 computes the cost function for the current macroblock at the current candidate motion vector d. This is typically the absolute difference (AE) of equation 1. Decision block 205 tests to determine if the new absolute difference AE is less than the prior cost function minimum AE_MIN. If this is the case (Yes at decision block 205), then the current candidate motion vector d yields a better cost function than the previous best. Thus block 206 stores the current candidate motion vector d as the best motion vector and replaces the prior cost function minimum AE_MIM with the current cost function AE. Decision block 207 tests to determine if there are no more candidate motion vectors. If there are additional candidate motion vectors (No at decision block 207), process flow returns to block 203. Block 203 begins a repeat for the next candidate motion vector d. If the new absolute difference AE is not less than the prior cost function minimum (No at decision block 205), then the current candidate motion vector d does not yield a better cost function than the previous best. Process 200 branches ahead to decision block 207. If there are no additional candidate motion vectors (Yes at decision block 207), then the best motion vector d for the current macroblock has been found. Block 208 confirms the current candidate motion vector d is the best motion vector for the current macroblock. Process 200 ends at end block 209.
The computational complexity of the motion estimation is usually represented with in the units of summation of absolute difference (SAD). One match computation between a current macroblock and one candidate reference macroblock each having M by N pixels requires M×N SAD. Here let SADmb denote SAD for a macroblock with search window denoted by Wh×Wv, which is represented as:SADmb=M×N×Wh×Wv  Eq. 4Then SAD for a frame denoted by SADframe is expressed as:
                                                                        SAD                frame                            =                                                SAD                  mb                                ×                number                                                                                of                                                                                macroblocks                                                                                =                              M                ×                N                ×                                  W                  h                                ×                                  W                  v                                ×                                                      (                                                                  P                        h                                            ×                                              P                        v                                                              )                                    /                                      (                                          M                      ×                      N                                        )                                                                                =                                                W                  h                                ×                                  W                  v                                ×                                  (                                                            P                      h                                        ×                                          P                      v                                                        )                                                                                Eq        .                                          5
This SADframe calculation assumes only one prediction mode and one prediction direction. However, in many cases there are two or three prediction modes and both forward and backward prediction are employed. For SDTV (Standard Definition TV) quality service, the full search motion estimation requires 100 GOPS (Giga Operations Per Second, Giga: 109) to 200 GOPS of SAD. Meanwhile all the encoder modules except the motion estimation only take about 1 GOPS or only 1% as much processing. Thus much effort has been made to reduce this SAD number down to a practical level.
Several algorithms have been proposed to reduce the number of candidate motion vectors that must be considered.
The Q-step search algorithm first evaluates the cost function at the center and eight surrounding locations of certain area. This area is typically a 32 pixel by 32 pixel block. The location that produces the smallest cost function becomes the center of the next stage. The search range is reduced, generally by half, and the search repeated. This sequence is repeated Q times. Typically 2≦Q≦4.
In a sub-sampling based search both current and reference frames are sub-sampled with an adequate decimation factor. This decimation factor is usually 2 or 4 for horizontal and vertical directions. In a first iteration, the computation of the cost function is performed in that sub-sampled domain. This yields a coarse motion vector. For successive iterations, the coarse motion vector is refined by conducting the matching over domain with a smaller decimation factor.
A telescopic search exploits the motion information in adjacent frames to reduce the computational cost. The rationale behind this approach is that the movement of objects in video is continuous, so the motion information in adjacent frames is correlated. Thus the motion vector of the previous frame provides information relevant to the motion vector of the current frame. Among various implementations a simple instantiation is to use the motion vector of the previous frame as an offset, that is, the center of the search window. This helps find the best matches with a relatively small search window.
Many digital video encoders use one of these three algorithms or their families. Some use a mixture of these, such as a sub-sampling based search together with a telescopic search. It has been empirically found that well tuned motion estimation algorithms take only 2% to 3% of the computation that the full search algorithm requires. This benefit typically sacrifices little visual quality. These tailored methods are complicated and tend to require additional resources such as a memory buffer. Even having achieved such significant complexity reduction, the motion estimation is still the most computationally intensive part of video coding. The motion estimation often requires operations 5 times that of the entire rest of the modules. Therefore further reduction of computational complexity is desired while preserving visual quality and increases implementation complexity as little as possible.

Motion estimation using early decision for goodness of estimation with quick convergence feedback


A traction-drive type driving-force transmission mechanism includes a sun roller having a first central axis about which the sun roller is rotatable. Shafts are provided and each has a second central axis aligned parallel to the first central axis. Planetary rollers are arranged rotatably along an outer peripheral surface of the sun roller and are supported respectively by the shafts. A guide member guides each shaft displaceably in a radial direction of the sun roller while maintaining the parallel relationship between the first and second central axes. A pressing member presses each planetary roller against the outer peripheral surface of the sun roller so that a driving force can be transmitted by a traction force between the sun roller and each of the planetary rollers.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a traction-drive type driving-force transmission mechanism capable of transmitting a driving force or reducing a rotational speed, through means of a traction force generated between rollers, and an image forming apparatus equipped with the traction-drive type driving-force transmission mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a prior art relating to traction-drive type driving-force transmission mechanisms, there has been known a mechanism which comprises a sun roller coupled to a rotary shaft, a plurality of planetary rollers arranged around the sun roller, and a carrier supporting respective planetary shafts of the planetary rollers (see, for example, JP 2000-329206A, which will hereinafter be refereed to as "D1"). The mechanism disclosed in the D1 is designed such that each of the planetary rollers is rotated while being circulated outside the sun roller and along a pair of orbit rings, through means of a traction force generated between the sun roller and the planetary roller, and the circulating movement is transmitted from the carrier to an output shaft.
In order to generate a sufficient traction force between the sun roller and each of the planetary rollers, it is necessary to strongly press the planetary roller against the sun roller (i.e., bring the planetary roller into press contact with the sun roller) in the presence of a lubricant while rotatably supporting the planetary roller by the planetary shaft. For this purpose, in the mechanism disclosed in the D1, a certain gap is ensured between the planetary shaft and the planetary roller, and two inclined portions formed on axially opposite lateral sides of the planetary roller are sandwiched between the pair of orbit rings in such a manner that an inclined surface formed in an inner periphery of each of the orbit rings is brought into press contact with an inclined surface formed in an outer periphery of a corresponding one of the inclined portions so as to press the planetary roller against an outer peripheral surface of the sun roller.
In the mechanism disclosed in the D1, each of the planetary rollers is adapted to be freely displaceable relative to the corresponding planetary shaft within the range of the gap, although the planetary shaft is fixed to the carrier. Thus, when the orbit rings are brought into press contact with the respective inclined surfaces of the planetary rollers, the planetary rollers are strongly pressed against the sun roller, so that a required traction force can be generated in the presence of a lubricant.
In the mechanism disclosed in the D1, the planetary shaft and the planetary roller are arranged to define a gap therebetween. This arrangement involves a possibility that a rotation axis (rotation center) of the planetary roller is displaced at a certain amount of angle with an axis (center line) of the planetary shaft. Thus, when the planetary roller is pressed against the sun roller, the inner peripheral surface of the planetary roller is likely to be slightly inclined relative to the outer peripheral surface of the sun roller. In this case, a pressure distribution on the inner peripheral surface of the planetary roller becomes uneven in an axial direction of the planetary roller, i.e., so-called "edge contact" occurs, to cause uneven wear on the outer peripheral surface of the sun roller.

Traction-drive type driving-force transmission mechanism and image forming apparatus equipped therewith


A magnetoresistance effect film is disclosed. This magnetoresistance effect film comprises a substrate, at least two ferromagnetic thin films stacked one over the other on the substrate with a non-magnetic thin film interposed therebetween, and an antiferromagnetic thin film arranged adjacent to one of the ferromagnetic thin films. The antiferromagnetic thin film is a superlattice formed of at least two oxide antiferromagnetic materials selected from NiO, Ni.sub.x Co.sub.1-x O (0.1.ltoreq.x.ltoreq.0.9) and C.sub.o O. A biasing magnetic field Hr applied to the one ferromagnetic thin film located adjacent the antiferromagnetic thin film is greater than coercive magnetic force Hc.sub.2 of the other ferromagnetic thin film.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a magnetoresistance effect film useful in a magnetoresistance effect device employed, for example, to read as signal information or the like recorded on a magnetic recording medium or the like, and more specifically to a magnetoresistance effect film which shows a large rate of change in resistance in a small external magnetic fields.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, high sensitization of magnetic sensors and high densification in magnetic recording are under way. Keeping step with this, active developments have been conducted with respect to magnetoresistance effect magnetic sensors (hereinafter called "MR sensors") and magnetoresistance effect magnetic heads (hereinafter called "MR heads"). MR sensors and MR heads each detect a change in resistance at a read sensor made of a magnetic material to read an external magnetic field signal. In these MR sensors and MR heads, their reproduction outputs do not depend on their relative speeds with recording media, leading to the merit that the MR sensors have high sensitivity and the MR heads provides high outputs in high-density magnetic recording.
Proposed recently is a magnetoresistance effect film having at least two ferromagnetic thin films stacked one over the other with a non-magnetic thin film interposed therebetween and an antiferromagnetic thin film arranged adjacent to one of the ferromagnetic thin films so that said one ferromagnetic thin film is provided with antimagnetic force. When an external magnetic field is applied to this magnetoresistance effect thin film, the one ferromagnetic thin film and the other ferromagnetic thin film are magnetized in different directions under the external magnetic field, whereby a change takes place in resistance (Phys. Rev. B, 43, 1297, 1991; Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 358310/1992).
Although the magnetoresistance effect device of the preceding application is operable in small external magnetic fields, each signal magnetic field must be applied in the direction of an easy magnetization axis when it is used as a practical sensor or magnetic head. It is therefore accompanied by the problems that, when employed as a sensor, no change in resistance is exhibited around the zero magnetic field and non-linearity such as when a Barkhausen jump appears.
Further, there is a ferromagnetic interaction between the ferromagnetic thin films which are located adjacent to each other with the non-magnetic thin film interposed therebetween, resulting in the problem that a linear range in an MR curve is shifted from the zero magnetic field.
Moreover, it is necessary to use FeMn, a material having poor corrosion resistance, as the antiferromagnetic thin film. This involves the problem that upon practice, an additional measure is needed such as incorporation of an additive or application of a protective film.
When an oxide antiferromagnetic material excellent in corrosion resistance is formed into a film at a room temperature to provide the antiferromagnetic thin film, on the other hand, the biasing magnetic field is small so that the coercive force of the adjacent ferromagnetic thin film becomes large. This has led to the problem that a magnetization anti-parallel state can hardly be obtained between the ferromagnetic thin films.
Because of the construction that a change in resistance is obtained basically by using a change in the length of mean free path of conduction electrons across the three layers of the magnetic/non-magnetic/magnetic films, the above-described conventional magnetoresistance effect films are accompanied by the problem that they show smaller rates of change in resistance compared with magnetoresistance effect films having multilayer structures and called the "coupling type".

Magnetoresistance effect film and production process thereof


Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide an equalizer combined with a decoder and a method of updating filter coefficients. The method may include calculating output error signals ek, multiplying the output error signals by a parameter, obtaining a partial value by multiplying a delayed decoder decision stored in a filter delay line corresponding to an i-th filter coefficient by the result obtaining a partial value by multiplying a constant by a feedback coefficient and obtaining an updated value by adding the two partial values.

1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to digital video broadcasting, and more particularly, to a decision-feedback equalizer, which may receive a variety of digital information and a method of updating coefficients thereof.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
An equalizer for digital video broadcasting may be needed for large amounts of digital information, for example, voice, data, and/or video communications. Such digital information may be transmitted via various transmission mediums, which may have different transmission characteristics. Transmission mediums may cause different kinds of ghosting, for example, frequency-dependent phase, amplitude distortion, multipath receiving, or voice echoes, and various types of fading in signals, for example, Rayleigh fading. Data transmissions may suffer from a noise, for example, additive white Gaussian noise. The equalizer may be used to reduce echoes and/or video ghosts and control signals for wireless modems and/or telephones.
In digital communications, data transmission over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels may be a problem. The ISI may occur when pulsed information, for example, amplitude-modulated digital transmissions, may be transmitted over analog channels, for example, telephone lines and/or skywave channels.
Maximum-likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) may achieve an improved symbol error rate (SER), but may become more complex with the length of the channel time dispersion. Extremely high complexity of the MLSE in a software and/or hardware may limit its use.
A linear equalizer (LE) may detect and equalize ISI. LE may have a complexity, which may be a linear function of the channel dispersion length and may suffer from significant noise enhancement. The performance of the linear equalizer may be worse than the performance of an MLSE.
A decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) may have a lower complexity and/or improved performance.
FIG. 1 is an example of a construction diagram of a conventional DFE. The DFE may use previously decoded data symbols in order to calculate and reduce intersymbol interference (ISI). The performance of the DFE may be degraded due to incorrect decisions in a decision feedback filter, for example, when a channel introduces strong ghosts, for example, during a single frequency network operation in digital television broadcasting.
Referring to FIG. 1, a DFE may include a feedforward filter 102, a feedback filter 103, a slicer 104, and an adder 105. A received digital signal 101 may be input to the feedforward filter 102.
The feedforward filter 102 may partially correct signal errors using a filter having a magnitude opposite to a magnitude of the input digital signal 101. The slicer 104 may be, for example, a decision device which may be based on the magnitudes of received signals and may classify received signals based on decisions of 0, ±2, ±4, and ±6 in order. The received signals may be classified into symbols corresponding to normalized signals of ±1, ±3, ±5, and ±7. The slider 104 may be a multi-dimensional slicer, which may be used in, for example, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) systems.
The adder 105 may add the output of the feedforward filter 102 and the output of the feedback filter 103 and may output the result to the slicer 104. The feedforward filter 102 may reduce noises using a filter having a magnitude opposite to a magnitude of the input digital signal 101.
A decision-feedback sequence estimation (DFSE) algorithm may provide a tradeoff between performance and complexity.
Wireless communication systems employ trellis-coded modulation (TCM).
FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional TCM scheme for 8-level amplitude modulated signals.
Referring to FIG. 2, a TCM encoder may be comprised of an 8-VSB trellis encoder 201 and an 8-level symbol mapper 203. The 8-VSB trellis encoder 201 may employ an 8-level 3-bit 1-dimensional arrangement. The 8-VSB trellis encoder may use a ⅔ rate trellis code.
A method for detection of trellis-coded symbols in channels without ISI may be the MLSE. The number of trellis states in codes used for TCM may be smaller and the complexity of the MLSE may not be higher. The MLSE may be implemented using a Viterbi algorithm (or Viterbi decoding algorithm). The TCM symbols transmitted through ISI-free channels may be detected with improved performance.
When channels introduce ISI, the MLSE detector which takes into account the ISI introduced by the channels and the TCM may become more complex. A DFE may be used for the compensation of channel ISI and a MLSE (Viterbi) decoder to decode the TCM.
FIG. 3 is a construction diagram of a conventional DFE combined with a TCM decoder.
Referring to FIG. 3, the DFE combined with the TCM decoder may comprise a feedforward filter 302, a feedback filter 303, a slicer 304, and an adder 305, and a TCM decoder 307 which may decode trellis-coded symbols. A received digital signal may be input to the DFE via an input line 301 and output via an output line 306 connected to the TCM decoder 307.
The DFE may be operated before the TCM decoder uses uncoded symbols to perform a feedback operation and the reliability of the uncoded symbols may be lower. The performance may be worse than that of a joint (channel+TCM) MLSE.
FIG. 4 is a construction diagram of another conventional DFE combined with a TCM decoder.
The DFSE algorithm may be used to decode TCM symbols transmitted through ISI channels.
Instead of using slicer decisions in a feedback filter, the DFE may use symbol decisions from the more likely surviving path of the Viterbi decoder. This scheme, sometimes referred to as "a Viterbi decoder with global decision feedback", is illustrated in FIG. 4. Referring to FIG. 4, an adder 407 may add the output of a feedforward filter 402 and the output of a feedback filter 403 and may output the result to a TCM decoder 404. The TCM decoder 404 may decode symbols 405 and inputs the decoded symbols 405 to the feedback filter 403. The Viterbi decoder with global decision feedback may use the symbol decisions from the more likely surviving path of the TCM (Viterbi) decoder 404 as the inputs of the feedback filter 403. A decoding depth Nth symbol, which may be the more reliable symbol among the outputs of the TCM decoder 404, may become an output signal 406.
This combination of a DFE and a TCM (Viterbi) decoder, as shown in FIG. 4, may have improved performance over the scheme shown in FIG. 3, since the decisions from the TCM (Viterbi) decoder may be more reliable.
FIG. 5 is a construction diagram of a conventional DFE, which may use a least-mean square (LMS) algorithm for updating feedback filter coefficients.
In, for example, wireless applications of MLSE and DFE, the channel transfer function may be unknown at the receiver and/or time-variant. Any detection/equalization scheme used in wireless communication receivers may be adaptive, i.e., may be able to change coefficients of an equalizer and track channel variations. In the LMS scheme, equalizer coefficients may be recursively updated at every iteration of the algorithm. For example, feedback filter coefficients of a DFE may recursively be updated in accordance with an LMS algorithm as shown in Equation 1.bi(k+1)=bi(k)+μek{circumflex over (d)}k−i, i=1, 2, . . . , LB  (1)
Here, bi(k) are i-th feedback coefficients (518, 519, . . . , and 520) of a DFE at k-th iteration, LB is the number of feedback filter coefficients, {circumflex over (d)}k are decisions in a feedback filter, stored in delay lines (521, 522, . . . , and 523), μ is a step-size parameter (positive constant), and ek are error signals 508, which may be differences between the outputs 524 of the DFE and the decisions {circumflex over (d)}k 525. During a training period, the transmitted data sequence dk may be known and may be used by an equalizer to update the coefficients bi(k) in accordance with the LMS algorithm shown in Equation 1.
A DFE, which may use the LMS adaptation scheme embodied by Equation 1, is shown in FIG. 5. That is, FIG. 5 illustrates an example of applying the LMS adaptation scheme shown in Equation 1 to the DFE using the slicer of FIG. 1. After a training period, decisions {circumflex over (d)}k at the output of a slicer 510 may be more reliable and the decisions {circumflex over (d)}k may be used to update equalizer coefficients in accordance with the LMS algorithm.
FIG. 6 is a construction diagram of a conventional DFE, which may use both the LMS algorithm and a Stop-and-Go algorithm to update feedback filter coefficients.
The LMS algorithm may also be used without a training sequence.
The "Stop-and-Go" algorithm may disable adaptation if decisions are not reliable, and may update equalizer coefficients if the decisions are more likely to be correct. Detection of less reliable decisions and/or generation of enable/disable flags 623 may be performed in a 'Stop-and-Go' (SAG) block 618.
FIG. 7 is a construction diagram of a conventional DFE combined with a trellis decoder, which may use an LMS adaptation algorithm to update feedback filter coefficients.
The LMS algorithm shown in Equation 1 and its 'Stop-and-Go' variant may be used with the DDFSE scheme shown in FIG. 4.
The combined equalizer/decoder structure with the LMS adaptation algorithm shown in FIG. 7 may introduce an instability problem. An example of the instability of this scheme is illustrated in FIG. 8.
FIG. 8 is a graph showing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) versus the number of iterations for the DFE shown in FIG. 7.
FIG. 8 shows the simulation results for the DFE combined with the TCM Viterbi decoder shown in FIG. 7. A channel may have three equal, or substantially equal, amplitude paths and a transmission system may use 8-level amplitude modulated signals as shown in FIG. 2. The equalizer steady-state operation shown in FIG. 8 may not depend on resolution of the equalizer coefficients or overflow effects and may be a result of the TCM decision feedback properties.
For first periods of time, the DFE may be operated such that signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) may be more stable. After some periods of time, the stability of the SNR may be greatly lower and a variation thereof may be repeated periodically as the number of iterations increases.
In a convergence region, contribution of the decision-feedback part of the equalizer in ISI compensation may be insignificant, since decisions may be less reliable and the equalizer of FIG. 7 may not rely on the decision feedback mechanism. Decision errors may not affect equalizer stability in this region, and output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) may be more stable.
After some period of time when decisions become more reliable, the equalizer may rely on these decisions and may use a feedback filter for ISI compensation.
FIG. 9A is a graph showing an example of the percentage of decision errors in the slicer and the TCM decoder as a function of time.
The TCM decision errors may be correlated and may group in error bursts rather than be distributed randomly as in the case of slicer decisions.
That is, if an error occurs at the output of the TCM decoder, the error may cause series (or bursts) of errors, and for some period of time the number of decision errors in a feedback filter may be higher.
FIG. 9A shows an example relationship between the percentage of errors in the decision feedback filter and a time. In case of using the TCM feedback scheme shown in FIG. 7, the number of decision errors in the feedback filter may be smaller, but sometimes the TCM decoder may introduce bursts of errors and the number of decision errors may increase.
In case of using the slicer shown in FIG. 5, the percentage of decision errors may be more stable (e.g., approximately 20%). A higher percentage of decision errors may decrease the overall equalizer performance, but may stabilize the adaptation scheme because the LMS algorithm may not rely as much on the feedback mechanism.
When the TCM feedback mechanism is used, the feedback filter may be free of errors, and the LMS algorithm may update equalizer coefficients in accordance with this error-free state of the feedback filter. The equalizer may rely on feedback ISI compensation and may become more sensitive to decision errors. The TCM decoder may introduce bursts of errors and the equalizer performance may be degraded as shown in FIG. 8.
In the 'Stop-and-Go' LMS algorithm, the adaptive scheme implemented may disable adaptation when decisions may be less reliable.

Decision-feedback equalizer and method of updating filter coefficients


A dual visor assembly that is designed for and is attachable to any light sports helmet. The lenses are interchangeable by being attached to offset pivoting arms rotating about a common shaft on each side of the helmet. The lenses when raised are locked in the inoperative position and can be lowered by touching a release knob just behind the pivot shaft on either side of the helmet. Each side releasing a different lens.

This invention relates to a dual visor system for light sports helmets specifically of the type used by cyclists.
Several devices have been patented for use by motorcyclists, prior devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,585,638 issued to Aileo, 5,005,221 issued to Chew, 3,748,658 issued to Albright and 5,113,535 issued to Hedges, et. al.
Without exception theses prior devices are far too heavy to be used on a light sports helmet. Also, the prior art devices are bolted or screwed to the sturdy high impact motorcycle helmet shells. The light sports type helmet has no point strong enough to accommodate this type of attachment. Many of the prior art devices are "full face" visors covering the entire face or joining at the bottom with a chin protection part of the helmet, while this type of visor works well for a person sitting comfortably on a motorized machine, if would fog up immediately if worn by someone peddling a bicycle.
Most examples of prior art have very complicated systems to raise and lower the visor. These systems would be too expensive to manufacture and too difficult to operate while peddling. Most prior art forms are produced either as part of a helmet or specifically for one type of motor cycle helmet. To change or replace the visors on the prior art form requires tools and considerable time to do the job. Prior art with dual visor systems do not have the option of interchanging outside and inside visor.


In a printing system for documents, print orders are programmed by selecting image supports and settings for the printing process. Prior to programming a print order, settable process-directed properties can be assigned to a specific image support type by using an operating function. These properties may not be overridden in the programming of a print order. Example of such settable process-directed properties are: single-sided printing, and non-stapling.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of processing a print order in a system for printing digital documents, including a programming step for the print order, wherein image supports to be used for the print order and at least one setting for a printing process for the print order applicable to at least one image of the print order, are specified by using a first operating function; and a processing step in which the system automatically arranges the printing process as specified in the programming step and then accordingly prints digital images on the image supports. The invention also relates to a system for printing digital documents wherein the above method is applied, and a computer program which performs the steps of the invention when loaded into a computer.
2. Discussion of the Background Art
A general method and apparatus for processing a print order is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,124,731, which describes a general digital copying machine/printer. For a print order, a type of image supports (e.g., paper sheets, transparencies) has to be selected from a set of image support types shown on the operator control unit display. Covers can also be added to the printed document. For the covers it must be indicated whether they are to be left blank or are to be printed on the front, back or both sides. This choice thus leads to a property which is coupled to the function called "covers" and which influences the printing procedure since digital images must be so displaced as to arrive on the correct image supports. Also, again a type of image supports has to be selected for the covers.
The disadvantage of this known method is that it is coupled to the function of the associated image supports and hence cannot take into account the specific properties of the material used in the image supports. For instance, assume that a document for printing is provided with a cover that must be printed on both sides. If the operator now selects a transparent image support type for the covers, the front and rear texts will both be visible. However, since the transparent image support type has been selected, the front and rear texts will be hardly legible. For another example, a deluxe paper with a special impression, which may be printed only on the front, may be used as the image support. Duplex printing on such a deluxe paper would then destroy the intended appearance of the printed matter and is therefore undesirable.


The present invention relates to a method for producing a propylene polymer having a very high melt flowability, specifically to a method for producing an isotactic propylene polymer having a dramatically improved melt flowability with a relatively high production yield in convenient way, by improving the reactivity of hydrogen that is served as a molecular weight controlling agent in propylene polymerization.

The present invention relates to a method for producing a propylene polymer having a very high melt flowability, specifically to a method for producing an isotactic propylene polymer having a dramatically improved melt flowability with a relatively high production yield in convenient way, by improving the reactivity of hydrogen that is served as a molecular weight controlling agent in propylene polymerization.
In propylene polymerization, specifically using methods of gas phase polymerization, slurry polymerization and bulk polymerization, a catalyst system used is generally composed of a Ziegler-type catalyst component, alkylaluminum and an external electron donor. In typical catalyst systems for propylene polymerization as said, the function of an external electron donor is, as is well known, to improve the isotactic index, i.e. stereoregularity of resulted polymer products, by selectively poisoning or converting the active site of non-stereoregularity present on the surface of a solid catalyst. It means the stereoregularity of resulted propylene polymers as well as the polymerization activity and a molecular weight distribution thereof are dependent on the molecular structure of an external electron donor applied. Therefore, in order to improve these properties in a propylene polymer, there have been many conventional techniques which particularly use various silane compounds as an external electron donor.
For example, Japanese laid-open patent publication Nos. Heisei 3-33105 and Heisei 3-33106 disclose a method for preparing polypropylene having high stereoregularity by using triethylaluminum and dialkyldimethoxysilane compound as an external electron donor, alone or as a mixture, together with a solid catalyst component obtained from a carrier which has been prepared by reacting silica and dialkyl magnesium. However, the use of the dialkyldimethoxysilane compound as an external electron donor causes a problem of significant decrease in hydrogen reactivity.
As an another example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,649 discloses a method for producing polypropylene having high stereoregularity as much as having an isotactic index of 96-98%, by forming recrystallized particles of a solid catalyst through reacting a solution of magnesium chloride dissolved in 2-ethylhexyl alcohol, with titanium tetrachloride and dialkyl phthalate at −20-130° C., and polymerizing propylene monomers by using the obtained catalyst component together with triethylaluminum as a cocatalyst and various dialkyldialkoxysilanes as an external electron donor in a bulk polymerization process. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 6,384,160 discloses a method for producing polypropylene with an isotactic index of 92-98% by using a solid catalyst component which is obtained by reacting diethoxy magnesium with titanium tetrachloride and an internal electron donor, diisobutyl phthalate or diethyl phthalate, together with a cocatalyst, triethylaluminum and an external electron donor, dialkyldimethoxysilane.
However, when using the main catalyst components and the external electron donors disclosed in those above-mentioned U.S. patents, the reactivity of a molecular weight controlling agent such as hydrogen is not sufficient enough to obtain polypropylene having a melt flow rate of 50 g/10 minutes or more in practical. That is, when feeding a large amount of hydrogen into a polymerization reactor for compensating the insufficient hydrogen reactivity in a conventionally practiced process, there is a risk of explosion and the like owing to the designed pressure limit of the reactor, therefore the possible feeding amount of hydrogen is practically limited. By that reason, when using the main catalyst components and the external electron donors disclosed in the above-mentioned US patents, it is practically impossible to increase the hydrogen pressure to the extent that it is required for producing polypropylene having a high melt flow rate.
Additionally, a method of olefin polymerization which uses phenyltriethoxysilane as an external electron donor, disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. Showa 57-63311, has a problem of toxicity owing to phenyl groups released from the external electron donor after the polymerization, and a method of olefin polymerization which uses dialkyldimethoxysilane as an external electron donor, disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. Heisei 2-170803, cannot provide a polymer having a high melt index. Further, a method of olefin polymerization disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. Heisei 8-157520, which uses alkylalkoxysilane substituted with cycloalkyl groups as an internal electron donor, may provide a polymer having a rather high melt flow rate, however, it has a problem of relatively too low catalyst activity.

Method for producing propylene polymer having a very high melt-flowability


A roller module includes a supporting seat, a scroll wheel, a linkage rod, a torsion spring, a first magnet, a second magnet and a coil. The scroll wheel is installed on the supporting seat. The linkage rod includes a fulcrum segment, a resisting segment and an effort segment. The torsion spring is connected with the resisting segment. The first magnet is arranged between the second magnet and the effort segment. The coil is arranged around the second magnet. When the roller module is in a tactile mode, the first magnet and the second magnet are close to each other, and the torsion spring exerts a pulling force on the resisting segment. Consequently, the resisting segment is contacted with a toothed region of the scroll wheel. When the roller module is in a non-tactile mode, the resisting segment is moved away from the toothed region.

Generally, a roller module is widely applied to an input device. However, the conventional input device is not equipped with a mechanism for automatically switching the operation mode of the roller module between a tactile mode and a non-tactile mode. In other words, the conventional roller module is not user-friendly.
Therefore, the conventional roller module needs to be further improved.


A water stop sheet to be wound around a wiring harness wired in a vehicle includes a closed-cell elastic sheet, an entire adhesive layer provided on one surface of the elastic sheet, and a partial adhesive layer provided only on a part of the other surface along one end edge. The water stop sheet is wound with the entire adhesive layer located on an inner surface side to be held in contact with the outer periphery of a wire group of the wiring harness and wound at least one turn. A winding end part is placed on the outer peripheral surface of a winding start part. The partial adhesive layer located on the outer peripheral surface of the winding start part and the entire adhesive layer located on the inner peripheral surface of the winding end part are adhered to each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a water stop sheet for a wiring harness and a water stop structure of a wiring harness to prevent water from entering a vehicle interior along a wiring harness that passes through a hole of a panel between a water susceptible area, such as an engine room, and the vehicle interior of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3417324 discloses a water stop structure for a wiring harness that passes through a grommet and is mounted in a through hole of a vehicle body panel. A water stop agent, such as silicone resin, is filled between parts of the wires of the wiring harness inserted through the grommet for stopping inter-wire water.
The above-described water stop structure prevents water from entering from into a vehicle interior, but requires many difficult manual operations and dedicated tools, which leads to a cost increase. Further, a visual inspection cannot be carried out since water is stopped in the grommet, and a water-stop inspection requires immersion in water, such as in a water tank. This inspection increases costs. Further, a silicone resin filling of an inter-wire water stop portion becomes hard after curing and can peel when bent, thereby destroying the inter-wire water stopping.
The subject inventor discloses a water stop method in the Publication of Japanese Patent No. 3692969 that differs from the above-described water stop technique. This alternate water stop method winds a waterproofing closed cell foamed sheet 120 around a wiring harness 100 and fits this assembly through a grommet 110 that is to be mounted into a through hole of a vehicle body panel. The waterproofing foamed sheet 120 closely contacts the inner peripheral surface of a small-diameter tube portion 110a of the grommet 110 to prevent the entrance of water from a water susceptible area of an engine room into a vehicle interior, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6(A) to 6(C).
Specifically, the closed cell foamed sheet 120 has adhesive layers 121, 122 on both sides. As shown in FIG. 6(A), wires 100w of the wiring harness are arranged at intervals in a half area of the adhesive layer on the top side of the foamed sheet 120, and the remaining half is folded to sandwich the wires 100w between upper and lower parts of the adhesive layer 121 on the top side, as shown in FIG. 6(B). The foamed sheet 120 folded in two then is wound to adhere parts of the adhesive layer 122 on the under side as shown in FIG. 6(C). The small-diameter tube portion 110a of the grommet 110 shown in FIG. 5 is expanded by a tool, and a part of the wiring harness 100 wound with the foamed sheet 120 is inserted and resiliently compressed in the small-diameter tube portion 110 to be fixed in the grommet 110.
The adhesive layers on the inner and outer peripheral surfaces of the wound foamed sheet 120 are overlapped and fixed to block the entrance of water. Further, the closed cell foamed sheet 120 can block the entrance of water in a direction perpendicular to the axial direction from the outer peripheral surface into the interior during car washing and high-pressure washing.
Folding the foamed sheet 120 to sandwich the wires 100w and then winding the assembly at least one turn enlarges the diameter of the water stop part. This large diameter water stop part must be pushed into the small-diameter tube portion 110a of the grommet 110 by expanding the small-diameter tube portion 110a using the tool, and an operation of inserting the wiring harness 100 with the water stop part into the grommet 110 requires much trouble. In addition, the small-diameter tube portion 110a of the grommet 110 is not easily curved due to the enlarged in diameter of the water stop part. Thus, the wiring harness is not bent easily by 90° to lie along the vehicle body panel immediately after inserting the wiring harness through the through hole of the vehicle body panel.
Further, the adhesive layers extend across all of both surfaces of the foamed sheet. The foamed sheet may be creased during the folding, adhering and winding, and the foamed sheet is adhered in a creased state. Once adhered, the adhesive layers are not easily peeled. Thus, adhering and winding the foamed sheet in a crease-free state is difficult. A clearance formed in a creased part of the sheet serves as a water entrance path and the reliability of water stop performance is reduced.
An adhesive layer that is provided only on the top side of a foamed sheet could be peeled easily during an operation of folding, adhering and winding. Thus, the operations easily can be redone if the foamed sheet is creased. However, this approach reduces an adhesive force at a winding end and the foamed sheet tends to be peeled from the winding end.
In view of the above problems, an object of the invention is to provide a water stop sheet that is unlikely to be creased when being wound around a wire group of a wiring harness, and enables an operation to be redone easily even if the water stop sheet is creased and is unlikely to be peeled from a winding end. Another object of the invention is to provide a water stop structure of a wiring harness that uses the water stop sheet, requires no dedicated tool, has good operability and can be formed without increasing cost.

Water stop sheet for wiring harness and water stop structure of wiring harness


An emergency light source comprising a housing and an energizing circuit selectively operatively coupling LEDs to a battery power source is provided for lighting a selected area to provide at least twenty-four hours of continuous light when energized. The emergency light source is activated by an activator having at least one of a manual activator and at least one light detector detecting a predetermined reduction in ambient light, wherein the activator is operatively coupled to the energizing circuit and causes the energizing circuit to operatively couple the battery power source and the LEDs.

The present invention relates generally to emergency light sources, and, in particular, to emergency light sources suitable for illuminating areas such as hallways, stairways, elevator banks, and the like. In particular, the present invention is directed to a battery-operated emergency light source suitable for extended use during a power outage.
An area such as a hallway or a stairway may be illuminated during a power outage by a conventional emergency lighting system which generally consists of a light that is powered by a rechargeable battery. The rechargeable battery is usually connected to an electrical source via an electrical circuit and is charged conventionally continuously. When the power source fails, the system uses the stored energy to power the light. These emergency lighting systems, however, are meant to be brilliantly lit for a very limited period of time, for instance, during a brief power outage, and therefore do not last more than several hours, on the average. Once the power is restored, the rechargeable batteries can be charged again in preparation for the next power outage. In the event of an extended power outage, however, the rechargeable batteries become spent after a few hours, leaving the lights without power and unusable until the power returns. Once these rechargeable batteries are spent, light is no longer available, and the areas lit only by these lights become completely dark, creating dangerous conditions.
Most light bulbs, such as incandescent light bulbs used in conventional emergency light sources, are lit by heating filaments. These filaments burn out and dissipate heat and therefore waste energy. Once the filament burns out, the light bulb cannot be used, resulting in a short life of the bulb.
Additionally, rechargeable batteries typically used to power emergency lights do not have a long shelf life. They are self discharging and will become useless after about six months if it is not recharged during that time. Therefore, the rechargeable batteries require strict maintenance and must be charged on a regular basis. An alternative for rechargeable batteries is a building generator, which is big, expensive and requires an emergency fuel source which itself raises safety and storage problems. In fact, because of the expense of conventional emergency power systems, including the cost of providing an electrical source in the vicinity of the system, many existing buildings have no such systems, especially private houses and buildings built before codes required emergency lighting.
Accordingly, there is a need for an emergency light source that can be easily mounted on a fixture, ceiling, wall, and the like, can be battery operated and provide continuous light for more than 24 hours.


An ultrasonic transducer includes a support body, a first piezoelectric layer, a first conductive layer, a second conductive layer and a second piezoelectric layer. The support body has an opening section and a displacement section covering the opening section on one side of the support body. The first piezoelectric layer is disposed inside of the displacement section when viewed in a plan view along a thickness direction of the support body. The first conductive layer and the second conductive layer contact with the first piezoelectric layer. The second piezoelectric layer is disposed over the first conductive layer, apart from the first piezoelectric layer when viewed in the plan view. The second conductive layer is disposed over the second piezoelectric layer and intersects the first conductive layer when viewed in the plan view.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic probe that uses a piezoelectric element comprising a piezoelectric material deposited on a thin film. The present invention also relates to an ultrasonic image diagnostic device equipped with such an ultrasonic probe.
Related Art
There is a known conventional piezoelectric element (ultrasonic element) that comprises a piezoelectric material laminated onto a support film and is configured to vibrate the support film and emit an ultrasonic wave when a voltage is applied to the piezoelectric material and causes it to vibrate (e.g., see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-229901).
The ultrasonic element disclosed in the above mentioned publication has a piezoelectric oscillator comprising a thin film of piezoelectric material arranged on a membrane and sandwiched between metal films serving as electrodes. With this kind of ultrasonic element, when a voltage is applied across the upper and lower metal electrode film layers, the piezoelectric material film vibrates and causes the membrane on which the piezoelectric material film is formed to vibrate such that an ultrasonic wave is emitted.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic image diagnostic device


A strut type wheel suspension system is modified so as to allow the camber angle of the wheel to change in the negative direction as the wheel moves upward with respect to the vehicle body. The suspension system includes additional links which jointly convert the vertical movement of a lower part of the knuckle into a lateral movement of an upper part of the knuckle. This allows the camber angle of the outer wheel of a vehicle making a turn to change into a more negative value, and thereby increases the cornering power of the wheel. Thus, the present invention increases the freedom in controlling the camber angle of the wheel without losing the benefits of the simplicity of a strut type wheel suspension system.

Strut type and double wishbone type wheel suspension systems are most commonly used in automobiles as the front wheel suspension systems. Strut type wheel suspension systems are simple in structure, and are therefore relatively inexpensive. However, because the knuckle which rotatably carries a wheel is substantially rigidly attached to the outer tube of the damper, the relative angle between the axle and the damper axis cannot change, and it is therefore difficult to control the camber angle with respect to the vertical travel of the wheel. Double wishbone type wheel suspension systems, on the other hand, allow a large change in the camber angle in dependence on the vertical travel of the wheel, but are relatively complex and expensive because both upper and lower arms are required. Also, a relatively large space is required for accommodating the various components of the suspension system, and the overall weight tends to be significant.


A hand held data collection device, such as a bar code scanner, portable data terminal, transaction terminal, or bar code verifier, containing at least one light-emitting diode (LED) that has been modified to improve the efficiency of light energy transmission. The modification involves transition features at the interface between the LED die surface and the ambient environment. Devices using such modified LEDs may offer a number of advantages such as extended read range, decreased read time, and improved battery life.

In recent years significant advances have been made in the art of data collection devices and networks containing the same.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,900,613, a data collection device system is described having a data collection device adapted to read bar code data wherein the data collection device is in communication with a local host processor and a remote host processor. The data collection device is configured to report bar code data to a remote computer and execute reprogramming routines to receive program data from either or both of the remote host processor and the local host processor.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,298,176, a data collection device system is described having a bar code reading device and a host computer. The bar code reading device is equipped to send bar code data and associated image data to the host. The image data may contain digital images associated with transmitted bar code data. In one example, image data sent to a host includes image data representing a handwritten signature.
In U.S. Publication No. US2002/0171745, a data collection device system is described having a bar code reading device which is in communication with a remote computer. The bar code reading device sends image data and associated bar code data to the remote computer. In one combined bar code/image data transmission scheme, an image data file in .PDF, .TIFF, or .BMP file format is created at a data collection device which includes an image representation of a decoded bar code message and an image representation of the package including the bar code encoding the decoded message.
In U.S. Publication No. US2003/0132292, a data collection device is described having a data collection terminal including a bar code reading unit, an RFID reading unit, a mag stripe data reading unit, a chip card reading unit, and a fingerprint reading unit. The terminal is part of a data collection system, which is configured to facilitate financial transactions involving data collected utilizing the various reading units.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,832,725 describes an optical reader imaging module that includes a first circuit board carrying a two dimensional image sensor; a second circuit board; a support assembly between the first and second circuit boards; an aiming system for projecting an aiming line using LEDs mounted on the first circuit board; and an illumination system for projecting an illumination pattern on a target area using illumination LEDs on the second circuit board. The aiming LEDs are selected to emit light in a different visible color relative to a visible color emitted by the illumination LEDs.
The above documents are generally directed to 2D imagers; however, the present invention is also applicable to 1D imagers. Such an imager is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,119,939, which is directed to an optical assembly for use in a reader having an optical axis. The assembly includes a support frame having a rear housing containing a solid state imager; a single imaging lens mounted in the frame for focusing a target image upon the solid state imager along a linear optical axis; an illumination unit mounted in coplanar alignment on each side of the frame (each unit containing at least one lamp mounted behind a field stop aperture); and a cylindrical illumination lens mounted in front of each field stop aperture, for focusing a horizontal line of light upon a target in barcode space.
The disclosures of the above patents and published patent application are hereby incorporated in their entireties by reference thereto.
In current hand held data collection devices, which include corded and cordless bar code scanners, portable data terminals, transaction terminals (including price checkers), and bar code verifiers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be used as indicators (for example, a "good read" indicator), and more importantly, for illumination.
Illumination can take two forms; aiming (also called targeting) illumination, and acquisition illumination. In the case of aiming illumination, an optical system projects a user-visible alignment indicator that assists in optimizing the spatial relationship between the imaging system of the data collection device and the target indicia, in order to facilitate image acquisition. For example, using one or more LEDs or a laser diode together with an appropriate optical system, the user may see cross-hairs, corner brackets, one or more dots, a line, or combinations of these, projected onto the substrate bearing the target indicia. These provide visual feedback to the user to assist in placing the imaging system of the data collection device and the target indicia into an acceptable read position relative to each other.
In the case of acquisition illumination, LED illumination is projected towards a target, such as a bar code indicia on a substrate, and the resulting scattered light from the target passes through the optics of the data collection device to impinge on the sensor array. This sensor array may be a linear (1D) array; or, a row-and-column (2D) matrix, such as a CCD or CMOS device. As used herein, the term "light" means those electromagnetic wavelengths produced by the LED, including but not limited to wavelengths in the visible spectrum. While conventional data collection devices employ visible light, and primarily white, red, blue, and/or green, for targeting and image acquisition illumination, this is not a requirement, and depending on the environment of use and overall system capabilities, other wavelengths or portions of the spectrum, both visible and invisible such as infrared and ultraviolet, may be used as well.
The amount of light, both ambient and that generated by the data collection device, is an important factor in its performance. With regard to light generated by the device, the amount of light and the amount of power required to produce it are factors in whether an image can be acquired at all (for example, under low light and/or long range conditions); in the time needed to acquire the image (for example, higher illumination can improve contrast levels, decreasing the time needed to recognize and/or acquire an image, or conversely can produce glare or specular reflection, impairing image detection and acquisition); in the quality of the image acquired; in whether it is necessary or desirable to alternate or combine the use of aiming illumination and acquisition illumination sources; and, in the case of a battery-powered device, in balancing power conservation with performance. When reading 2D symbologies the aiming illumination is usually turned off when an image is being acquired in order to ensure a constant illumination over the field of view. This may also improve power conservation. When reading 1D bar code symbols or some 2D bar codes on the other hand, conditions such as low ambient lighting, relatively large distances, and relatively poor quality of the indicia may favor leaving the aiming illumination on when the acquisition illumination is energized, effectively turning the aiming illumination into an auxiliary form of acquisition illumination in order to maximize the light reaching the target indicia.
These often conflicting needs can force a choice that sacrifices one interest for the other, and may prompt additional hardware and software expense and complexity in the design and operation of a data collection device in an attempt to balance the competing factors or provide the user with a range of options.
Accordingly, there is a need for further advances in data collection devices, specifically regarding the sources and uses of the illumination used for aiming and acquisition.

High-efficiency illumination in data collection devices


Metal catalyst particles are deposited on carbon nanotubes by preparing a silane solution of a metal catalyst salt, e.g. platinum or ruthenium chloride, immersing an electrically conducting substrate carrying nanotubes in the silane solution to yield a composite structure of substrate, nanotubes and catalyst, and reducing the composite structure to yield a composite of substrate, carbon nanotubes and metallic catalyst particles.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of depositing metal particles on carbon nanotubes.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Carbon nanostructures have been used as metal catalyst supports in electrochemistry and fuel cells [see, for example H. Baughman et al, Science, 297, 787 (2002), G. Che et al, Langmuir, 15, 750 (1999), Z. Liu et al, Langmuir, 18, 4054 (2002), W. Li et al, Carbon, 40, 787 (2002), E. G. Steigerwalt et al, J. Phys. Chem. B, 106, 760 (2002) and T. Yoshitake, et al, Physica B, 323, 124 (2002)]. However, in the past, catalysts have been deposited on loose nanostructures, nanofibers and nanohorns just as on carbon black. When such carbon nanostructures were used in fuel cells, acceptable or better performance was always reported. However, it has been shown [see E. B. Easton et al, Electrochem. Solid-State Lett., 3, 359 (2000)] that when platinum on carbon black is used in fuel cells, only a fraction of the Pt-based catalyst is electrically connected to the backing electrode.
Carbon nanotubes are hydrophobic which makes it difficult for metal particles to adhere to them. E. Dujardin et al, Science, 265, 1850 (1994) have reported that carbon nanotubes could not be wet by liquids with a surface tension higher than 100–200 mn/m which means that most metals would not adhere to them. In order to improve adhesion of metals to nanotubes, two main approaches have been proposed, namely surface modification and sensitization activation. The former involves oxidation of the nanotube surface in order to create functional groups and increase metal nucleation [see Y. P. Sun et al, Acc. Chem. Res., 35, 1096 (2002) and T. W. Ebbesen et al, Adv. Mater, 8 155 (1996)]. Sensitization activation involves the generation of small nuclei, for example of Pd—Sn to promote metal deposits on carbon nanotubes [see Z. Liu et al, supra and L. M. Ang et al, Carbon, 38, 363 (2000)]. However, a need still exists for an efficient method of depositing metals, and in particular metallic catalysts on carbon nanotubes.

Depositing metal particles on carbon nanotubes

Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada, as represented by the Minister of National Defense of her Majesty's Canadian Government


Disclosed is a markup system and method for converting text-based guidelines into a form that allows manipulation and viewing in different formats and detail. The system identifies conditions described in electronic documents and uses an interactive or rule-based processor to annotate (or tag) the text with the symbols and vocabulary of a hypertext markup language. Any electronic document, text-based or having a mix of graphics, audio, video, and/or pre-defined hypertext in addition to text, containing statements, indices, variables, decision points, and recommendations is adaptable for use with this system. The annotated text may be provided to others over a network for application. The annotated text may also be parsed by a validation engine to check it against the original to see that the logic and sentence structure has not been damaged.

1. Field of the Invention
The methods disclosed herein relate to automated computer data processing, specifically the processing of text into hypertext and associated delivery tools and verification systems therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has been widely recognized that use of clinical guidelines by clinicians is very low, even among those who profess to know about them and agree with them (see, for example, references [1] [2]). (The numbers in square brackets throughout this disclosure refer to the references listed in the "References" section below and are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.)
Previous studies have documented the inability of traditional means for distributing guidelines, such as publication and didactic educational sessions, to increase their use [3]. This is so primarily for three reasons. First, clinicians may not remember to apply the guideline even if they are aware of it and agree with it. Second, the details of the guideline are not always readily accessible at the site of clinical care. Third, the traditional form of a published guideline may not make it immediately clear how to apply the guideline.
Guidelines traditionally have been distributed in print form in medical journals, books, or monographs. More recently, guidelines have been published electronically either on CD-ROM or in repositories based on the World Wide Web [4]. However, even with electronic distribution, most existing clinical guidelines are text documents. They often contain extensive background and reference material. This additional material is valuable, but once the clinician is familiar with the guideline the background and reference material are not needed for day-to-day clinical practice. It may be difficult to find quickly what is directly useful, e.g., the "bottom line" decision and action steps. This difficulty is due in part to the unstructured nature of text-based guidelines. A simple algorithmic summary of the guideline may not be available and if present, may be located in a variety of locations in the document. In addition, the language in a guideline may be intentionally ambiguous to satisfy the consensus process used to create it, or the guideline may lack coverage, be logically incomplete or appear to be contradictory [5].
Another feature of text-based guidelines that makes them more difficult to apply is that they may specify multiple choices of action and may leave the ultimate choice to the end-user's (e.g., decision maker, physician) judgment without making it clear how the choice is to be made.
Some researchers have promoted the idea of a shareable representation of clinical guidelines. For example, the Guideline Interchange Format (GLIF) [6] encodes explicitly in procedural form the steps for collecting information about a patient and making decisions. This process requires extensive expert encoding in a formal language, and is specifically designed for medical applications. Moreover, while it does produce a machine-interpretable form of the guideline, it does not preserve the relationship of the procedural component to the original published document. This can make it difficult to produce educational or reference applications of the guideline.
What is needed is a better encoding system that, at least in part, automatically encodes or converts text documents into a machine-interpretable or machine-readable form. The type of text documents are preferably not limited to medical documents, but include other types of documents as well. Such a system may also include tools for verifying and validating the encoded documents produced thereby and for adding or editing the system-generated codings. Such a system may also include a specialized coding language tailored to optimize the actual encoding.

Conversion of text data into a hypertext markup language

University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey


Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for accessing a base station, a base station and a user equipment, belonging to the field of communications technologies. The method includes: establishing, by a current macro base station, a control plane connection with a user equipment according to an access request of the user equipment, and assigning a first cell-radio network temporary identity to the user equipment; and when receiving a measurement report of pico base stations reported by the user equipment, selecting a pico base station for the user equipment according to a preset policy so that the user equipment establishes a data plane connection with the pico base station, and notifying context information of the user equipment to the pico base station, where the context information includes the first cell-radio network temporary identity assigned to the user equipment.

In a second generation communications system, users' information exchange demands mainly focus on voice calls and short messages, which have a modest requirement for spectrum efficiency. The system is mainly restricted by the size of a coverage area. Therefore, a networking mode of macro base stations is generally used. The base stations are far from each other. This networking mode features a low cost. With the development of the third and fourth generation communications systems, data transmission has become a new demand, especially real-time transmission of video. This, however, has an increasingly high requirement for spectrum efficiency and network throughput. A macro base station covers a large area and is capable of serving a large number of users. Therefore, the throughput of the macro base station is greatly restricted. When the macro base station covers one or more densely-populated areas, an even higher requirement is presented for the macro network throughput. In this case, single-layer coverage of the macro base station only meets users' basic voice service demand, and cannot meet the high-speed data transmission demand. Obviously, the existing networking mode of the macro base station cannot meet users' demands for high-speed data transmission.
Considering the defect of the macro base station, a solution provided in the prior art uses a multi-layer heterogeneous network architecture involving both a macro base station and a pico base station at a hot spot (referring to FIG. 1A). The macro base station provides a large-scale continuous wide coverage, and the pico base station provides coverage for a hot spot area. Users access the macro base station in an area having only the macro base station network, and take precedence to access the pico base station in an area covered by both the macro base station network and the pico base station network, for offloading the traffic of the macro base station network and obtaining better services. The macro base station and the pico base station are two independent networks. When a user chooses to access a base station the base station establishes both a control plane connection and a data plane connection with the user, provides air interface radio transmission for the user, and assigns and maintains for the user a unique cell-radio network temporary identity C-RNTI (Cell-Radio Network Temporary Identity, cell-radio network temporary identity) under the base station for identifying an RRC (Radio Resource Control, radio resource control) connection and uniquely identifying the user in scheduling. When the user is handed over between base stations, a source base station sends context information of a user equipment such as the C-RNTI identity to a target base station over a backbone network; the target base station assigns a new C-RNTI identity to the user, and notifies the user of updating the C-RNTI identity over an air interface through the source base station; and the C-RNTI identity maintained by the source base station is released after a successful base station handover.
After analysis on the prior art, the inventors find that the prior art has at least the following disadvantages.
In the multi-layer heterogeneous network architecture, because the coverage area of a pico base station is small, during moving of the user equipment, each time the user equipment accesses a pico base station, the pico base station needs to assign a new cell-radio network temporary identity C-RNTI to the user equipment, and notify the user of updating the C-RNTI through radio transmission. This not only reduces the efficiency of the base station, but also increases information transmission of the backbone network and radio network and reduces the utilization rate of radio resources.

Method for accessing base station, base station, and user equipment


A drawbar for power-operated industrial trucks with a drawbar handle which can be pivoted about a horizontal axis in a large angular range between an approximately upright position and a position inclined obliquely to vertical. The drawbar includes a drawbar head arranged at a free end of the drawbar handle, the head including a horn arranged in the extension of the drawbar handle, rod-like grips extending on both sides of the horn and approximately transversely thereto that are connected to carrier sections connected to the horn on both sides via arm sections attached to the end of a grip. The arm and carrier sections form a protective yoke with grip openings and at least one control element for a function of the industrial truck on one grip opening is arranged in the vicinity of the associated carrier section, such that it can be actuated from above by pressure from one finger, even when the hand grasps the rod-like grip facing it. The control element is constructed and arranged, such that with an approximately upright drawbar handle, it can even be actuated from the lower face of the drawbar head by finger or thumb pressure.

Hand controlled lift trucks or front loaders have a drawbar with which the industrial truck is steered. The steering of the drawbar takes place at the support for the pivotable drive wheel of the materials handling truck. At the free end a drawbar head is provided which has a plurality of actuation members for operating the industrial truck. Thus for example drive switches are provided, actuation elements for the lifting and lowering operation and the horn. It is known from EP 0 751 060 to attach grips on both sides of a horn, which is arranged in the extension of the drawbar handle, and to attach them to both sides of the horn via a protective bracket. The connection is made via arm sections extending approximately parallel to the horn and via carrier sections which in turn extend approximately parallel to the grips. It is further known from the disclosed prior art, to arrange a drive switch grip respectively between a grip and the horn which can be twisted with the thumbs about an axis which approximately coincides with the axis of the grip. Finally, it is also known from the disclosed publications, to attach to the carrier section a row of control buttons for the lifting and lowering operation, which are actuated by finger pressure when the hand simultaneously grasps the grip.
It is known from EP 1016569 A1 to attach a key pad to the lower face of the drawbar head, via which the operator can insert the authorisation code.
It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,259 to make the grips of the drawbar head rotatable and to use them for drive control. It is further known to provide the grips with paddle-shaped shoulders in the vicinity of the arm sections, which protrude into the grip area and which can be actuated by the thumbs or a finger when the hand grips the arm section at the side.
It is known that a drawbar of the disclosed type can be pivoted in a large angle between an approximately upright position and a fully lowered position, to be able to maneuver the vehicle in the widest variety of spatial conditions. In the known drawbar embodiments, the control elements of the drawbar head can only be reached with difficulty in the folded up position of the drawbar and generally cannot be observed which makes the operation more difficult. The control elements are generally predominantly round or square in their contour shape and therefore constructed in such a shape that they do not guarantee optimal accessibility of the hand grasping the drawbar head in every position.

Drawbar for power-operated industrial truck


High frequency components are efficiently extracted from blurred images, and blur correction is efficiently performed. A blur analyzing means judges whether an image is a blurred image. If the image is judged to be a blurred image, blur data Q, which includes a blur width, is generated and transmitted to a blur correcting means. The blur correcting means extracts high frequency components from the image if the blur width is less than a predetermined threshold value, and performs blur correction by adding the high frequency components to the image. Meanwhile, if the blur width is greater than or equal to the threshold value, a reducing means reduces the size of the image to obtain a reduced image. Then, the blur correcting means extracts high frequency components from the reduced image, and performs blur correction by emphasizing and adding the extracted high frequency components to the reduced image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method, an image processing apparatus, and an image processing program, for extracting high frequency components from digital photographic images.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of image processing of digital photographic images, extraction of high frequency components is a process that is performed often. For example, various image processes are administered on digital image data sets to improve the image qualities thereof prior to printing. The digital image data sets are obtained by photoelectrically reading out photographic images, which are recorded on negative films or reversal films, with scanners, or by photography with digital still cameras (DSC's) . A blur correction process, for removing blur from blurred images, is an example of such an image process.
A blur correction method has been proposed, in which high -frequency components within images are extracted, emphasized, then added to the original images (in Mikio Takagi, Haruhisa Shimoda, Ed. "Handbook of Image Analysis", pp. 549, Tokyo University Press, for example). Specifically, this method is performed according to the following Formula (1).S′=Sorg+β·(Sorg−Sus)  (1)
wherein                S′: corrected image        Sorg: original image        Sus: blurred mask image        β: emphasizing coefficient
Here, Sus is an image obtained by applying a blurred mask on the original image Sorg, and represents the low frequency components of the original image Sorg. For this reason, (Sorg−Sus) represents the high frequency components of the original image Sorg. As can be understood from Formula (1) above, the corrected image S′ is the sum of the original image Sorg, and the high frequency components of the original image Sorg, which have been emphasized with the coefficient β. Sufficient extraction of the high frequency components from the original image is a factor that affects the effectiveness of blur correction.
A commonly employed technique for extracting high frequency components from digital photographic images will be described. First, a blurred mask image is obtained by applying a blur mask, for example, a blur filter which is a low pass filter, on the original image. Then, the blurred mask image is subtracted from the original image, to extract the high frequency components. The time required for operations increases as the size of the blur filter increases. Therefore, filters having sizes of 5 taps to 7 taps are generally employed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,133 discloses a method, by which high frequency components are extracted at high speed. In this method, original images are reduced in size to obtain reduced images. Then, a blur mask filter process is administered on the reduced images. Finally, the reduced images, on which the blur mask process has been administered, are enlarged to the size of the original images.
However, in cases that the degree of blur within original images is great, there are few high frequency components included therein. Therefore, if a blur filter of a conventional size is employed to extract high frequency components, the number of extractable high frequency components is low. For example, consider the case of a blurred image having the frequency characteristics illustrated in FIG. 12A. If high frequency components are extracted from this image employing a 5 tap filter having the frequency characteristics illustrated in FIG. 12B, the extracted high frequency components are those illustrated in FIG. 12C. As illustrated in FIG. 12C, the number of high frequency components extracted from a blurred image, such as that illustrated in FIG. 12A, is extremely low. For this reason, if the extracted high frequency components are employed to perform the aforementioned blur correction process, favorable correction results cannot be obtained.
Applying a blur filter of a large size may be considered, in order to sufficiently extract high frequency components from blurred images having great degrees of blur. However, the application of such filters will increase the time required for operations, and therefore would be inefficient.
Applying the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,133, that is, reducing the size of the blurred image to obtain a reduced image, then extracting high frequency components from the reduced image, may also be considered. However, there is a possibility that high frequency components will be lost due to reduction, in the case of images that do not have great degrees of blur. As a result, high frequency components may not be sufficiently extracted, in a similar manner.

Image processing method, image processing apparatus, and image processing program


A new and distinct cultivar of Sanvitalia plant named ‘Starbini’, characterized by its compact, outwardly spreading and low-mounded plant habit; freely branching habit and short internodes, dense and bushy plants; dark green-colored foliage; long and freely flowering habit with flowers held just above and beyond the foliage; and single daisy inflorescence form with yellow-colored ray florets.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Sanvitalia plant, botanically known as Sanvitalia speciosa and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name 'Starbini'.
The new Sanvitalia is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Deitingen, Switzerland. The objective of the program is to create and develop new compact Sanvitalia cultivars with numerous inflorescences and attractive ray floret coloration.
The new Sanvitalia originated from a cross-pollination by the Inventor of two unnamed Sanvitalia speciosa seedling selections, not patented. The new Sanvitalia was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a plant within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled environment in Deitingen, Switzerland in 2001. The selection of the new Sanvitalia was based on its compact and freely flowering habit.
Asexual reproduction of the new Sanvitalia by terminal cuttings in a controlled environment in Deitingen, Switzerland since 2001, has shown that the unique features of this new Sanvitalia are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.


Paper machine for producing paper that can be gravure printed from a fibrous stock suspension, and a related method. The paper machine includes a pressing section having at least one press nip, an impingement dryer arranged immediately after the pressing section, and an applicator. The applicator applies a coating color in the manner of at least one of a curtain application, a film application, or a spraying application.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a paper machine for producing paper that can be gravure printed from a fibrous stock suspension.
2. Description of Background Information
EP 0 732 446 B1 discloses a calender for the two-sided treatment of a paper web, which is in particular also suitable for the production of paper that can be gravure printed. The calender comprises a roll stack which can be loaded from the end and has hard rolls and soft rolls as well as working nips in each case formed between a hard and a soft roll. In this case, some of the rolls can be heated. The stack has six to eight rolls having one roll nip formed by two soft rolls. Two identical stacks each having three or four rolls are provided.
The known calender is connected directly to a paper machine, from which the paper web is supplied. Then, under the guidance of guide rollers, the paper web runs through first working nips between rolls of the calender, a reversing nip, further working nips, and is then wound up into a wound roll. In the first working nips, the paper web rests with one side on the hard rolls and in the further working nips with the other side on the hard rolls, so that the desired surface structure, for example with regard to gloss or smoothness, is achieved on both sides.
In known paper machines, the gravure printing quality of a paper web has hitherto been achieved only by applying a coating color by a blade (blade coat). As a result of this form of application, the paper is loaded highly and, because of the high break tendency of the blade coat, the speed for the online production of the paper web from the fibrous stock suspension as far as a paper coil wound up on a roll is limited to 1400 to at most 1500 m per minute.