An automatically driven motor vehicle automatically runs on a running path having path markers while detecting the path markers with a marker sensor. A present position of the motor vehicle on the running path is recognized, and a speed plan which governs a position and a speed of the motor vehicle on the running path is generated. A planned position to be reached by the motor vehicle after a predetermined time and a planned speed of the motor vehicle at the planned position are determined from the present position of the motor vehicle based on the speed plan. A predicted position to be reached by the motor vehicle after the predetermined time and a predicted speed of the motor vehicle at the planned position are determined from the present position, speed, and acceleration of the motor vehicle. A distance deviation between the predicted position and the predicted position and a speed deviation between the planned speed and the predicted speed are determined. Acceleration/deceleration correcting data for the motor vehicle are determined based on the distance deviation and the speed deviation. Acceleration/deceleration of the motor vehicle are controlled based on the acceleration/deceleration correcting data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatically driven motor vehicle, and more particularly to an automatically driven motor vehicle capable of automatically running within a lane on a road based on positional information obtained from the road.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Research efforts are being made to develop a technology for automatically driving motor vehicles such as automobiles on roads while detecting obstacles with a radar, a CCD camera, or their combination to recognize front obstacles and road conditions. However, there has not been available any technology, to be incorporated into automatically driven motor vehicles, for appropriately recognizing front obstacles and road conditions on any roads.
Automatic vehicle travel control under given conditions has already been practiced in limited applications such as automatic transport carriage control in factories, for example. Such an automatic transport carriage is controlled to travel at a low speed along a predetermined path based on the detection of magnetic markers that are arranged at given intervals along the path.
However, it is difficult to control the automatic transport carriage to run accurately on the predetermined path, and the actual position where the automatic transport carriage runs tends to be displaced in error from the predetermined path while the automatic transport carriage is running.
It has been customary to control the automatic transport carriage to run along the predetermined path by detecting a displacement error between the present position of the automatic transport carriage and the predetermined path and eliminating the displacement error under feedback control.
The conventional automatic transport carriage control process has been unstable because of hunting in eliminating displacement errors particularly when the automatic transport carriage runs at high speeds. It has been difficult to run the automatic transport carriage on general roads while controlling its speed.


A dishwashing machine includes a tub having an interior that holds a first liquid and a booster tank that includes a housing and at least one heater disposed within the housing. The booster tank is at least partially disposed within the interior of the tub such that at least a portion of the booster tank is at least partially submerged within the first liquid, whereby the first liquid is heated by the booster tank. A dishwashing machine includes a tub containing a liquid therein and a wash pump assembly that includes a pump housing; an inlet in the pump housing; an outlet in the pump housing; and a pump having a motor that pumps the liquid from the tub through the pump housing via the inlet to a device that sprays the liquid within a dishwasher via the outlet. The liquid is heated by means of a heater which is disposed either in proximity to the inlet, in proximity to the outlet, and/or in the spray device before the liquid is pumped out of the spray device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to devices for increasing a temperature of water from a water source in a dishwashing machine and methods therefore. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a booster tank for use with a dishwashing machine or warewashing machine.
2. Description of Related Art
Booster tanks provide for an increase in temperature of water supplied to a dishwashing machine for washing wares such as, glasses, utensils, plates, and the like. For example, hot water may be supplied to a booster tank from a building's hot water supply at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The booster tank heats the water to a minimum temperature, such as, for example, the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) standard of about 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Typical booster tanks are mounted by a mounting plate on an outside, angled surface of a dishwasher exposed to the ambient air. Therefore, heat from the booster tank and water therein is radiated to ambient air and lost from the system resulting in an increase in energy and/or water consumption and inefficiency in operation.
Booster tanks may be required to be positioned outside a footprint of the dishwashing machine. The footprint of a dishwasher machine measures the amount of floor space the dishwashing machine requires for placement. Most conveyor type dishwashing machines are limited in space below a tub and a larger booster would have to be mounted outside of a footprint or on top of the machine. Both locations are undesirable. Most conveyors with booster tanks have a large floor mounted booster tank outside of the footprint undesirably taking up square footage of floor space.
In addition, service items of a dishwashing machine are in multiple locations. Thus, assembly and service of these service items require access to multiple locations on the dishwashing machine.
Accordingly, it has been determined by the present disclosure, there is a need for a reduction in energy transfer from the booster tank to the ambient air. There is a further need for improved energy transfer between a heating element of the booster tank with liquid or water within the booster tank. There is still a further need for minimizing heat or energy transfer from the booster tank to ambient as well as capturing that heat loss within the dishwashing machine water. In addition, there is a need for reducing the locations of service items of the dishwashing machine tank.


A passive cascaded low-pass and high-pass filter comprises a conductive ferrite block (100) for filtering out some and not others of the frequencies of a multi-frequency electrical signal, and a pair of electrical contacts (101) on the block for connecting the unfiltered signal to the block and connecting the filtered signal from the block. The filter characteristic depends upon the ferrite's stoichiometry, but is independent of the ferrite's geometry. Signal attenuation caused by the filter evenly across the whole frequency range can be varied by varying the stress between one or both contacts and the block, via various stress-inducing mechanisms (400, 500).

The ability to simultaneously transmit both low-frequency and high-frequency signals with significant attenuation between the low-frequency and high-frequency regions is often desired in communications--for example, in frequency-division multiplex systems and in subcarrier multiplex systems. Such an effect can be achieved either through a notch filter, or through a cascade of a low-pass filter and a high-pass filter. Known such filters are active electronic components--that is, they require an external source of power--that tend to be rather complex in structure and expensive, and that tend to take up a significant surface area of a printed-circuit board.

Passive cascaded low-pass and high-pass filter with variable attenuation


The lapping of a slider is controlled based on an amplitude of a readback signal which is produced from an externally applied magnetic field. A lapping plate is used to lap a slider which includes at least one magnetic head having a read sensor. During the lapping, a coil produces a magnetic field around the slider and processing circuitry monitors both a readback signal amplitude and a resistance of the read sensor. The lapping of the slider is terminated based on the monitoring both the readback signal amplitude and the resistance. Preferably, the lapping of the slider is terminated when the resistance is within a predetermined resistance range and the readback signal amplitude is above a predetermined minimum amplitude threshold or reaches its peak value. Asymmetry can also be measured in the described system, where the lapping process is terminated based on asymmetry as well as resistance and amplitude measurements.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for making magnetic heads, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for controlling the lapping of a slider based on an amplitude of a readback signal produced from an externally applied magnetic field.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers often include auxiliary memory storage devices having media on which data can be written and from which data can be read for later use. A direct access storage device (e.g. a disk drive) incorporating rotating magnetic disks are commonly used for storing data in magnetic form on the disk surfaces. Data is recorded on concentric, radially spaced tracks on the disk surfaces. Magnetic heads including read sensors are then used to read data from the tracks on the disk surfaces.
The dimensions of magnetic heads are shrinking rapidly as the recording density of magnetic disks continues to increase. To ensure optimal magnetic performance, these magnetic heads require tight dimension controls at both the wafer manufacturing and slider fabrication levels. Magnetic heads are formed during the wafer manufacturing process where widths, gaps, and other dimensions of the magnetic heads are defined. During such process, a wafer is typically cut into many individual sliders, each of which carries a magnetic head and associated read sensor. The sliders are mechanically lapped or polished with use of a lapping plate to achieve a flat and smooth surface finish for good mechanical performance. The lapping also defines the proper heights for the magnetic head, especially the read sensor's height (a.k.a. the "stripe height") for good magnetic performance.
Traditionally, slider fabrication was monitored and controlled with the use of Electrical Lapping Guides (ELGs). ELGs are typically formed at a kerf area of the wafer in between sliders for the sole purpose of lapping control. With today's magnetic heads, however, the alignment error between the ELG and the read sensor becomes significant relative to the stripe height. Therefore, the resistance of the read sensor may be utilized to directly control the lapping process to achieve a very tight read sensor resistance distribution. Achieving such tight resistance distribution, however, does not guarantee optimal magnetic performance. Most variations in read sensors (e.g. variations in the read gap thickness, mean-read-width or MRW, film quality, hard bias quality, etc.) are fixed from the wafer manufacturing prior to the lapping process. Thus, achieving tight resistance distribution only eliminates one of several variations which contribute to the degradation of magnetic performance. One of the key indicators of a read sensor's performance is its response to external magnetic fields, specifically its readback signal amplitude and asymmetry. Amplitude measures the read sensor's sensitivity to the magnetic field, and asymmetry measures the shape of the response.
Accordingly, what are needed are ways in which to control the lapping of sliders to optimize the performance of read sensors.

Methods and apparatus for controlling the lapping of a slider based on an amplitude of a readback signal produced from an externally applied magnetic field

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.


When stored stream data is deleted/edited, the packet sequence completely included in a deletion range is deleted from the stream data, and the stream data is segmented into first stream data before the start point of the deletion range and second stream data after the end point of the deletion range. First and second stream management data corresponding to the first and second stream data are generated. The index value of the packet including the start point of the deletion range is written in the header of the first stream management data. The index value of the packet including the end point of the deletion range is written in the header of the second stream management data. In addition, an index base value for correcting the index value is written in the header of the second stream management data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus including a function of editing a video content recorded in a storage medium using, for example, a NAND type flash memory, and a terminal apparatus including the editing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some television receiver or video recorder compatible capable of receiving terrestrial digital broadcasting includes a function of storing a received program content in a portable storage medium using a NAND type flash memory such as a memory card. Storing a desired program content in a storage medium by using this type of apparatus allows the user to play the above program content in another room, a place outside his/her house, or the like by loading the storage medium into another television reception apparatus or a personal computer. Note that the program content stored in the recording medium is encrypted for copyright protection. There is also proposed a technique of letting the above apparatus have a function of editing the program content stored in a storage medium. This function allows editing processing, e.g., deleting a portion of a program content and leaving only a necessary portion.
When the above program content is to be deleted/edited, for example, the following processing is conventionally performed. First of all, the stream data of an encrypted program content stored in a storage medium is decoded. That portion of the decoded data which corresponds to the deletion range designated by the user is deleted. Portions before and after the deleted portions are re-encoded, and the re-encoded stream data is re-encrypted. Thereafter, the stream data of the program content after this re-encryption is stored in the storage medium again (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-140883).
Such a conventional deleting/editing function requires multi-stage processing for the data of a program content stored in the storage medium, e.g., decrypting/decoding an encrypted program content, deleting a portion of the data, and re-encoding and re-encrypting the data after the deletion. Of these processes, the decoding process, re-encoding process, and re-encryption process of video data, in particular, require very large processing amounts, resulting in a very long time for editing processing. This problem becomes especially remarkable when a flash memory is used as a storage medium, because the read-in and write-out speeds of the flash memory are significantly slow.

Communication apparatus and communication method


A refrigerant separator is capable of exhibiting the heat exchanger capacity to the maximum extent, by dividing the refrigerant, including liquid phase and gas phase, at an optimum refrigerant separation ratio, regardless of the mounting position of the refrigerant separator in the heat ex-changer inside the indoor unit of an air conditioner. A first passage having a first opening end, a second passage branched off from the first passage, and a third passage branched off from the first passage are provided. The second passage and third passage are formed in mutually different inside diameters by using an L-shaped partition. Supposing the inside diameter of the second passage to be .phi.A and the inside diameter of the third passage to be .phi.B, .phi.A and .phi.B are set so as to satisfy the relation of 7/10<.phi.B/.phi.A)<1. The refrigerant, including liquid phase and gas phase, enters from the first opening end, passes through the first passage, and is divided and flows into the second passage and third passage.

A conventional refrigerant separator and an air conditioner mounting this refrigerant separator are described by referring to the drawings.
FIG. 10 shows a heat exchanger provided in an indoor unit of a conventional air conditioner, and a refrigerant separator attached to this heat exchanger, and FIG. 11 is a partially magnified view of FIG. 10 showing the refrigerant separator. In FIG. 10, inside the indoor unit, a front heat exchanger 1001a and a rear heat exchanger 1001b are provided, and a refrigerant separator 1002 is installed between the front heat exchanger 1001a and rear heat exchanger 1001b. The refrigerant, including a gas phase and a liquid phase, flows in from the direction of arrow A in cooling operation, and is divided into the direction of arrow B and the direction of arrow C by the refrigerant separator 1002. In FIG. 11, the conventional refrigerant separator main body 11 comprises a first separation opening end 1101, a second separation opening end 1102, a partition 1103 for forming a fluid passage, and a refrigerant separation board 1104 for dividing the refrigerant entering from the first separation opening end into a second passage 1108 and a third passage 1109. The inside diameter .phi.I of the divided second passage 1108 and the inside diameter .phi.H of the third passage 1109 are the same. Flowing in from the direction A, the refrigerant fluid passes through the first passage 1107, and is divided into the second passage 1108 and third passage 1109, and flows in the direction B and direction C.
In reference to the conventional design, however, when the refrigerant fluid flows in from the first separation opening end 1101 (direction A), due to the angle of the mounting position of the refrigerant separator to the heat exchanger in the indoor unit, the fluid cannot be divided into the direction B and direction C at an optimum refrigerant separation ratio. That is, the front heat exchanger 1001a and rear heat exchanger 1001b are mutually positioned at a specified angle. Therefore, when the refrigerant separator 1002 is mounted to these heat exchangers 1001a, 1001b, and in an oblique direction, the refrigerant, including gas phase and liquid phase flowing in from the direction A in a cooling operation, is divided into the direction B and direction C. The refrigerant containing more liquid component flows in the direction C, and the refrigerant containing more gas component flows in the direction B. Hence, the fluid is not divided at an optimum refrigerant separation ratio. Accordingly, the heat exchange capability of the front heat exchanger 1001a and rear heat exchanger 1001b cannot be sufficiently exhibited, and the instability of the refrigerant separation ratio impairs the bath temperature distribution in humid conditions, possibly causing water splashes due to dew condensation, as well as condensation of dew on the fan. Moreover, since the refrigerant containing relatively higher concentration of liquid component flows in the direction C, refrigerant noise occurs (that is, the refrigerant boiling sound) during the cooling operation.
Hence, it is an object of the present invention to solve the problems of the prior art, and present a refrigerant separator capable of dividing the fluid at an optimum refrigerant separation ratio, and an air conditioner mounting such a refrigerant separator.

Refrigerant separator and air conditioner mounting the refrigerant separator

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


At a node, a first receiver receives ring information from a first adjacent node. A second receiver receives ring information from a second adjacent node. A first transmitter transmits ring information obtained by adding first local ring information attached between the node and the second adjacent node to the ring information received by the first receiver, to the second adjacent node. A second transmitter transmits ring information obtained by adding second local ring information attached between the node and the first adjacent node to the ring information received by the second receiver, to the first adjacent node.

An OTN (Optical Transport Network) is high-speed transmission technology based on SONET/SDH (Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) and designed so as to be capable of accommodating SONET/SDH and Ethernet (registered trademark) based services. The frame structure is specified by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector) G. 709 and the overhead has a shape similar to that of SONET/SDN. The digital layer of the OTN is formed basically by three hierarchies and accommodates a client signal in an ODU (Optical channel Data Unit) via an OPU (Optical channel Payload Unit) and maps the signal to a wavelength via an OTU (Optical channel Transport Unit).
For a network, the protection technique against failures is indispensable in terms of management. In the OTU also, the linear protection is specified in ITU-T G. 873.1.
FIG. 14 explains the linear protection. In FIG. 14, nodes 101 and 102 are illustrated. The nodes 101 and 102 have protection switch units 101a and 102a, respectively. It is assumed that the protection switch unit 101a is a bridge and the protection switch unit 102a is a selector.
Between nodes, a unique signal number is attached by, for example, an operator. For example, in the case of FIG. 14, between the nodes 101 and 102, a signal number Sig1 is attached.
In FIG. 14, between the nodes 101 and 102, paths of an active ODU and a spare ODU are established and when a failure occurs, the protection switch units 101a and 102a switch the paths for a client signal at the ODU layer level.
For example, when a failure occurs in the active ODU, the protection switch unit 101a of the node 101 transmits a switch request to the signal number Sig1 by an APS (Automatic Protection Switching) message of the spare ODU in order to request to switch the paths. Upon receipt of the switch request to the signal number Sig1 by the APS message of the spare ODU, the protection switch unit 102a of the node 102 returns its response to the protection switch unit 101a by an APS message of the spare ODU.
Due to this, the protection switch unit 101a may send out a client signal to the spare ODU and the protection switch unit 102a may receive the client signal from the spare ODU. When the recognitions at both two end nodes agree with each other, it is possible to perform switching due to a failure even if the signal number in the linear protection is not understood by a relay node.
Conventionally, in addition to the already existing services (DS1, DS3, STS-1, etc.), there is proposed an add and drop multiplexer capable of dealing with a fixed-length cell, such as an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) cell (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 09-93254). Further, an information communication system in which a misconnect or traffic drop does not occur at the time of setting of a communication path, a monitoring controller used in this information communication system, a transmission equipment, and a path setting method are proposed (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-156694).
The OTN is also supposed to be operated in a ring topology and ITU-T G. 873.2 has begun reviewing of the ODU ring protection. When the same APS message as that of the linear protection is used, there used to be such a problem that a misconnect of a client signal occurs when a duplicated signal number is attached between nodes in a ring topology and path switching is performed due to the occurrence of a failure.
FIG. 15 explains a misconnect in a ring topology. In FIG. 15, nodes 111 to 116 are illustrated. The solid line double-pointed arrow illustrated in FIG. 15 indicates an active ODU and the dotted line double-pointed arrow indicates a spare ODU. It is assumed that between respective nodes 111 to 116, signal numbers Sig1 to Sig6 are attached as illustrated in FIG. 15.
Here, it is assumed that a failure has occurred in the active ODU and the spare ODU between the nodes 111 and 112. In this case, the node 111 transmits a switch request to the signal number Sig1 in which the failure has occurred by the APS message of the spare ODU to the node 116.
Because the signal number of the traffic the node 116 should terminate (receive) is 'Sig5', the node 116 establishes a crossconnect so as to let the switch request to the signal number Sig1 received at the spare ODU pass through and pass through the spare ODU. The nodes 115, 114, and 113 also let the switch request pass through similarly.
The node 112 performs switching so as to receive the signal number Sig1 from the spare ODU because the signal number of the traffic the node 112 should terminate is 'Sig1'. Upon receipt of the APS message of the switch request to the signal number Sig1, the node 112 transmits the response APS message at the spare ODU via the nodes 113 to 116. Due to this, the node 111 may send out the client signal to the spare ODU and the node 112 may receive the client signal from the spare ODU.
The above is a case where a signal number is allocated uniquely by an operator. In contrast to this, for example, when an operator attaches the signal number Sig1 (enclosed by brackets in FIG. 15) between the nodes 115 and 116, the node 116 terminates the signal number Sig1 received from the node 111 at the spare ODU. Consequently, the client signal to be transmitted from the node 111 to the node 112 at the spare ODU is terminated at the node 116, resulting in a misconnect (arrow A101 in FIG. 15). Similarly, the node 115 terminates the signal number Sig1 received from the node 112. Because of this, the client signal to be transmitted from the node 112 to the node 111 at the spare ODU is terminated at the node 115, resulting in a misconnect (arrow A102 in FIG. 15).

Node and ring information transmitting method


A raw material delivery system is disclosed. It is used with a press of the type used to compact raw material in a die. The press has a horizontal table with an opening in which the die is held. A feed shoe is movable across the table between an extended position where a central bore of the feed shoe overlies the die and a retracted position where the central bore is aligned with a bore in a bridge. A vertically movable feed tube is carried on the bridge, and has a passage through which raw material may pass. The vertically movable feed tube receives raw material from a vertically fixed feed tube received telescopically within the vertically movable feed tube. A valve is between the two feed tubes. A valve may be provided between the bridge and the feed shoe so that the raw material passes through this interface without being exposed to cross-ventilation. The vertically movable feed tube may be pivotally connected to the bridge so that the movable feed tube may be pivoted away from the bridge opening when it is desired to change the metal powder or the die. Both the fixed and movable feed tubes may be heated, and heated material may be received by the fixed tube.

It is known to produce metal parts by compacting powdered metal and heating the compacted metal powder to sinter the metal particles to produce a finished metal product. However, such products are known to have lower densities than comparable wrought metal products. To achieve greater densities, products have been subjected to secondary operations, such as using a second coining operation.
Recently, there has been interest in the use of a compacting press to manufacture metal parts from metal powders where the metal particles are coated with a thin polymer lubricant. The polymer coatings are believed to lubricate the interfaces between metal particles and forming tool surfaces thereby making it easier to form workpieces due to decreases in the internal friction and stresses created during compaction. First level workpieces using conventional lubricated powders have been compacted into workpieces having final densities in the range of 6.8-7.1 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cc) when compacting at pressures of 35-60 TSI. To obtain higher densities, over 7.2 g/cc, a workpiece is typically first green-formed using lubricated powders to a density of about 6.8, and then pre-sintered to a temperature typically between 1400 and 1700 degrees Fahrenheit (.degree.F.) in order to burn out the lubricants, relieve internal stresses, and to promote mechanical bonding. Next, the workpiece surface is coated with a lubricant and pressed a second time to reach the preferred density range. As can be appreciated with such level 2 and 3 workpieces, reaching higher density levels becomes costly and time-consuming; moreover, there may be density fluctuations in the workpiece after the second pressing. And while advancements in the use of lubricants and other materials have allowed for production of workpieces with increased densities without resorting to secondary operations, pressing a room-temperature lubricated powder to a density in the range of 7.1 g/cc has its price: for example, the compressive forces are typically very high in such operations, on the order of at least 100,000 psi, and the wear of the tools is accelerated; moreover, with the much higher compressive forces needed to reach these densities, the workpieces can develop surface irregularities from the extreme internal stresses.
More recent discoveries have found that pre-heating the polymer lubricated products has helped not only to obtain higher densities at lower compacting pressures, but also to achieve homogeneous workpiece densities. Homogeneous workpiece density levels greater than 7.4 g/cc can be obtained. Generally, by using warm lubricated metal powders, it has been possible to increase densities by about 0.2 g/cc while eliminating the second coining or pressing operation.
However, problems have arisen with the apparatus necessary to heat the polymer-coated metal powder and deliver the warm powder to the die in the compacting press. When heated to a temperature just below a critical powder temperature (about 300 degrees Fahrenheit) prior to loading the material into the die cavity, the heated powder may become tacky and coagulate. Typical powder delivery systems have used flexible, accordion-pleated hoses for transferring powder to the die cavity; but when such hoses are used with warm powder, the powder may gather in the interstices of the pleats, become compacted and block the hose. Since the usual production method requires accurate gravity-controlled filling of the powder into the die cavity from a delivery shoe, any coagulation or tackiness of the coated powder can cause variations in the amount of powder that is actually deposited in the die cavity. Other problems may result from the tacky powder creating blockage in the powder delivery system. In addition, conventional flexible hoses and seals may degrade or be destroyed when exposed to the elevated temperature of the warm powder.
One attempt to solve these problems in the art is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,816 (1993) to Smith, Jr. et al. In that patent, which discloses an auger conveyor assembly and a shuttle assembly, the auger assembly has a horizontal tube with an interior auger which is fed powdered metal through a vertical tube. These parts are heated. The discharge end of the heated horizontal tube overlies a heated hopper in the shuttle assembly, and the heated metal powder is dropped into the shuttle hopper and to a heated ring. This design has problems associated with its operation. First, the heated powder drops through the air from the discharge end of the horizontal tube to the hopper, allowing the metal powder to cool, and in the case of mixtures of different metal powders, to separate into a less homogeneous mixture. In addition, to change the machine over from one type of metal powder to another may be difficult and time-consuming. Changing the die in the compacting press may also be difficult because of the presence of the shuttle assembly.

Raw material delivery system for compacting press


The present invention is to provide a safety monitoring system, which includes a plurality of terminal devices (e.g., smartphones) each configured to wirelessly and periodically send out a report message and a home server storing positioning data created according to the strengths of signals transmitted by each terminal device from different locations within an indoor environment (e.g., an apartment) respectively. According to the positioning data, the home server divides the indoor environment into a plurality of monitoring areas (e.g., living room, bathrooms, kitchen . . . ). When the home server receives the report message and determines the monitoring area where each terminal device is located according to the positioning data, the home server uploads entry of identification data and the monitoring area corresponding to each terminal device to a cloud server through the Internet. Thus, the current status of the carrier of each terminal device can be checked through the cloud server.

Recently, with the aging of population and the declining of fertility rate, the social structure and lifestyle in Taiwan are changing significantly. According to a survey conducted by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of Taiwan, dual-income families currently make up 54.47% of the household population. On work days, therefore, many people leave their homes unattended, or the young and the elderly are left home alone. Under such circumstances, domestic security has become a major concern for not a few homeowners. In addition, statistics of the Directorate-General show that an average of 881 thefts occur each year per 100 thousand households in Taipei City; that is to say, 6.5 homes on average are stolen each day. In light of the above, it is an important goal in domestic security to enable a homeowner away from home to monitor the conditions at home in real time.
While the market has been supplied with a variety of remote surveillance systems, none of them are convenient to use, which explains why they have yet to be widely accepted. For example, Chunghwa Telecom once launched the "Clairvoyance Remote Surveillance System", which uploads real-time images of the inside of a home to a cloud server through IP cameras and a household broadband network so that the user (e.g., the homeowner or an apartment manager) can view the images in real time through a computer or smartphone. Similar safety surveillance systems were also available from SunForce Technologies Inc., SOPSYS Corp., and so on. As these surveillance systems only serve to upload images from IP cameras to a cloud serer in real time, one who wishes to check on the conditions at home has to view the surveillance images of each IP camera in order to know the current status of any particular person at home. For instance, in order to know the current conditions of a child at home, the user may begin by viewing the surveillance images of the study, the bedrooms, and the hallways while the child is, in fact, playing in the living room, whose surveillance images, however, may not be viewed by the user until the study, the bedrooms, and the hallways are searched in vain. In short, this kind of surveillance systems upload surveillance images only "passively", without real-time knowledge of the actual location of each person within the surveillance area, which can cause great inconvenience to the user during the image viewing/screening process.
Aside from inconvenience of use, the aforesaid surveillance systems have two more problems which are difficult to overcome and which consequently prevent the prevalence of such systems, as detailed below.
(1) High costs of installation: The installation costs are high because, in order to obtain the surveillance images of each part of the surveillance area (e.g., the study, the bedrooms, the hallways, etc.), it is imperative that each part of the surveillance area be provided with a monitoring device (e.g., an IP camera). The user must also take into account the indoor environment and eliminate any blind spots when installing the surveillance system; otherwise, the system may not produce the expected results. The installation of such surveillance systems, therefore, is far from easy for ordinary users.
(2) Heavy loads on servers: As the foregoing surveillance systems are configured to upload surveillance images to cloud servers in real time to allow users to view the images whenever desired, the processing performances and storage capacities of the cloud servers are subject to very strict requirements in order for the cloud servers to provide the intended functions. Consequently, the maintenance and management of the cloud servers present a huge problem to the service providers of such surveillance systems.
According to the above, the existing surveillance systems are disadvantaged by "inconvenience of use", "high installation costs", and "heavy server loads". In particular, the conventional systems' incapability to proactively obtain the actual location of each person in the surveillance area is the reason why users have to spend a lot of time screening the images and is therefore the key problem that hinders "real-time surveillance". The issue to be addressed by the present invention is to design a novel system structure which can obtain the real-time location data of each person in the surveillance area and thereby provide convenient, real-time, and effective remote monitoring services.

Safety monitoring system capable of proactively detecting locations of terminal devices


A quiet and smooth, positive acting, no-slip differential which automatically connects the two axles together to provide optimum traction for the vehicle, yet releases one axle when the vehicle is proceeding around a curve without drive wheel slippage, whereby only a single axle is engaged through the drive system. The quiet and smooth, positive acting, no-slip differential includes a movable member which, for the disengaged wheel, will shift to a position preventing the driver and coupler teeth from engaging in the normal manner, thereby eliminating the noise and harsh operating characteristic known as "cycling" associated with locking types of differentials. This moveable member does not prevent all engagement, however, so that re-engagement of the driver and coupler will automatically occur to provide the desired differential locking when called upon to do so. A preferred and an alternate embodiment are disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of positively acting differentials for motor vehicles.
2. Prior Art
Land vehicles, such as automobiles, trucks, buses and the like, typically utilize what has become known as an "open differential" for the final drive system. In such a differential, bevel gears are coupled to the inner ends of left and right collinear axles. These bevel gears engage accompanying bevel gears mounted in a differential case. The differential case, in turn, has a ring gear thereon, with the ring gear and differential case being driven in rotation about the axis of the axles by a pinion gear on the drive shaft. The angular velocity of the ring gear and differential case determines the average angular velocity of the two axles. However, the bevel gearset within the differential case between the two axles allows one axle to turn faster and the other axle to turn slower than the ring gear and differential case at any particular time. This, of course, is highly desirable in normal driving, as it allows the axle coupled to the outer wheel to rotate faster than the axle coupled to the inner wheel when going around a curve or turning a sharp corner. It also causes the drive system to deliver the same drive torque to each of the two axles to avoid a tendency for the vehicle to pull to one side or the other when power is applied or removed. The amount of torque that can be transmitted through an open differential is limited to that able to be carried by the wheel with the least amount of traction.
There are certain situations, however, where the aforementioned characteristics of an open differential become undesirable. In particular, when one wheel looses traction, the torque which will be delivered to the wheel with traction will be no higher than the torque delivered to the wheel without traction. For instance, with one drive wheel on ice and the other drive wheel on dry concrete, the torque delivered to the drive wheel on dry concrete will be no higher than can be carried by the wheel on ice. A positive acting differential, however, will effectively couple the two axles together so that they turn in unison, forcing rotation of the drive wheel with greater traction along with the rotation of the wheel with lesser traction. The positive acting differential, as opposed to the open differential, can transmit as much torque as can be carried by the wheel with the most traction. High performance vehicles, off-road vehicles and the like may similarly take advantage of the characteristics of positive acting differentials to improve their traction performance.
The present invention is a significant improvement in a prior art differential manufactured by Vehicular Technologies, Inc., assignee of the present invention, and sold under the trademark "Performance." That prior art device is shown in the exploded view of FIG. 1. While FIG. 2 is a view of the assembled differential of the present invention, the improvements of the present invention are internal to the assembly of FIG. 2, and accordingly, FIG. 2 may also be taken as the next higher assembly of the parts of FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, the splined inner end of axle 20 engages mating splines in a coupler 22, with a similar coupler 22 at the opposite side of the assembly similarly mating at the inner end of the other axle, not shown. In the specific version shown, the axles are retained in position by C clips 24, though in other versions, axle retention may be by way of bearings adjacent to wheel ends of the axles and other means.
The couplers 22 have a plurality of teeth 26 on the face thereof which may mate with corresponding teeth on the faces 28 of drivers 30, depending upon the axial position of the drivers. The drivers 28, in turn, have saddle-like depressions 32 on the opposite faces thereof for loosely surrounding the pinion pin 34 driven by the differential case (see FIG. 2 for the position of the pinion pin in the overall differential assembly). The drivers 30 each have springs 36 in angled blind holes in the driver, the springs acting on pin 34 to both elastically encourage the drivers to a position having the pin 34 aligned with the center of the saddle-like depressions, and to elastically encourage the drivers axially outward away from the pin 34 into engagement with the couplers. Spacers 38, together with any shims or thrust washers that may be required (not shown), establish and retain the couplers 22 at the desired separation from pin 34. Finally, pins 40 on the drivers 30 fit within slots 42 on the opposing face of the opposite driver and function to control the angular displacement of the drivers to each other.
In the final assembly, the springs 36 encourage the toothed face of the drivers 30 into engagement with the toothed face of couplers 22, and there is sufficient clearance between the saddle-like regions 32 and pin 34 in the final assembly for either driver to move toward the pin 34 sufficiently to allow the teeth of a driver 30 to ride over the teeth of the associated coupler 22.
The operation of the prior art device may be explained as follows. With the teeth of the corresponding driver and coupler pairs engaged, the differential housing may rotate, carrying pin 34 from contact with one side of the saddle to the other, a displacement of (depending on the size of the design) 4 to 7 degrees. This free travel, or backlash, is essential for correct positioning of the differential components during the transition from driving to coasting and vice versa. The drivers are retained with respect to each other by pins 40 and mating slots 42 for a total rotation, one relative to the other, approximately 1.5 degrees or less than one-half the total backlash described previously. When the pin 34 engages the saddle-like depressions 32 on either driver, the force of the contact, by design of the saddles, will be angled outward from the plane of the respective driver and will overcome the component of the reaction force acting opposite created by the inclined edges on the mating teeth on the drivers 30 and couplers 22. For example, saddle angles ranging from 30 to 40 degrees are typically used and create outward axial forces that exceed the inward axial forces created by typical 20 to 25 degree inclines of the coupler and driver mating teeth that would otherwise work to separate the driver from the coupler. Using the foregoing parameters, consider first the vehicle at rest. Assume the two drivers 30 each engage with the respective coupler 22, and for specificity in the starting condition, that the pin 34 is centered in the saddle-like depressions 32 in the drivers 30. With the vehicle in gear and engine driving, the pin 34 begins to rotate about the axis of the axle, through the backlash present and compressing against springs 36 to contact the edges of the saddle-shaped depressions 32 in the drivers, and then on further rotation, to force the drivers and couplers, and thus the axles, into rotation. Because the contact angle between the pin 34 and the saddle-shaped depressions 32 exceeds the angle of the edge of the teeth on the couplers and drivers, the force between the pin and the drivers forcing the same into contact against the couplers 22 will exceed the force between the inclined edges of the teeth on the drivers 30 and couplers 22 otherwise tending to force the drivers back toward pin 34, so that the drivers and couplers will remain in positive engagement, regardless of the torque applied to the differential.
If the vehicle now proceeds to drive around a curve, the wheel on the outside of the curve, and thus the coupler 22 associated with that wheel, will tend to rotate faster than the coupler associated with the inside wheel. Assuming power is still being applied, this causes the driver associated with the outside wheel to begin "gaining" with respect to pinion shaft 34, the driver rotating forward to a position wherein the saddle-like depressions 32 thereon are no longer in contact with pin 34. At this point, pins 40 and mating depressions 42 prevent the further relative rotation of the two drivers but allow coaxial translation. Further gaining of the outside wheel continues to rotate the outside coupler at a speed higher than the other differential components. Now, however, the teeth on the driver associated with the outside wheel are free to climb the inclined planes of the teeth on the driver and coupler, with the driver moving toward the pin 34 against the resistance of the associated springs 36 to allow the teeth of the respective driver to slide over the teeth of the respective coupler, repeatedly as required so long as the difference in wheel rotation speeds exist.
If, when in a curve, the vehicle engine is throttled back to coast and use the engine as a braking or vehicle slowing device, the same basic interaction of parts described above will occur substantially in reverse, now however with the driver and coupler associated with the outer wheel of the curve being engaged, and the driver associated with the inner wheel of the curve climbing over the teeth on the associated coupler as required to allow the inner wheel on the curve to turn slower than the outer wheel. Similarly, in backing around a curve such as backing out of a parking place, the inner wheel will be the drive wheel, as in powering forward, whereas use of the engine to retard the motion of the vehicle when backing will engage the wheel on the outer side of the turn engaged. However in any event, when power is applied while turning to the point that traction is lost by the drive (inside) wheel, pin 34 will catch up to and forcibly engage the appropriate side of the saddle-shaped depression 32 on the outside wheel driver 30, forcing both drivers into engagement with their associated couplers to force rotation of both axles in unison.
The foregoing positive acting differential and another manufactured by Vehicular Technologies called "Lock Right" perform well, allowing the drive wheels to rotate independently under normal conditions, but causing the wheels to rotate in unison when either wheel looses traction and begins to slip. The Lock Right design differs from the aforementioned design in that it has no springs located in the saddle to dampen the backlash, rather springs are located between the drivers and thus work directly to force the driver teeth into mesh with those on the adjacent coupler. However, these differential designs contain a few particular operating characteristics that may require the driver to become accustomed to.
In particular, when one wheel begins turning faster than the other, such as when turning into a parking space, one driver will be climbing the teeth on the associated coupler and sliding thereover. When the teeth of the driver again align with the spaces between teeth on the coupler, the driver will fall into engagement with the coupler and shortly thereafter climb the sides of the teeth and again disengage. This makes an audible noise, resulting in a "click, click, click" type sound heard from outside the vehicle. While the angled positioning of springs 36 reduce the sound, it is still noticeable in a conventional automobile. In louder vehicles, such as a high performance vehicle, particularly for one technically versed to understand the source of the sound, the sound is of little consequence. However, to the driver of a more typical, quieter car, the sound can be a distraction, and could be mis-interpreted as a mechanical fault or impending mechanical failure. Secondly, a phenomenon called "cycling" can be induced in manual transmission equipped vehicles. Automatic transmissions do not exhibit the condition because the torque converter always maintains a measure of bias load between the engine and drive axle. With manual transmissions, this event occurs when turning at slow speeds with the clutch pedal depressed, such as when turning into a parking space, temporarily decoupling the transmission from the engine and therefore removing any bias load present on the engaged driver and coupler. When the disengaged driver and coupler teeth pass by each other, they briefly reengage, enabling a load to be placed on the differential and axle components. The components between the differential and the wheel then act like an undamped mechanical spring and release the energy by temporarily accelerating the differential, drive shaft and transmission components. The inertia of these components carries the differential pin against the driver saddle, causing the opposite side driver and coupler to lock and continue to process. The continual wind-up and release will build and eventually become sufficient to "rock" the vehicle driveline and require the transmission be put in neutral or the vehicle stopped in order to cease the cycling. Needless to say, this is highly undesirable and would only be acceptable to the very most forgiving of owners. However all drivers whose vehicles represent a standard "as-delivered" condition would appreciate the increased traction a positive acting differential provides in situations where dry pavement type traction is not available. It would therefore be desirable to provide a differential with substantially the same simplicity as the differentials just described, but which is quiet and smooth in its operation, so as to neither be heard by nor concern the average driver of a vehicle equipped with the positive acting differential.
Another prior art differential is the Detroit Locker manufactured by Tractech, a Titan Wheel Company. In this "locking" type of differential, a cammed spider ring member takes the place of the differential pin and contains negative angle teeth that transfer torque to negative angle teeth on a driven clutch member which is able to slide axially on the splined barrel of the adjacent side gear. A single coil spring holds each driven cam against the spider. The side gear interfaces with the axle through another splined connection. While the driven clutch members separate from the central spider during turns, it is noteworthy to mention than a cam centrally located within the spider forces the driven clutch of the non-driving wheel away from the spider to a point of sufficient separation so that the separation device coupled to the driven clutch can be positioned to maintain the teeth of the driven clutch with slight engagement with the teeth of the spider until relative rotation between the driven clutch and spider again reverses direction. Because the teeth of the driven clutch slightly engage the teeth of the spider before passing over respective corner radii, there is slight sound when turning into a parking place, but reduces the cycling characteristic mentioned previously.
While the Detroit Locker mechanism is functional, it is somewhat complex and in general cannot be assembled into pre-existing single piece differential cases because of access limitations. Accordingly, for the vast majority of vehicles, the original equipment differential case must be removed and a new differential case inserted with the locker assembly therein. This has the disadvantages of the extra cost of the new differential case, as well as requiring relocating the ring gear from the previous differential case to the Detroit Locker differential case, and again setting up the ring gear and drive shaft pinion gear for proper backlash and alignment for proper operation. In contrast, the positive acting differential developed by Vehicular Technologies herein described can be assembled into original equipment differential cases most often without removal of the differential from the vehicle, avoiding the expense of a new differential case and the time and skill required to again set up the spacing between the ring and pinion gearset.

Quiet and smooth, positive acting, no-slip differential


Embodiments relate to building, by a computing device, a pseudo-random dynamic instruction stream that comprises instructions configured to perform a transaction execution. The computing device may cause the transaction execution to be tested in a multi-processing system based on the instruction stream. A status of the test may be output to one or more output devices.

The present invention relates generally to computer technology, and more specifically to transaction execution functionality.
A transaction may begin and end with one or more machine instructions. For example, a transaction may begin with a TBEGIN instruction and end with a TEND instruction. If a transaction cannot be completed the transaction may be aborted.
A transaction execution (TX) function may provide atomic store and fetch access to/from multiple storage locations using a majority of an instruction set. In a computing environment (e.g., a multi-processing environment), two or more processors may access a resource (e.g., a cache line) at a given point in time. At least one of the processors may be operative with respect to a TX.

System level architecture verification for transaction execution in a multi-processing environment

International Business Machines Corporation


A network node and a wireless device as well as respective method performed thereby for communication with each other are provided. The method performed by the network node comprises receiving, from the wireless device, a measurement report indicating a channel quality of the channel between the network node and the wireless device; and determining whether the channel quality is acceptable or unacceptable. The method further comprises transmitting, to the wireless device, an indication of which RBG(s) to report channel quality measurements for, when the channel quality is unacceptable.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP, Long Term Evolution, LTE represents the project with an aim to improve the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS, standard. 3GPP LTE radio interface offers high peak data rates, low delays and spectral efficiencies. LTE ecosystem supports both Frequency division duplex, FDD, and Time division duplex, TDD, and half duplex. This enables the operators to exploit both the paired and unpaired spectrum since LTE has flexibility in bandwidth as it supports different bandwidth as single or carrier aggregation. 6 different bandwidths 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz and 20 MHz are standardised in 3GPP.
The LTE physical layer is designed to achieve higher data rates, and is facilitated by turbo coding/decoding, and higher order modulations (up to 64-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, QAM). The modulation and coding is adaptive, and depends on channel conditions. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access, OFDMA, is used for the downlink, while Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access, SC-FDMA, is used for the uplink. The main advantage of such schemes is that the channel response is flat over a sub-carrier even though the multi-path environment could be frequency selective over the entire bandwidth. This reduces the complexity involved in equalisation, as simple single tap frequency domain equalisers can be used at the receiver. OFDMA allows LTE to achieve its goal of higher data rates, reduced latency and improved capacity/coverage, with reduced costs to the operator. The LTE physical layer supports Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request, HARQ, power weighting of physical resources, uplink power control, and Multiple Input Multiple Output, MIMO. By using multiple parallel data streams transmission to a single terminal, data rate can be increased significantly.
In a multi-path environment, such a multiple access scheme also provides opportunities for performance enhancing scheduling strategies. Frequency Selective Scheduling, FSS, may now be used to schedule a user over sub-carriers (or part of the bandwidth) that provides maximum channel gains to that user (and avoid regions of low channel gain). The channel response is measured and the scheduler utilises this information to intelligently assign resources to users over parts of the bandwidth that maximise their Signal-to-Noise Ratios, SNR, (and spectral efficiency). In other words, the end to end performance of a multi-carrier system like LTE relies significantly on sub-carrier allocation techniques and transmission modes. LTE allows for different opportunistic scheduling techniques.
Driven by growing number of LTE subscribers worldwide, the 3GPP started a new activity using unlicensed spectrum with LTE alongside licensed spectrum. This is known as License Assisted Access, LAA. This would allow operators to benefit from the additional capacity available from the unlicensed spectrum, particularly in hotspots and corporate environments. With LAA, the extra spectrum resource, especially on the 5 GHz frequency band, can complement licensed band LTE operation.
FIG. 1a shows the general block diagram of the communication system (LTE/LAA). Input bits from the upper layers are passed through the baseband blocks which typically consist of channel encoder, interleaver and rate matching, modulator, layer mapper, OFDM modulator etc. Once the baseband signal is generated, it needs to be passed through the Radio-Frequency, RF, chain before it sent to the antenna ports. The RF chain typically consists of Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), I/Q modulator, oscillators, and Power amplifiers, PAs. Note that the baseband signal generation depends on the scheduler decisions from the upper layers e.g. layer 2 such as Medium Access Control, MAC, layer. Scheduler decisions are also influenced by the contents of the feedback channel from the receiver. For example the receiver can inform what kind of modulation and code rate is suitable at any given instance. It might also include what resource block groups the User Equipment, UE, prefers scheduling etc. For example when the receiver is having good signal to ratio, it might prefer higher order modulation say 256-QAM or 64-QAM in certain resource blocks and prefers lower modulation such as QPSK or 16-QAM in other resource group blocks and when the receiver is having low signal to noise ratio, it might prefer low order modulation such as QPSK or 16-QAM in one or more resource blocks.
In general the power amplifiers in the RF block needs to be operated in the non-linear region for achieving good efficiency. FIG. 1b illustrates the typical AM/AM curve for a power amplifier. The input/output curve is highly non-linear.
When the power amplifier operates in the non-linear region, some of the signals are easily leaked to the other frequency bands (adjacent carrier bandwidths). FIG. 1c illustrates the spectral regrowth due to PA non-linearity. It can be seen from FIG. 1c that, the power spectral density plot is distorted, and there is a leakage of the desired signal to the adjacent channel bandwidths.
Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio, ACLR, is used as a metric to measure the leakage due to non-linear power amplifier. In FIG. 1c the ACLR with ideal PA is around −100 dBc, while with realistic PA (with non-linearity), the ACLR is around −38 dBc.
One method to compensate for the non-linearity of the power amplifier is to distort the input signal to the power amplifier such that the output signal from the power amplifier is transformed to be close to what it would have been if the power amplifier would have been linear. An example of such method is called Digital Pre-Distortion, DPD, technique. In general DPD may interchangeably be called as a signal linearization circuitry or component or mechanism or scheme.
FIG. 1d illustrates the spectral regrowth with DPD. It can be seen that the spectral regrowth is reduced when DPD is applied. ACLR in this case is around −50 dBc.
DPD techniques require lot of computational resources in addition to extra hardware and power which is not useful for low complexity and low cost implementation of transmitter in a radio node. One example of such a low cost radio is LAA base station that competing with Wi-Fi AP price wise. LAA requires mass or bulk deployment within a cell. Hence for this purposes it was proposed to relax the ACLR requirement of the current 3GPP LTE standard as the LAA base stations transmit with low power say 30 dBm Effective Isotropic Radiated Power, EIRP, inclusive 6 dBi antenna gain or 24 dBm conducted power. In these cases i.e. that if no DPD is used, some of the total transmitted power is leaked into the other bands without any steep filter. However, steep filtering with sharp edges is almost impossible to implement. Hence without steep filtering and DPD, the emissions, causes non-uniform allocation of power within the operating bandwidth.
Data transmission with non-uniform power allocation implies inefficient use of resources. For example if the wireless devices are scheduled on these frequency carriers, the network node may not serve these wireless devices with correct order modulation and higher transport block sizes even though the wireless devices recommend these modulation and transport block sizes. Hence the inaccuracies in link adaptation cause high packet errors there by reducing the link as well as system throughput. FIG. 1e shows the link throughput degradation for 2×2 M IMO system (Transmission mode 4) when the wireless device is scheduled on the band edges. It can be observed that significant loss in throughput is observed with power leakage.

Network node, a wireless device and respective method performed thereby for communicating therebetween


The present invention provides novel antisense ribozymes useful for inhibiting the activity of neutral sphingomyelinase. Also provided are methods for reducing the activity of neutral sphingomyelinase, as well as methods for reducing apoptosis and atherosclerosis using the ribozymes of the invention.

Sphingomyelinases type-C (E.C. 126.96.36.199) are a group of phospholipases that catalyze the hydrolytic cleavage of sphingomyelin to ceramide and phosphocholine (Chatterjee, S. (1993) Adv. Lipid Res. 26:25–48). Native neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase) purified from human urine and cultured human kidney proximal tubular cell membranes has an apparent molecular weight of 92 kDa, neutral pH optima, is heat unstable, and is localized on the surface of various cells (Chatterjee, S. (1993) supra; Chatterjee, S. et al. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264:12,534–12,561; and Chatterjee, S. et al. (1991) Methods Enzymol., Phospholipase 197:540–547).
Cleavage of sphingomyelin and the products of this reaction have been implicated in multiple pathways, including apoptosis, cellular growth, differentiation, and inflammatory responsiveness. Multiple forms of SMases have been described on the basis of their optimal pH and intracellular localization, including lysosomal acidic SMase (A-SMase), cytosolic Zn2+-dependent acidic SMase, membrane-bound, magenesium-dependent neutral SMase (N-SMase), cytosolic magnesium-independent N-SMase, and alkaline SMase (Chatterjee, S. (1999) Chem Phy. Lipids 102, 79–9; Liu, B. and Hannun, Y. (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272: 16281–16287; Martin, S. F. and Chatterjee, S. (2003) Methods Enzymol. (in press); Cordon-Cardo, C. and Kolesnick, R., (2001) Science 293–297).
N-SMase action has been shown to mediate signal transduction of vitamin D3, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interferon-gamma, and nerve growth factor (Y. Hannun, J. Biol. Chem., 269:3,125–3,128 (1994); S. Chatterjee, J. Biol. Chem., 268:3,401–3,406 (1993); and S. Chatterjee, J. Biol. Chem., 269:879–882 (1994)) leading to cell differentiation in human leukemic (HL-60) cells and insulin signaling (P. Peraldi et al., J. Biol. Chem., 271:13018–13022 (1996)). Several investigators have identified apoptosis of smooth muscle cells (SMC) in atherosclerotic plaques. Even in early stages of atherosclerosis, apoptosis of SMC occurs (Hannun, 2002. FASEB J.). The loss of these cells due to apoptosis can be detrimental for plaque stability since most of the interstitial collagen fibers, which are important for the tensile strength of the fibrous cap, are produced by SMC. It can be concluded that apoptosis in atherosclerosis is detrimental since it could lead to plaque rupture and thrombosis (Hannun, 2002. FASEB J.).
In addition to the biological roles of sphingomyelin and ceramide in signal transduction pathways involving cell regulation, recent evidence suggests that sphingomyelinases may be involved in the mobilization of cell surface cholesterol, in cholesterol ester synthesis, and in induction of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor activity. See S. Chatterjee, Advances in Lipid Research, 26:25–48 (1993). Recent evidence also supports a possible role of ceramide (a product of N-SMase activity) in programmed cell death and/or "apoptosis" and activation of the gene for nuclear factor (NF)-κB. See A. Alessenko and S. Chatterjee, Mol. Cell. Biochem., 143:169–174 (1995). Sphingomyelinases are also believed to serve as a signal for various exogenous effectors such as antibiotics, drugs, and growth factors, which influence the normal physiology of cells.
It has been shown previously that high concentrations of Ox-LDL (100 μg/ml) can induce the death of aortic smooth muscle cells (ASMCs). A novel aspect of Ox-LDL mediated signal transduction to explain the phenomenon above was subsequently uncovered. In ASMCs, Ox-LDL stimulates the activity of N-SMase, an enzyme that cleaves sphingomyelin to ceramide and phosphocholine. The activity of N-SMase increased 5-fold within 5 minutes of incubation of cells with Ox-LDL, but not LDL, and then returned to baseline values after 30 minutes (Chatterjee, S. et al. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274:37407–37412). This was accompanied by marked apoptosis in cells incubated with Ox-LDL, as evidenced by (i) a DNA laddering, (ii) [3H]thymidine release, and (iii) fluorescence-assisted cell sorting analysis.
A number of specific disorders have been associated with N-SMase. For example, N-SMase has been reported to be associated with insulin resistant diabetes and obesity. See Speigel et al., J. Biol. Chem., 1996. N-SMase is also associated with malaria. The development of the malaria parasite plasmodium requires N-SMase. See Lauer et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA), 1995. N-SMase also is involved in liver cell proliferation. See Alessenko, Chatterjee, Mol. Cell Biochem., 143:169–174 (1995).
Because of the involvement of N-SMase in a number of disorders, it would be desirable to have agents that are capable of downregulating N-SMase activity. However, such agents are currently not available.

Neutral sphingomyelinase antisense ribozyme and uses thereof


A two stage accumulator is provided for updating coefficients. The accumulator is particularly useful in an adaptive equalizer. A first stage of the accumulator receives an error word and outputs sign and carry bits resulting from the addition of the error word and an N-bit LSB portion of a larger M-bit coefficient. A second stage is responsive to the sign and carry bits for updating the (M-N) MSB's of the M-bit coefficient. New error words are cyclically provided to the first stage during successive coefficient update cycles. The first stage can be implemented using an N-bit twos complement adder. The second stage can be implemented using an up/down counter. A leakage function is provided by causing the up/down counter to periodically skip over increment and decrement cycles.

The present invention relates to an accumulator for use in updating coefficients, and more particularly to a two stage accumulator for updating the coefficients of an adaptive equalizer or the like.
Digital data, for example digitized video for use in broadcasting high definition television (HDTV) signals, can be transmitted over terrestrial very high frequency (VHF) or ultra high frequency (UHF) analog channels for communication to end users. Analog channels deliver corrupted and transformed versions of their input waveforms. Corruption of the waveform, usually statistical, may be additive and/or multiplicative, because of possible background thermal noise, impulse noise, and fades. Transformations performed by the channel are frequency translation, nonlinear or harmonic distortion, and time dispersion.
In order to communicate digital data via an analog channel, the data is modulated using, for example, a form of pulse amplitude modulation (PAM). Typically, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is used to increase the amount of data that can be transmitted within an available channel bandwidth. QAM is a form of PAM in which a plurality, such as sixteen or thirty-two, bits of information are transmitted together in a pattern referred to as a "constellation".
In pulse amplitude modulation, each signal is a pulse whose amplitude level is determined by a transmitted symbol. In 16-QAM, symbol amplitudes of -3, -1, 1 and 3 in each quadrature channel are typically used. In bandwidth efficient digital communication systems, the effect of each symbol transmitted over a time-dispersive channel extends beyond the time interval used to represent that symbol. The distortion caused by the resulting overlap of received symbols is called intersymbol interference (ISI). This distortion has been one of the major obstacles to reliable high speed data transmission over low background noise channels of limited bandwidth. A device known as an "equalizer" is used to deal with the ISI problem.
In order to reduce the intersymbol interference introduced by a communication channel, rather precise equalization is required. Furthermore, the channel characteristics are typically not known beforehand. Thus, it is common to design and use a compromise (or a statistical) equalizer that compensates for the average of the range of expected channel amplitude and delay characteristics. A least mean square (LMS) error adaptive filtering scheme has been in common use as an adaptive equalization algorithm for many years. This algorithm is described in B. Widrow and M. E. Hoff, Jr., "Adaptive Switching Circuits" in IRE Wescon Conv. Rec., Part 4, pp. 96-104, Aug. 1960. The use of the LMS algorithm in an adaptive equalizer to reduce intersymbol interference is discussed in S. U. H. Qureshi, "Adaptive Equalization", Proc. IEEE, Vol. 73, No. 9, pp. 1349-1387, September 1987.
Commonly assigned, copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/733,791 filed on Jul. 26, 1991 discloses a method and apparatus for updating coefficients in a complex adaptive equalizer. Specifically, convergence of a complex adaptive equalizer used in digital communications is substantially improved by updating all coefficients of the equalizer during each filter clock cycle. A plurality of successive delay stages are coupled to provide a plurality of sets of delayed signal data from an input signal. Each set of delayed data is multiplied by an error signal to provide a plurality of products. Each product is concurrently updated with previous product data to provide a plurality of sets of updated coefficients. The updated coefficient sets are selectively input to an equalizer filter stage.
In a specific embodiment illustrated in the aforementioned copending patent application, a plurality of parallel processing paths are used, each to update one of the products. Each of the parallel processing paths includes an adder having a first input for receiving one of the plurality of products, a second input and an output. A delay circuit is coupled to receive product data from the adder output and to feed delayed product data back to the second adder input. The parallel processing paths can further include means for truncating and/or adjusting the gain of the updated coefficients output from the adder. Sets of updated coefficients from the various parallel paths are multiplexed to provide a clocked stream of coefficient sets for input to the equalizer filter stage.
A disadvantage to using adders as accumulators in the implementation disclosed in the aforementioned copending patent application is that such devices require an inordinate amount of space in a very large scale integration (VLSI) integrated circuit. Thus, the use of a conventional adder and delay stage as an accumulator increases the cost and may decrease the performance of an adaptive equalizer implementation.
It would be advantageous to provide an improved implementation for an accumulator that can be used in connection with an adaptive equalizer or the like. Such an implementation should avoid the need for a long bit adder which requires substantial hardware and may slow down the equalizer processing speed. It would be further advantageous to provide such an accumulator implementation which will improve the convergence of the coefficients by dynamically maintaining limits on the coefficient magnitudes.
The present invention provides a two stage accumulator enjoying the aforementioned advantages.

Two stage accumulator for use in updating coefficients


A controllable reflecting device having an array of bi-axial mirrors that are capable of pivoting in at least four directions is described. At least three primary colored light beams are directed at each of the bi-axial mirror in three of the four pivoting directions, one for each of the primary colored light beams and a single colored beam is reflected and directed toward a projection lens. In the fourth pivoting direction, no color beam is directed to the projection lens and black is projected.

Micro-display projection systems using a reflective light engine or imager, such as, for example, a digital light processor (DLP™) (Texas Instruments) imager, are increasingly utilized in color image or video projection devices (e.g., rear projection television (RPTV), home theater front projection TV and theater systems). In an existing projection system, shown in FIG. 1, a light source 10 is provided, in this case a UHP lamp, and generates white light (i.e., all color spectrums). Light from the light source 10 passes through a color wheel 20 which has a plurality of dichroic filtering elements, each of which allows a light band of one of the colors: blue, green or red to pass through and reflects light of the other colors. The color wheel 20 is rotated so that a temporal pattern of blue, green, and red light bands pass through the color wheel. The color wheel is typically rotated fast enough to create at least one primary color period for each primary color during each frame of a video image.
An integrator 30 receives the light band from the light source 10 that is allowed to pass through the color wheel 20 and directs the light band through relay optics 40 into a total internal reflection (TIR) prism 50. The TIR prism 50 deflects the light band onto an imager 60, such as a DLP imager. The imager modulates the intensity of individual pixels of the light beam and reflects them back through the TIR prism 50 and into a projection lens system 70. In DLP only the flash rate and flash width is modulated giving the impression of intensity modulation. In LCD and LCOS the intensity is modulated directly. The projection lens system 70 focuses the light pixels onto a screen (not shown) to form a viewable image. A color video image is formed by rapid successive matrices of pixels of each of the three colors (blue, green, and red) which are blended by the viewer's eye to forth a full color image.
Throughout this specification, and consistent with the practice of the relevant art, the term pixel is used to designate a small area or dot of an image, the corresponding portion of a light transmission, and the portion of an imager producing that light transmission.
The DLP imager 60 comprises a matrix of micro-mirrors, moveable between an angle that reflects light through the TIR prism 50 and into the projection lens system 70 at an angle that deflects the light so that it is not projected by the projection lens system 70. Each micro-mirror reflects a pixel of light of a desired intensity depending upon a succession of flashes of that particular micro-mirror which in turn are responsive to a video signal addressed to the DLP imager 60. Thus, in the DLP imager 60, each micro-mirror or pixel of the imager modulates the light incident on it according to a gray-scale factor input to the imager or light engine to form a matrix of discrete modulated light signals or pixels.
Until recently, one micro-mirror has been used for each pixel of the projected image and the grid of the array of square mirrors has been aligned parallel to the image edges. However, using Smooth Picture™ (Texas Instruments) technology, the grid of the micro-mirror array is rotated 45 degrees with respect to the image edges and the pixels appear as diamond shapes. The image formed by such an array is then displaced by a moveable optical component (mirror or lens) so as to appear in two sequential positions displaced by one half of the square pixel diagonal. Half of the picture detail is displayed in each of the sequential images. This allows resolution to be double the micro-mirror count. Micro-mirror count can be reduced allowing a lower cost imager for low end projectors while maintaining resolution. For high-end products (digital cinema or high end television products) the mirror count can remain high and the resolution can be doubled.
The use of the color wheel introduces a visual artifact called the "Rainbow Effect". Since the color flashes sequentially, the color of the still object on the display will separate on the retina of a person's eye during rapid eye movement (eye dart) which can be up to a rate of 800 degrees per second. The brain perceives this separation as multiple primary colored images of the object with differing luminance. The luminance bandwidth of the visual system is wide but it also has a low pass characteristic. As the speed of color flashing is increased, the angular separation of the retina images decreases and the sensitivity to luminance variation decreases. Above about 3000 color flashes per second, assimilation occurs and the rainbow images appear to merge. Present single imager DLP™ systems run at less than 1000 color flashes per second so the rainbow effect is seen.
Color flash speed is difficult to increase because micro-mirror physical mass limits the maximum off-on-off flip time which sets the least significant unit of digital grey scale without the use of dithering. With the 8-bit grey scale range used in home television projectors the maximum flash time is 255 times larger. For Smooth Picture™ each color must light each micro-mirror at least twice per 16.6 mS image. The flashes are distributed by increasing the number of color wheel segments to increase the flash rate to 6 or 9 flashes per 8.33 mS or 720 to 1075 flashes per second.
Existing DLP imagers, however, suffer from several problems. The color wheel wastes light, as the light having the colors that are reflected by the color wheel is typically lost. Also, color separation or break-up artifacts degrade the image quality of the projection system, as described above. As such, a system for reducing color separation or breakup artifacts and/or having improved resolution is needed.

Biaxial mirror color selecting micro imager


An object detection method performed by an apparatus which stores a general model for a specific object type in advance, the general model describing a plurality of components which are expected to co-exist in objects of the specific object type, the method including: a sample image receiving step of receiving one or more sample images, the one or more sample images each include a same query object of the specific object type; an object detector creating step of creating, using the general model and the one or more sample images, a detector specific to said query object; and an object detecting step of detecting, using the created detector specific to the query object, the query object from a destination image. According to the object detection method mentioned above, various objects of a specific object type can be precisely detected with high flexibility.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an object detection method, an object detection apparatus as well as an image pickup apparatus including the object detection apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Analysis of visual objects in images is important in processes of object recognition, image retrieval, image registration and the like. Such processes are involved in many application fields such as surveillance (for security), video forensics, medical image analysis for computer-aided diagnosis and the like. In particular, object recognition has attracted increasing attention due to the increasing demand for developing real-world-related systems.
In conventional object recognition methods, learning/training-based classifiers are used, for which a learning/training process of classifier parameters is indispensable. However, classifiers obtained by learning/training process using specific samples of one object (for example, a dog) may not obtain good performance on another object (for example, a cat). In order to make the classifiers obtain good performance on the other object, another learning/training process has to be newly performed using specific samples of the other object, in order to modify the classifiers from those for the one object to those for the other object. This is not flexible and takes a long time.
One method for solving the above problem is to train a general classifier for a specific type of objects (such as pets including both dogs and cats), but such a general classifier will make the precision down and detect objects about which the user is not concerned. For example, even if the user only wishes to detect a dog in an image, a cat will also be detected from the image.
Another method for solving the above problem is discussed in US patent application publication No. US2010014721A1, and US patent publication Nos. US7558408B1, US7555148B1, and US7551755B1. The method disclosed in these patent documents is to first use a general classifier for a type of objects (for example, a classifier for pets) to locate the position of a candidate object in the image, and then to use a specific classifier (for example, a classifier for a cat) to judge whether the candidate object is the exact object of interest. This method has been used in cameras. According to this method, several specific classifiers (for example, a classifier for a cat, a classifier for one dog and a classifier for another dog) can be registered in advance by the user, and the user can select one of the specific classifiers for the object to be focused on before shooting a picture. The camera can be configured to automatically focus on the object detected from the image displayed in the viewfinder.
However, the inventor found that the method disclosed in the above patent documents is also not good enough because specific objects that can be detected are still limited, and only specific objects which are registered in advance by the user can be detected.

Object detection method, object detection apparatus and image pickup apparatus


A method of operating a nonvolatile memory device includes performing a reset operation for setting a level of a program voltage to a first level, performing a program operation and a verification operation on memory cells included in a first page of a first memory block while raising the program voltage from the first level, storing a level of the program voltage, supplied to the first page when memory cells programmed to have threshold voltages with at least a verification voltage are detected during the verification operation, as a second level, while raising the program voltage from the second level, performing the program operation and the verification operation on each of second to last pages of the first memory block, and after completing the program operation for the first memory block, performing the reset operation for setting the level of the program voltage to the first level.

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of operating a nonvolatile memory device.
In recent years, there is an increasing demand for nonvolatile memory devices which can be electrically programmed and erased and which do not require the refresh function of rewriting data at specific intervals.
During a program operation on a nonvolatile memory cell, a verification operation is performed for checking whether a target program cell has been programmed with more than a verification voltage. If the program operation has been performed using a single level cell (SLC) program method, a single verification voltage is used because one page includes cells with only two different states. However, if the program operation has been performed using a multi-level cell (MLC) program method, a number of verification voltages are used because one page includes cells having several states. For example, when the program operation has been performed using a 2-bit MLC program method, if an MSB program operation is performed, verification operations are performed using three kinds of verification voltages. In this case, according to an incremental step pulse program (ISPP) method, after one pulse is supplied, three verification operations need to be performed.
If the program operation has been performed using the MLC program method as described above, memory cells have a number of distributions of the threshold voltages. Accordingly, it is desirable for technology to improve the distribution characteristics of the threshold voltages. Furthermore, in the ISPP method, after one pulse has been supplied, it is inefficient to perform a number of verification operations. Accordingly, it is desirable to reduce such inefficiency.

Method of operating nonvolatile memory device