Tree data storage structures are implemented on respective computers in a distributed environment, such as on a network, so that information associated with nodes of one computer's tree data storage structure may be read or written to by another computer in the network. To promote efficiency, a cache may be employed on the computers in the network such that each computer caches information associated with nodes of tree data storage structures located on the computers in the network. A lock service may implement a caching protocol to provide efficient concurrency of caching operations while ensuring that current information associated with the nodes is available to all computers in the network.

Tree data storage structures such as B-trees and variations of B-trees (e.g., B*trees, B+trees, B−link trees) and others are used for storing large files of information on secondary storage and for supporting insertion, lookup, deletion, and enumeration operations. Such tree data storage structures are typically implemented on individual computers, with each computer satisfying operations involving its structure without regard to information indexed by tree data storage structures on other computers. That is, each computer includes its own tree data storage structure and does not, for example, retrieve information contained in nodes of a tree data storage structure located on a second computer even if the computers are communicatively coupled.
For purposes of fault tolerance, performance, scalability, and information sharing, it is desirable to utilize tree data storage structures in a distributed environment such as a cluster of machines on a network. Implementation of tree data storage structures in a distributed environment should promote efficient information sharing through efficient and highly concurrent B-Tree operations.

Implementing a tree data storage structure in a distributed environment


In order to improve security upon distributing a group key, there is provided a gateway (20) to a core network for a group of MTC devices (10_1-10_n) communicating with the core network. The gateway (20) protects confidentiality and integrity of a group key, and distributes the protected group key to each of the MTC devices (10_1-10_n). The protection is performed by using: a key (Kgr) that is preliminarily shared between the gateway (20) and each of the MTC devices (10_1-10_n), and that is used for the gateway (20) to authenticate each of the MTC devices (10_1-10_n) as a member of the group; or a key (K_iwf) that is shared between an MTC-IWF (50) and each of the MTC devices (10_1-10_n), and that is used to derive temporary keys for securely conducting individual communication between the MTC-IWF (50) and each of the MTC devices (10_1-10_n).

The 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) architecture of MTC has been studied in NPL 1. Study of group based MTC has also been initiated in NPL 2.
Further, PTL 1 discloses that a GW (Gateway) which serves as a gateway to a core network for a group of MTC devices, and uses a group key to securely conduct communication with the group members.
Note that the MTC device is a UE (User Equipment) equipped for MTC, which will be sometimes referred to as "MTC UE" or "UE" in the following explanation.

Devices and method for MTC group key management


One embodiment of the invention includes a power regulation system. The system comprises a power regulator configured to periodically generate a switch signal that regulates a current flow through an inductor to set a magnitude of an output voltage. The system further comprises an overvoltage protection circuit configured to monitor a peak voltage magnitude of the switch signal and to generate an overvoltage indication signal in response to the peak voltage magnitude of the switch signal exceeding a predetermined limit.

Linear and switch-mode voltage regulators constitute fundamental building blocks of today's power management integrated circuits (ICs). One such type of regulator is known as a switching regulator or switching power supply, which controls the flow of power to a load by controlling the on and off duty-cycle of one or more power switches coupled to the load. As an example, a switching regulator can reside in an IC, such that external feedback resistors and an external inductive power source are coupled to the switching regulator to provide a regulated voltage potential at the output of the inductor.
It is typically important to protect the power regulator, as well as associated external circuitry such as the circuitry to which the power regulator provides power, from damage resulting from excessive current. As a result, a power regulation system may include overvoltage protection. As an example, overvoltage protection circuitry may monitor the output voltage of the power regulation system and provide a signal indicating the overvoltage condition. However, monitoring the output voltage of the power regulation system can result in power loss of the power regulation system, as the overvoltage protection circuitry draws power from output voltage of the power regulation system. In addition, such an overvoltage protection system may require one or more dedicated pins on the IC in which the power regulation system resides, as the output voltage may not be provided directly from the IC. Furthermore, by providing a pin on the IC that corresponds to the output voltage, a large electrostatic discharge structure may be necessary to prevent damage to the power regulation system resulting from a high magnitude of the output voltage that is within an acceptable range of output voltages.

Output voltage independent overvoltage protection


An apparatus including motor/generator whose axis is spaced from and parallel to engine crankshaft, 3-elements type input and output mechanism disposed coaxially with the motor/generator and having first rotary element connected to the crankshaft, second rotary element connected to output shaft of the motor/generator, and third rotary element, and first and second one-way clutches associated with the input and output mechanism, which is arranged such that speed V1 of forward rotation of the first rotary element by engine is reduced when the second rotary element is rotated forward with the third rotary element held stationary. The motor/generator is operated to rotate the second rotary element to start the engine, with the first one-way clutch inhibiting the reverse rotation of the third rotary element, and as an electric generator, with the first one-way clutch allowing the forward rotation of the third rotary element while the three rotary elements are rotated as a unit under an action of the second one-way clutch.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to an apparatus for starting an engine and generating electricity, and more particularly to techniques relating to such an engine starting and electricity generating apparatus which is compact in construction with a reduced axial dimension thereof.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,132,604 discloses an example of engine starting and electricity generating apparatus, which includes (a) an engine operated by combustion of a fuel and having a crankshaft, (b) a motor/generator disposed such that an axis of rotation of the motor/generator is spaced apart from and parallel to an axis of rotation of a crankshaft of the engine; (c) a planetary gear device of a single planetary type accommodated in a casing and including a carrier disposed coaxially with the engine and connected to the crankshaft, a sun gear connected to an output shaft of the motor/generator, and a ring gear, said planetary gear device operating to mechanically synthesizing and distributing forces among the carrier, sun gear and ring gear, and being arranged such that a speed of rotation of the carrier in a forward direction by operation of the engine is reduced when the sun gear is rotated in the same forward direction with the ring gear held stationary; (d) a ratchet mechanism interposed between the casing of the planetary gear device and the ring gear, and electrically controlled to inhibit the ring gear from rotating in a reverse direction opposite to the forward direction while allowing the ring gear to rotate in the forward direction; and (e) a one-way clutch interposed between the carrier and the sun gear, and operating to inhibit a speed V2 of rotation of the sun gear from being lower than a speed V1 of rotation of the carrier while allowing the speed V2 to be equal or higher than the speed V1, and wherein the motor/generator is used as an engine starter motor for starting the engine, and as an electric generator during operation of the engine.
In this engine starting and electricity generating apparatus, the single motor/generator is capable of starting the engine and generating electricity. When the engine is started, the rotating speed and torque of the motor/generator are respectively reduced and boosted by the planetary gear device, so that the boosted torque is transmitted to the engine for starting the engine. When the electricity is generated by the motor/generator, the carrier, sun gear and ring gear of the planetary gear device are rotated as a unit by the action of the one-way clutch, so as to prevent an excessively high speed of operation of the motor/generator. This apparatus may employ an inexpensive motor/generator which have relatively small mechanical and electrical capacities.
In the known engine starting and electricity generating apparatus as described above, the planetary gear device is disposed coaxially with the engine, whereby the apparatus tends to have a relatively large dimension in the axial direction of the engine. In a front-engine front-drive automotive vehicle, the engine is installed with its axis extending in the transverse direction of the vehicle. Therefore, it is not easy to dispose the planetary gear device coaxially with the engine, in the front-engine front-drive vehicle. Further, the one-way clutch interposed between the sun gear and the carrier of the planetary gear device is required to have a comparatively large torque capacity and an accordingly large size. This requirement increases the axial dimension of the engine starting and electricity generating apparatus, making it more difficult to install the apparatus on the front-engine front-drive vehicle.

Engine starting and electricity generating apparatus including 3-elements type input and output mechanism coaxial with motor/generator


A dental floss comprising a multifilament yarn having at least one coating applied thereon. The yarn comprising the floss is substantially untwisted and comprises entanglement nodes having a frequency of between about 0.5 and about 3.5 inches. The yarn has a basis weight between about 500 and about 1200 denier. The coating applied to the yarn comprises a water-insoluble binder. Optionally, the floss may be coated with a second coating material comprising a water soluble substance such as polyethylene glycol for delivery of additives or additional flavors. With little or no twist and an optimum degree of air-entanglement, the yarn is held together loosely enough to allow a significant amount of coating material to be impregnated between the filaments but tight enough to provide shred and fray resistance and still have supple feel.

The use of dental floss is recommended by virtually all dental health practitioners According to the Council on Dental Therapeutics, dental flossing has been shown to be 80% effective in removing interdental plaque, yet only about 12% of the United States population use floss regularly. Many consumers find floss to be inconvenient, hard to hold, hard to get between teeth and have problems with the floss fraying and shredding during use. For this reason, floss producers have been seeking ways of making floss easier and more pleasant to use. Unfortunately, most solutions are not particularly efficient and add significant cost to the product.
One approach that has resulted in reduced fraying and shredding is the use of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) monofilament yarn for floss. Unfortunately, PTFE yarns are approximately ten times more expensive than the traditional nylon yarn and its use more than doubles the cost of the floss to the consumer. PTFE floss products are supplied by Gore, Colgate and the Personal Products Company division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc. These products have set the standard for fray and shred resistance. However, PTFE monofilament floss is difficult to provide with adequate flavor because it does not have adequate surface area to carry the flavors. PTFE floss is difficult for the consumer to hold while flossing because it has a low coefficient of friction, and many consumers feel it does not clean between teeth as well as conventional multifilament floss.
A second approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,435 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,990 assigned to Gillette Canada, Inc. These patents describe a dual-coated, flattened or shaped product using conventional multi-filament yarn. According to these patents, the yarn is initially coated with a first wax and is subsequently coated with a second wax, the melting temperature of the first wax being higher than the melting temperature of the second wax. The first wax coating binds the filaments of the multi-filament yarn together after which it is flattened or shaped. The second coating contains flavor and/or other additives. This product is significantly less expensive than PTFE, but has more flavor impact than some commercially available PTFE monofilament floss. While floss made according to these patents passes more easily between teeth than some other conventional flosses, for many consumers, this product is too thin, does not have the flavor impact of conventional flosses and does not provide the fray/shred resistance of PTFE.
European Patent Application EP 0 790 040 A1 to Ranir/DCP Corp. discloses a dental floss made from high molecular weight polyethylene yarn having a coefficient of friction of less than about 0.2 and a tensile modulus of about 200 to about 2500 grams per denier. The yarn is preferably coated with a coating material such as a wax. The Ranir patent asserts that the properties of the floss disclosed therein are expected to translate into easier insertion between teeth and less fraying and shredding. Our tests show that the force required to pass floss believed to manufactured in accordance with the '040 patent between teeth is equivalent to most conventional multifilament flosses and higher than PTFE monofilament floss. Further, our tests show that this product frays and shreds more than PTFE products. This floss is also significantly more expensive than conventional nylon multi-filament floss since it comprises a yarn whose cost is about 6 times the cost of nylon yarn.
By "shredding," we mean the breaking of yarn filaments of the floss during use. By "fraying," we mean the permanent separation of adjacent filaments of the floss during use. Frayed floss often results in the filaments becoming stuck between teeth, especially between teeth containing restorations.
Manufacturers of prior art flosses have twisted the substrate yarn to prevent fraying. It is well known that fraying of a yarn generally increases as the number of twists per inch decreases (see for example, "Oral Hygiene Products and Practice," by Morton Pader, Marcel Deckker, Inc., New York, 1988, pages 181-182), While adding twist does indeed reduce fraying, increasing the twist of the floss increases its diameter, thereby making it more difficult to pass between teeth.
Bragg (U.S. Pat. No. 4,151,851) discloses that adding twist to floss "causes the strand to be substantially cylindrical in cross section with the strand having a width much larger than individual filaments. Such floss may be difficult to insert between a person's teeth when the teeth fit closely against each other. It has been found that if the twist is removed so that the individual filaments lie parallel to the longitudinal axis of the strand, . . . , the strand will be flat or ribbon shaped, as shown, with a thickness that may be on the order of 0.0005". Such a flat strand, when present edgewise will be easier to insert between closely fitting teeth." While Bragg discloses that a flat tape-like floss will pass more easily between teeth, he does not teach how to prevent shredding or fraying of the yarn.
In light of the continued deficiencies in prior art floss, it is an object of the invention to provide a floss with improved fray and shred resistance.
It is another object of the invention to provide a floss which slides easily between teeth while providing the user with the perception of effectively cleaning between the teeth.
It is another object of the invention to provide a floss which is easy to handle and is gentle on the fingers and gums.
It is another object of the invention to provide a floss that can carry large amounts of flavors and/or other additives.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a floss with all of the above-mentioned attributes.

Dental floss having improved fray and shred resistance


The disclosure describes the use of an image generator connected to receive at least two, and preferably three, base colors that have been previously compressed using two blend factors to interpolate degrees of color intensity in a texture image. A decoder circuit to restore the compressed image color data for each data path from memory uses a color blender circuit to restore the color components from data from each path to produce that color at an output terminal. A provision is described for including translucency also.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention, generally, relates to image texture generators and, more particularly, to a new and improved system for handling texture patterns used with digital computer graphics.
Image generators are receiving ever widening use in industry today. One use is to produce imagery for real time training, such as, for example, in flight simulation apparatus. New uses are even in amusement apparatus.
Image generators produce perspective images from stored mathematical descriptions of objects, usually polygon approximations of shapes of real world objects. It has been found that a key to enhancing such imagery is to provide a capability of texturing for selected surfaces of the polygon objects, as a variation to what otherwise would be uniform appearances of these polygon surfaces.
An image generator will store a texture pattern in a local Random Access Memory (RAM) for fast access when needed for texturing selected surfaces. Texture patterns are in a two dimensional array of a sample of such a pattern, wherein each texture sample is called a "texel" and contains one or more parameters describing the texture at that point.
For example, a texel for a color image may have red, green and blue parameters. An image generator establishes a mathematical correspondence between the points of the displayed polygon (the pixels) and the texels of a stored texture pattern, so that the pattern appears attached to and a part of the polygon.
A color texture pattern may be applied to a modelled polygon object so the pattern appears attached in the manner of paint or wallpaper. For example, an insignia stored as a color texture pattern may be applied to an aircraft modelled by polygons.
A variety of different parameters may be stored in each texel. In addition to three color components, a translucency factor is included sometimes. The translucency factor is a number between zero and one that represents how transparent or how opaque the polygon surface should be rendered by such an image generator, ranging from completely transparent to completely opaque.
Varying the translucency factor along with color provides an effective way of modelling plant foliage effects and to provide windows in buildings. Smoke and cloud effects also are modelled effectively using a translucency parameter in texture.
Since most objects in the natural world have textured surfaces, realistic imagery requires that many texture patterns be stored in an image generator. This requires a great deal of high speed storage, which can become quite expensive.
For example, in military training situations, it is highly desirable to store and use images from satellites or aerial photography as texture patterns, so that the terrain from the image generator will appear as much as possible like the terrain of the real world. A resolution of one foot in a ground image requires more than 25 million texels per square mile.
Traditionally, five to eight bits have been used for each color component and for the translucency factor. Thus, about 50 to 75 million bytes of data are required per square mile of terrain, and proportionately, more bytes than this are required for patterns using translucency.
Storage of these data clearly places a cost burden on RAM storage in the image generator that is required for real time texturing of polygons in a view. For large areas, required for military exercises, it also places a burden on data storage requirements and retrieval rates. Therefore, there are cost and engineering incentives to minimize the data storage requirements for the texture data.
Several image data compression schemes are known, but heretofore, none of these have been found suitable for dealing with the problem of compressing texture patterns. Traditional compression schemes take advantage of the commonalities between neighbors in the arrays of values to be compressed, and they also take advantage of the general need to compress and restore a whole image at once.
Because a textured polygon may be viewed from any angle and be partially occluded, texel values may be accessed from part of the texture pattern at any time. Therefore, traditional schemes using the whole image cannot be used. Moreover, since the image is required to keep up with high resolution real time video, the decompression hardware must be kept simple.
In fact, common texture implementations require the retrieval of four to eight texels concurrently, so that an output value can be derived by interpolation. This puts additional pressure on any decompression scheme for texture patterns to work effectively.

Compressed image system for texture patterns


The invention provides an audio decoder being configured for decoding a bitstream so as to produce therefrom an audio output signal, the bitstream including at least an active phase followed by at least an inactive phase, wherein the bitstream has encoded therein at least a silence insertion descriptor frame which describes a spectrum of a background noise, the audio decoder including: a silence insertion descriptor decoder configured to decode the silence insertion descriptor frame; a decoding device configured to reconstruct the audio output signal from the bitstream during the active phase; a spectral converter configured to determine a spectrum of the audio output signal; a noise estimator device configured to determine a first spectrum of the noise of the audio output signal; a resolution converter configured to establish a second spectrum of the noise of the audio output signal; a comfort noise spectrum estimation device; and a comfort noise generator.

The present invention relates to audio signal processing, and, in particular, to comfort noise addition to audio signals.
Comfort noise generators are usually used in discontinuous transmission (DTX) of audio signals, in particular of audio signals containing speech. In such a mode the audio signal is first classified in active and inactive frames by a voice activity detector (VAD). Based on the VAD result, only the active speech frames are coded and transmitted at the nominal bit-rate. During long pauses, where only the background noise is present, the bit-rate is lowered or zeroed and the background noise is coded episodically and parametrically using silence insertion descriptor frames (SID frames). The average bit-rate is then significantly reduced.
The noise is generated during the inactive frames at the decoder side by a comfort noise generator (CNG). The size of an SID frame is very limited in practice. Therefore, the number of parameters describing the background noise has to be kept as small as possible. To this aim, the noise estimation is not applied directly in the output of the spectral transforms. Instead, it is applied at a lower spectral resolution by averaging the input power spectrum among groups of bands, e.g., following the Bark scale. The averaging can be achieved either by arithmetic or geometric means. Unfortunately, the limited number of parameters transmitted in the SID frames does not allow to capture the fine spectral structure of the background noise. Hence only the smooth spectral envelope of the noise can be reproduced by the CNG. When the VAD triggers a CNG frame, the discrepancy between the smooth spectrum of the reconstructed comfort noise and the spectrum of the actual background noise can become very audible at the transitions between active frames (involving regular coding and decoding of a noisy speech portion of the signal) and CNG frames.

Generation of a comfort noise with high spectro-temporal resolution in discontinuous transmission of audio signals

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.


A sensor for detecting an analyte in liquid includes a base substrate provided with openings and electrode lands on one surface thereof and SAW elements each provided with a sensing portion having at least one IDT electrode on one side. The SAW elements are mounted on the base substrate with bump electrodes by a flip-chip bonding method so that the sensing portions of the SAW elements face the openings of the base substrate. At least one of the sensing portions is coated with a reaction membrane which binds to an analyte.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sensors for detecting an analyte in liquid using SAW elements (surface acoustic wave elements), and also relates to devices for detecting an analyte in liquid including such sensors. More specifically, the present invention relates to sensors for detecting an analyte in liquid, each sensor includes at least one SAW element mounted on a base substrate via a bump electrode, and also relates to devices for detecting an analyte in liquid with the sensors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of sensors for detecting analytes in liquids have been disclosed in the past.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 63-250560 (Patent Document 1) discloses a sensor for detecting an analyte in liquid using a surface acoustic wave. FIG. 23 is a schematic front cross-sectional view for illustrating the sensor disclosed in Patent Document 1.
A sensor 102 for detecting an analyte in liquid is immersed in a solution 101 containing an analyte. The sensor 102 is defined by a surface acoustic wave element. In other words, the sensor 102 includes a rectangular plate-like piezoelectric substrate 103, an input IDT electrode 104, and an output IDT electrode 105. The input IDT electrode 104 and the output IDT electrode 105 are arranged on the same surface of the piezoelectric substrate 103 with a predetermined distance therebetween. In addition, a membrane 106 for adsorbing an analyte is arranged between the input IDT electrode 104 and the output IDT electrode 105. A surface acoustic wave is excited in the piezoelectric substrate 103 by applying an alternating voltage to the input IDT electrode 104. The excited surface acoustic wave propagates toward the output IDT electrode 105. At the output IDT electrode 105, an electric signal based on the propagated surface wave is extracted. Since the membrane 106 adsorbs the analyte, the load to the surface of the piezoelectric substrate 103 due to the membrane 106 is changed when the analyte is present. Consequently, the propagating surface acoustic wave is modified by the presence of the analyte and, therefore, the output extracted from the output IDT electrode 105 is changed. Thus, the detection of the analyte and the measurement of concentration thereof are enabled.
However, in the measurement method using the sensor 102 for detecting an analyte in liquid, the sensor 102 must be immersed in a liquid 101. Therefore, when the amount of the liquid 101 containing the analyte is small, the analyte in the liquid cannot be detected.
Further, even if a large amount of a liquid is prepared, the measurement cost is disadvantageously high when the liquid is expensive.
In addition, in the sensor 102 for detecting an analyte in liquid, a liquid 101 adheres not only to regions where the surface acoustic wave propagates but also to regions where electrode pads or bonding wires, which are connected to the IDT electrodes 103 and 104, are disposed. Therefore, the electrical characteristic is disadvantageously changed so as to deteriorate the detection accuracy.
On the other hand, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 5-45339 (Patent Document 2) discloses a method for measuring an analyte in liquid without immersing a sensor for detecting an analyte in liquid.
In the sensor of Patent Document 2, an IDT electrode is disposed on a first principle surface of a piezoelectric substrate, and a measuring pond for receiving a liquid containing an analyte is formed on a second principle surface of the piezoelectric substrate, which is the opposite side of the first principle surface. Here, a liquid is injected into the measuring pond provided on the second principle surface, and the measurement is performed. Thus, it is not necessary to immerse the entire sensor in the liquid. Furthermore, since the IDT electrode is not brought into contact with the liquid, the electrical characteristic is not substantially changed.
As described above, in the sensor disclosed in Patent Document 2 for detecting an analyte in liquid, a large amount of liquid is not necessary. In addition, the liquid negligibly adheres to the IDT electrode.
However, in the sensor disclosed in Patent Document 2, a liquid containing an analyte is present on the second principle surface of the piezoelectric substrate. On the other hand, a surface acoustic wave propagates on the first principle surface of the piezoelectric substrate, namely, the surface acoustic wave propagates extremely close to the surface of the principle surface on which the IDT electrode is disposed. Therefore, when a solution is applied to the second principle surface, the surface acoustic wave propagating on the first principle surface is not substantially influenced by the change caused by the presence of the solution. Therefore, in the sensor disclosed in Patent Document 2, the detection accuracy cannot be sufficiently increased.
In addition, in the sensor disclosed in Patent Document 2, energy disperses not only to near the surface of the piezoelectric substrate but also to a certain depth of the piezoelectric substrate. The leak component of a propagating SH wave causes noise, and therefore, the measurement accuracy is disadvantageously decreased.

Sensor for detecting analyte in liquid and device for detecting analyte in liquid using the same


Provided is a display panel having an optical module arrangement region, a transition region and a conventional region. The display panel includes: first pixels located in the optical module arrangement region, transition pixels located in the transition region, conventional pixels located in the conventional region, and first, second, and third pixel circuits. A first pixel density of the optical module arrangement region and a second pixel density of the transition region are both smaller than a third pixel density of the conventional region. The second pixel circuits are located in the transition region and electrically connected to the transition pixels. The third pixel circuits are located in the conventional region and electrically connected to the conventional pixels. The first pixel circuits are electrically connected to the first pixels. At least some of the first pixel circuits are located in the transition region.

With the development of the display technology, not only do people require a smooth user experience on electronic products, but also require better visual experiences, so a high screen ratio has become a current research direction. For the electronic products, provision of an optical module such as a front camera will inevitably occupy a certain space, thereby affecting the screen ratio. In order to achieve a true full screen, researchers are considering implementation schemes of under-screen optical modules.
Providing the optical module such as a camera under a light emitting device of the display panel, i.e., providing the optical module in the display area, allows normal display to occur at a position of the optical module. When it is necessary to use the optical module, light penetrates the display panel to reach the optical module and is ultimately utilized by the optical module. In a structure of the display panel in the related art, there is a relatively small amount of light that can be received by the optical module, which affects the use performance of an optical module. How to improve the amount of light received by the optical module and improve the performance of the under-screen optical module is a technical problem that needs to be solved urgently.


Examples are presented herein that relate to rotation of a sensor assembly relative to a housing of a camera system. One example provides a camera system coupled to a display device, the camera system comprising a housing, a sensor assembly arranged within the housing and rotatable with respect to the housing, the sensor assembly comprising an image sensor configured to obtain image data for display by the display device, and a manual rotation mechanism coupled to the sensor assembly, the manual rotation mechanism configured to be manually actuated from outside the housing to rotate the sensor assembly with respect to the housing.

Cameras and graphical displays may be integrated into computing systems or may take the form of separate peripheral devices. In either scenario, such computing systems may enable video conferencing to allow communications in real-time through the sharing of video captured by a camera. The camera may be located near the graphical display during conferencing so that a subject can view a remote camera feed presented by the graphical display while also being within the field of view of the camera.


The stimulating apparatus (1) for preventing urinary incontinence according to the invention includes an event switch (4) for inputting plural sets of urinary incontinence information; a stimulation condition setting unit (5) for setting a condition of stimulation on a living body to an arbitrary value, a stimulation intensity setting unit (3) for adjusting stimulation intensity to an arbitrary level, a central processing unit (6) having an event input judging unit (6d) for judging the plural sets of urinary incontinence information, and a storage unit (6b) for storing the urinary incontinence information, the stimulation conditions, and stimulation history information of a stimulation signal which is output, and a displaying device (7) for displaying the urinary incontinence information, the stimulation conditions, and the stimulation history information.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a stimulating apparatus for preventing urinary incontinence which applies electrical or magnetic stimulation to a patient suffering from urinary incontinence, and which records the progress of stimulation.
2. Related Art
Generally, it is known that electrical stimulation is effective for prevention or treatment of various kinds of urinary incontinence such as stress incontinence, urge incontinence, and mixed incontinence.
In the prior art, for example, such electrical stimulation is conducted in the following manner. First, surface electrodes are attached to the body surface in the vicinity of the pudendum of the patient; an electrode plug is inserted into the anus, the vagina, or the like; or electrodes are directly embedded into the pelvic floor muscle or the vicinity of the pudendum. Then, electrical stimulation is repeatedly applied at a frequency of several to 100 Hz. This stimulation treatment is continued for one week to several months. The intensity and frequency of electrical stimulation, the stimulation period, the stimulation region, and the like depend on cases and individual differences.
In the treatment with electrical stimulation, specifically, the patient goes to the hospital once each week for several months to be treated with stimulation for 15 to 30 minutes, or, in accordance with instructions of the doctor, the patient is subjected at home two or three times a day to stimulation for about 20 minutes by using a portable electric stimulating apparatus. The patient is provided with a patient diary and instructed to record in detail voiding conditions in daily life, such as the stimulation period, the stimulation intensity, the time of incontinence, the time of voiding, the time of exchange of a diaper or underpants, and the degree of the urge sensation. After a predetermined period elapses, the doctor reads the patient's diary to judge whether the present treatment is effective or not, and decides the subsequent treatment policy.
A test is provided in order to determine the effect of the electrical stimulation treatment. The test may include a urodynamic study (UDS) in which a catheter is inserted into the urethra and the urethral sphincter is pricked with a needle electrode; a test using an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus; or a pad test in which a stress incontinent patient is given water and then made to take various kinds of bodily exercises at predetermined intervals, and the degree of urinary incontinence is checked. Usually, these tests are used for diagnosis of the type of urinary incontinence, or to check of the presence or absence of voiding disfunction, and hence must be performed by a specialist. Furthermore, inspection apparatuses used in these tests are so expensive that not all hospitals are equipped with such apparatuses.
Regarding the effect of stimulation, the occurrence of urinary incontinence and voiding for each individual is compared with the initial state on the basis of the patient diary, and it is judged whether a change occurred or not. Usually, it is known that, if electrical stimulation is effective, the frequency of urinary incontinence or the like is reduced. However, there are differences among individuals , and hence the judgment cannot be uniformly applied. Practically, therefore, the treatment effect depends on the recording accuracy of the patient diary.
In the treatment of urinary incontinence with electrical stimulation, it is important to know the reason why the treatment is not working, i.e., an effect is not attained although stimulation has been conducted at an appropriate intensity and for a predetermined period, or, even though the patient has conducted stimulation in accordance with instructions of the doctor, an effect is not attained because of insufficient stimulation intensity and stimulation number. In accordance with the result, the subsequent treatment policy is determined.
With respect to a treatment effect, furthermore, the subjective symptom of the patient does not always coincide with the result of the test conducted by the doctor. Even in the case where an unfavorable test result is obtained, when the occurrence of urinary incontinence and voiding are reduced, the patient believes the treatment has worked, with the result that the quality of life (QOL) is improved. Under such circumstances, a patient diary which is used in the prior art is very significant to both the patient and the doctor.
However, aged persons constitute a large portion of urinary incontinent patients, and hence it is difficult to record information in a patient diary, as instructed, for a long term without omission. Furthermore, it is difficult to ask the caregiver to record all items of information because there may arise a problem of privacy.
In the prior art treatment, a UDS test or a pad test is conducted in order to judge the treatment effect. The UDS has a drawback that it has a high degree of invasivenss and inflicts pain on the patient. The pad test is free from invasiveness but compels the patient to take special exercises for predetermined periods. In other words, both the tests are conducted under an unnatural state, and hence cannot obtain a correct state of the symptom.
In the case of an outing or travel, moreover, the patient must always carry the diary together with an electric stimulating apparatus and record information in the diary. This is cumbersome work.

Stimulating apparatus for preventing urinary incontinence


A maskable content addressable memory may store one or more address prefixes. A port on which the packet may be sent is determined by comparing the destination address of a received packet by masking the address prefixes and the destination address.

A computer network generally refers to a group of interconnected wired and/or a wireless medium devices such as, for example, laptops, desktops, mobile phones, servers, fax machines, printers, etc. that may share resources. One or more intermediate devices such as switches and routers may be provisioned between end systems to support data transfer. Each intermediate device after receiving a packet may determine a port on which the packet may be sent onward. A content addressable memory (CAM) of the intermediate devices may determine the port.


According to embodiments of the present invention, an automatic trim or calibration for a temperature sensor of a chip or memory device is performed on that chip. An embodiment of the present invention includes a calibration unit that increments trim or calibration values provided to the chip temperature sensor and stored in a calibration register. The calibration unit retrieves status bits from the temperature sensor indicating a measured temperature for each calibration value and compares those bits to a reference or target value associated with a target temperature and stored in a reference register. When the status bits satisfy the comparison, the corresponding calibration value is identified as the proper calibration value for the temperature sensor and is subsequently used by the temperature sensor for temperature measurements.

1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to sensor calibration. In particular, the present invention pertains to an automatic calibration for a temperature sensor of a memory device.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Memory devices are utilized to store information for various applications. A commonly utilized memory device includes a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). These types of memory devices store information in memory cell arrays that are configured in a matrix of intersecting rows and columns. The rows are commonly referred to as word lines. Each memory cell generally includes a storage capacitor to hold a charge and a transistor to access the charge of the capacitor. The charge may be a high or low voltage potential (referred to as a data bit), thereby providing the memory cell with two logic states. The memory cells of the DRAM must be refreshed periodically due to leakages within the capacitors storing the charges (or bits).
Generally, semi-conductor wafers include a plurality of chips or circuits (e.g., a Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) wafer may include five-hundred chips). An exemplary chip or memory device is illustrated in FIG. 1. Specifically, each chip or memory device 2 (e.g., Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)) includes a memory cell array 4, a temperature sensor 12 and a trim or calibration register 16. The memory cell array stores information or data and is substantially similar to the memory cell array described above. Since memory device operation may vary with temperature, the temperature sensor is utilized to measure the temperature of a corresponding chip. The temperature sensor includes a status register 14 to provide status bits or a code indicating the temperature sensor status in response to a temperature measurement. Trim register 16 stores calibration results for the temperature sensor as described below. The temperature sensor receives a trim or calibration setting from a test unit, and provides status bits or a code in status register 14 to indicate the temperature sensor status in response to a temperature measurement.
Basically, the status bits change states or values in response to the measured temperature in order to provide an indication of that temperature. Referring to FIG. 2, the temperature sensor status bits include states or values one through seven (e.g., '001' to '111' as indicated by the three status bits in FIG. 2) each associated with a corresponding temperature or temperature range. As the temperature increases, the status bits transition from state seven (e.g., status bit values of '111') toward state one (e.g., status bit values of '001') in accordance with the measured temperature. In other words, the status bits indicate the state corresponding to the temperature or temperature range encompassing the measured temperature. By way of example only, a transition of the status bits from state five (e.g., status bit values of '101') to state four (e.g., status bit values of '100') indicates detection of a reference temperature.
The temperature sensor of each chip needs to be calibrated with respect to the reference temperature to ensure uniform temperature measurements. In order to accomplish this calibration, a trim or calibration value is determined for temperature sensor 12 of each chip to enable the temperature sensors to provide status bits switching between the same states in response to detection of the reference temperature. In other words, each temperature sensor needs to provide status bits transitioning between the same states (e.g., between states five and four as viewed in FIG. 2) in response to detection of the reference temperature. The trim or calibration value achieving this result typically varies for each temperature sensor due to manufacturing or hardware fluctuations among the temperature sensors.
Currently, temperature sensor trimming or calibration is performed for a reference temperature of approximately 88° C. In particular, the ambient environment for each temperature sensor is set to approximately 88° C. Temperature sensors of several chips (e.g., on a wafer) are preferably calibrated in parallel. A trim or calibration value is provided to each temperature sensor 12 from a test unit. The temperature sensors detect the temperature and the resulting three bit status values are retrieved by the test unit from each status register 14 of the temperature sensors. The trim value and resulting status values are stored by the test unit external of the chips. The trim value is incremented by the test unit, where the above sequence is repeated numerous times (e.g., typically at least forty times) for each temperature sensor in order to identify the appropriate trim value for that temperature sensor. The number of sequence iterations performed is based on the quantity of temperature sensor trim or calibration values, and the quantity of temperature measurements needed to determine the appropriate trim values for the temperature sensors. These trim values may vary among the temperature sensors due to hardware fluctuations as described above.
After completion of the sequence iterations, the stored information (e.g., trim and status values) is analyzed by the test unit in a post-processing phase to determine the appropriate trim or calibration value for each temperature sensor. This is accomplished by identifying the trim value associated with the desired transition of the three bit status value for the reference temperature (e.g., the trim value associated with the status value change from five to four as viewed in FIG. 2). The identified trim values (e.g., seven bit code or value) are subsequently transferred to a fuse converter for burning or hard coding onto chips 2 in corresponding trim registers 16 (e.g., fuse registers, etc.). The resulting trim or calibration values stored in trim registers 16 are subsequently used by the corresponding temperature sensors.
The technique described above suffers from several disadvantages. In particular, the technique is time intensive and tends to produce inaccurate results. Further, since the temperature sensors are calibrated in parallel, the calibration sequence is repeated numerous times for each temperature sensor. Thus, the calibration may be performed for temperature sensors even after the appropriate calibration or trim value has been utilized in a prior iteration, thereby performing unnecessary calibration steps and increasing the time for the calibration. This further provides additional and unnecessary information for the post processing phase and wastes resources. Moreover, the processing for the calibration is performed external of the chip, thereby requiring additional tasks of transferring information between the chip and external test unit that further complicate and increase the time for the calibration. In addition, the above technique requires the test unit to perform or issue two commands or steps (e.g., provide a trim or calibration value and retrieve status bits) for each iteration. This utilizes substantial processing time of the test unit and complicates the procedure.

Method and apparatus for calibration of an on-chip temperature sensor within a memory device


The invention sets out a method where a critical loading related to jitter associated with a link between the access point and a client device is determined. This critical load is the load beyond which retransmissions are insufficient for the client device to repair the video stream. The critical load is determined by sending data at varying transmission rates during a calibration mode, and measuring the jitter and packet loss rate. A safe load is then set as a fraction of this critical load. The loading associated with a multicast stream is then monitored with reference to this safe load, and if the safe load is met or exceeded, then action is taken to avoid packet loss increasing to a critical level. One action may be to adjust the transmission rate of the multicast stream for example, such that the load is reduced to below the safe load level.

Video delivery over IP networks generally use one of two networking streaming technologies: one based on multicast and the other based on unicast (this could be over connection or connectionless oriented networks). With multicast transmission, a single multicast stream carrying the content is pushed from a content server to multiple network nodes simultaneously, with those network nodes duplicating the content and forwarding to any subsequent nodes or client devices as required. With unicast transmission, multiple streams of content are pulled from the server, one stream for each device consuming the content, typically using HTTP over TCP. Multicast delivery makes more efficient use of the network when delivering the same content to many client devices. However, if the number of users is small, then unicast delivery may be more efficient overall.
Delivery using multicast is becoming increasingly popular, particularly so for linear or live television broadcasts. Current multicast video delivery schemes adopt an adaptive bitrate approach, where the same content is encoded at a number of different bit rates, with the playout client using the most appropriate rate, based on network conditions. First generation playout clients would typically use packet loss as a trigger for rate switching (leaving one multicast group and joining another). Current clients monitor playout buffer levels.
Multicast delivery within the home environment typically utilises a wireless access point or router to provide Internet access over a broadband connection. Each of the clients connected to the access point requesting the same content will be part of the same multicast group. When multicasting in this home environment, there is no efficient way of knowing if delivery has been successful to a particular client, due to the one-to-many relationship between the access point and the receiving clients. This can be particularly problematic when the clients in the home network are connecting wirelessly over Wi-Fi, with throughput to each device limited by the network traffic levels and network conditions affecting the maximum network throughput.
Depending on the wireless system's capability, an access point can either degrade the stream to a rate based on the receiving capabilities of the weakest client, or the access point can serialise (unicast) to each client. The first approach results in all clients being down-graded to weakest client quality as all the clients are part of the same multicast group, whilst the second introduces greater bandwidth demands based on the number of clients, negating the advantages of multicast. The weakness of both these approaches are amplified with the advent of ultra high definition (UHD) video streaming requiring much higher bit rates.

Optimising multicast video delivery in a wireless network

BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS public limited company


A powertrain incorporating an automatic transmission and an electrical control unit for control thereof, the electrical control unit implementing a return-to-range feature that will return to the automatic transmission to a previously selected forward (and, in some embodiments, reverse) gear when the service brake is applied first and then the parking brake is released while the service brake remains applied. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

Some vehicle powertrain systems incorporating automatic transmissions include the option to automatically shift the transmission to a neutral gear when the parking brake is applied. This is useful, for example, in a refuse packer vehicle that may make frequent stops where the driver exits the vehicle for a short time while leaving the engine running. Coming to a stop and engaging the parking brake will cause the transmission to be automatically shifted to a neutral gear, thus saving the driver the time that would be required to shift to a neutral gear using the transmission control selector. When the driver returns to the vehicle, releasing the parking brake will cause the transmission to be automatically shifted to the previous drive gear, thus saving the driver from using the transmission range selector to shift the transmission back into a drive gear. This system requires dual redundant wires indicating the status of the parking brake be applied to the transmission control unit. As long as the service brake is not indicated to be in error, if both of the redundant wires indicate that the parking brake has been released, the transmission will automatically be shifted to the previous drive gear.
Therefore, there remains room for improvements in the provision of the automatic functions in an automatic transmission.

System and method for automatic neutral and automatic return-to-range for use with an automatic transmission


A spud greasing system includes a spudwell and a spud configured to slidingly engage with the spudwell between a deployed position and an undeployed position. The spud includes an access window configured to align and correspond with a window of the spudwell when the spud is in the undeployed position. A sheave assembly is mounted in the spud and includes a first sheave and a second sheave rotationally mounted proximate a front end and a back end of the housing, respectively. When the spud is in the undeployed position, a grease supply is configured to be selectively connected to a supply pipe through the window and access window of the spudwell and spud thereby supplying grease to the first sheave of the sheave assembly without removing the spud from the spudwell.

This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Spud barges are heavy duty vessels that can transport over fifteen (15) times the amount of materials as a rail car, and sixty (60) times as much as a truck. A typical spud barge is mostly comprised of a large, flat deck. Due to their size and stability, spud barges provide excellent solid work platforms for nearshore and offshore projects. Similarly, spud barges have ample room for storing, transporting, and providing a working platform for construction equipment, such as cranes and excavators. Spud barges have spuds and spudwells. The spuds include vertical members (e.g., shafts), usually made of steel, which are used to anchor or moor a barge in a particular area and provide stability. The spuds can be driven into the earth (e.g., seafloor, riverbed, lake floor, etc.) beneath the spud barge. Once engaged in the earth, the spuds can help the barge maintain a location despite current, wind, or other external forces, such as on-deck machinery acting on the spud barge. Desirably, this can protect the spud barge from movement due to currents, wind, and use of machinery on the vessel. The spudwells, also referred to as spud "pockets," include vertical sleeves that receive the spuds to attach the spud to the spud barge. The spudwell keeps the spud secure and in place and allows controlled vertical movement of the spuds. There can be various numbers of spuds and therefore spudwells on a given barge. The number of spuds and spudwells on a given barge depend on several factors which are unique to each project and barge arrangement.
Spuds can be raised and lowered using a series of pulleys and wires or cables. These pulleys and wires/cables constantly need to be maintained via greasing to ensure smooth continuous operation. Traditional methods of greasing the system involve floating a separate crane on a separate vessel alongside the barge in question, attaching the crane to the spuds, then hoisting the spuds almost entirely out of the spudwell to an appropriate height such that access can be granted to all greasing locations. Undesirably, this process can be time consuming, work intensive, and expensive. Furthermore, this process can also serve to interrupt the normal flow of construction or production activities as the supplementary equipment necessary for the traditional maintenance (greasing) may not be readily available or there could be accessibility constraints. The barge may therefore need to either breakaway from the work or halt operations to satisfy the schedule of the ancillary equipment. In addition, sometimes the area around the barge can be limited (e.g., where the barge is located in a narrow canal), which does not facilitate having a separate vessel carrying the crane alongside the barge. On occasion, it has been observed that this required maintenance is not performed because of the difficulty of performing the task, the availability of the ancillary hoisting equipment, project schedule constraints or some combination of all of these items.
There is a continuing needed for a barge spud greasing system and method that permits spuds to be greased without having to be removed completely from a spudwell. Desirably, the system and method do not require a separate crane or moving from the works location.

CASHMAN DREDGING AND MARINE CONTRACTING, CO., LLC


Provided is an audio signal encoding method including transforming an input signal from a time domain to a time/frequency domain using a first transformation method, extracting a stereo parameter from a signal of the time/frequency domain, encoding the stereo parameter, and down-mixing the signal of the time/frequency domain, transforming each of sub-bands of the down-mixed signal to a frequency domain by using a second transformation method, and encoding the signal of the frequency domain in the frequency domain.

1. Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of encoding and decoding an audio signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses transform an audio signal from the time domain by using a predetermined method and encode the audio signal of the transformed domain by using another predetermined method. For example, conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses extract a predetermined parameter from the audio signal of the transformed domain, and quantize the audio signal in the transformed domain. Conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses include a plurality of tools having different functions. The plurality of tools processes audio signals of different domains.
However, conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses transform an input audio signal from a domain by using a plurality of methods irrespective of the domain of the input audio signal processed by each tool. For example, conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses in parallel transform the input audio signal from the time domain to a frequency domain and to a time/frequency domain. Therefore, conventional audio signal encoding apparatuses need much calculation in order to transform the input audio signal from the domain, which increases an encoding delay as a whole and reduces encoding efficiency.

Audio signal encoding/decoding method and apparatus


This invention relates to 4-benzoylisoxazoles of formula (I) ##STR1## as well as herbicide compositions containing them and their use as herbicides.

An herbicide is a compound which adversely controls or modifies plant growth, e.g., killing, retarding, defoliating, desiccating, regulating, stunting, tillering, stimulating and dwarfing. The term "plant" refers to all physical parts of a plant, including seeds, seedlings, saplings, roots, tubers, stems, stalks, foliage, and fruits. "Plant growth" includes all phases of development from seed germination to natural or induced cessation of life.
Herbicides are generally used to control or eradicate weed pests. They have gained a high degree of commercial success because it has been shown that such control can increase crop yield and reduce harvesting costs.
A manufacturer of an herbicide generally recommends a range of application rates and concentrations calculated to maximize weed control. The range of rates varies from approximately 0.01 to 50 pounds per acre (0.0111 to 56 kilograms per hectare kg/ha!), and is usually in the range of from 0.1 to 25 pounds per acre (0.112 to 28 kg/ha). The term "herbicidally effective amount" describes an amount of an herbicide compound which adversely controls or modifies plant growth. The actual amount used depends upon several considerations, including particular weed susceptibility and overall cost limitations. 4-Benzoylisoxazole herbicide compounds have been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,371,063, 5,371,064 and 5,374,606 and in European Patent Publication Nos. 0 418 175, 0 487 357, 0 527 036 and 0 527 037 all incorporated herein by reference. None of these documents however, disclose the advantages of a 3-alkanethio, or an oxidized form thereof, appended to the benzoylisoxazole ring. Surprisingly, the inventors of the instant application have found that the foregoing modification gives the compounds unexpected and advantageous selectivity.


An NMR resonant structure is formed of axial conductors (54a, 54b, 54c, and 54d) and end members (50,51), supporting said conductors to form a coil structure (8) of desired electrical topology wherein the end members combine the function of RF interconnects between selected axial conductors (inductors) with an axial constraint on RF field prevailing outside the axial bounds of the end members, and if so desired, comprise a selected capacitance 61 for the resonant structure.

This work relates to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) apparatus and particularly to the RF coupling to nuclei of the sample under study. This is the function of a module widely termed the NMR probe, which controls the distribution of the RF field within a sensitive region. A sample within the sensitive region is closely coupled to the RF radiation generated in the sensitive region for spin excitation and subsequently emitted with the de-excitation of sample nuclei. The heart of the probe is the RF coil and the salient property of such coil in typical use is the degree of homogeneity of the RF field achieved over the interior of the sensitive volume defined by the coil. It is also desired to constrain the RF field distribution for the coil to a limited region within the sensitive volume because the spatial variation of the polarizing magnetic field is not eliminated outside of the sensitive volume.
Limiting the spatial distribution of the RF field of the NMR coil is the subject of a number of prior art works. Of particular interest for this purpose are U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,008,650 and 5,192,911, both commonly assigned herewith. In general these works describe shielding implemented to protect the sensitive volume of the resonance apparatus from RF influence external thereto, or, to reduce the RF field of the coil outside of the sensitive volume. For example, it is desired to shield that portion of the sample extending beyond the sensitive volume from irradiation arising from the coil or the coil leads. This does not protect that same portion of the sample (disposed in a possibly slightly different polarizing field) from irradiation due to the RF field distributed predominantly, but not completely in that sensitive volume. In general these shielding arrangements include a conducting member, typically of cylindrical form, coaxial with the sample axis and axially displaced from the central region of the RF coil. Such shielding predominantly attenuates the radial components of the RF field in the axial region beyond the shield structure.
Another approach to the problem of undesired excitation of sample outside the sensitive volume is based upon physically limiting the sample volume to coincide with the axial extent of the probe coil. In order to avoid axial discontinuity in magnetic susceptibility, the prior art utilized plugs, susceptibility matched to the sample, and inserted into the sample vessel to confine the sample to the desired region, coincident with the probe coil. This is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,549,136 to Zens, commonly assigned herewith.
RF cavity resonators are known for NMR apparatus and such resonators effectively contain the internal RF field and therefore shield the sample volume from RF influence external to the cavity. A representative example of such NMR cavity resonator is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,224, commonly assigned herewith. Although the cavity structure provides both axial and radial constraint to the field distribution, the ability is lost to impose an independent RF field on the sample from outside of such resonator. This is a necessary tool for spin decoupling and for a number of multiple resonance techniques.


Streaming digital hypervideo including copious embedded hyperlinks is distributed upon a digital communications network from a hypervideo server, normally an Internet Service Provider, to multitudinous client subscribers/users/viewers (client SUVs). Some or all of the client SUVs receive the same hyperlinks at the same place in the streaming hypervideo. Some small fraction of the client SUVs selectively volitionally exercise a fraction of the total hyperlinks, causing an access in the background of the unfolding hypervideo across the digital communications network to yet another server commonly called a "Video On Web server", or "VOW server". The VOW sever interprets each hyperlink request in consideration of (i) the identity of the exercising client SUV and, most commonly, (ii) additional data of a demographic, socioeconomic, credit, viewing preference, security and/or past hyperlinking history nature. The VOW Server supplies each hyperlink-exercising client SUV with a potentially custom hyperlink --normally in the form of a network universal resource locator (URL) or an index to a file of URLs--while keeping track of commercially useful data regarding the client SUV response(s). Each client SUV uses its own associated received URL to retrieve a potentially unique resource. The resource can be internal, such as an executable software program, but is normally located somewhere on the network and is typically in the nature of tailored and/or targeted advertisements, messages of personal or local or temporal pertinence and/or urgency, and/or the results of contests or lotteries. Hypervideo hyperlinks are thus dynamically resolved during streaming network communications to support full custom hyperlinking by each of multitudinous networked client SUVs.

1. Field of the Invention
The present and related inventions generally concern (i) the machine-automated distribution, processing and network communication of streaming digital video/hypervideo, particularly upon digital networks having network content providers (nominally an "Internet Content Provider", or "ICP"), network service providers (nominally an "Internet Service Provider", or "ISP"), and network client subscribers/users/viewers ("client SUVs"). The present and related inventions also generally concern the provision of diverse sophisticated responses--including branching, storage, playback/replay, subscriber/user-specific responses, and contests--to SUV "click-throughs" on hyperlinks embedded within streaming digital hypervideo.
The present invention in particular concerns software processes operating at a special digital communications network server called a "Video On Web Server", or "VOW Server". This VOW Server does not normally serve streaming digital video, nor hypervideo (which instead comes from video servers that may be associated with any of content providers, network service providers, and/or third-party network sites such as advertisers) upon the network, but rather interprets hyperlinks present in streaming digital hypervideo when these hyperlinks are selectively exercised by individual client subscribers/users/viewers (SUVs) of the hypervideo. The hyperlink interpretation that is the field of the present invention is in particular directed to customizing the hyperlinked response(s) accorded each and every client SUV. As well as being customized to the individual client SUV, the responses are very diverse in nature, potentially invoking many different network resources at many different network locations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
2.1. Introduction to the Theory of Hypervideo
There is no requirement to read the present section 2.1--which section is based on the early investigations and research into hypervideo of Sawhney, et al., as transpired at MIT (reference cited below)--in order to understand the function, and, at a crude level, the purpose(s) of the present invention. However, hypervideo is, as of the present time (1998) very new, and few people have experienced it. The present section may accordingly beneficially be read in order to gain a "feel" for hypervideo.
More fundamentally, the present section discusses the considerable power of hypervideo, and ends with a discussion of the empowerment that hypervideo provides to a user-viewer. The present and related inventions, although they can be narrowly thought of as mere systems and methods for delivering lowly commercials in the hypervideo environment, are really totally consistent with the more profound, and the more ennobling, purposes of hypervideo. Therefore the present section may also beneficially be read to understand to what purposes--both good and ill--hypervideo may be put, and as background to how the present and related inventions serve these purposes.
In recent years Sawhney, et al., at MIT (reference cited below) have developed an experimental hypermedia prototype called "HyperCafe" as an illustration of a general hypervideo system. This program places the user in a virtual cafe, composed primarily of digital video clips of actors involved in fictional conversations in the cafe; HyperCafe allows the user to follow different conversations, and offers dynamic opportunities of interaction via temporal, spatio-temporal and textual links to present alternative narratives. Textual elements are also present in the form of explanatory text, contradictory subtitles, and intruding narratives. Based on their work with HyperCafe, Sawhney, et al. have been leaders in discussing the necessary components and a framework for hypervideo structures, along with the underlying aesthetic considerations. The following discussion is drawn entirely from their work.
"Hypervideo" can be defined as "digital video and hypertext, offering to its user and author the richness of multiple narratives, even multiple means of structuring narrative (or non-narrative), combining digital video with a polyvocal, linked text." Hypervideo brings the hypertext link to digital video. See Sawhney, Nitin, David Balcom, Ian Smith "HyperCafe: Narrative and Aesthetic Properties of Hypervideo." Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Hypertext. New York: Association of Computing Machinery, 1996.
An even earlier approach to hypermedia was proposed by George Landow, in which he offered rules for hypermedia authors, rules that took into account hypermedia's derivation from print media and technologies of writing. Landow proposed that hypermedia "authors" learn which aspects of writing applied to the emerging hypermedium, and which traits or characteristics needed redefinition and rethinking. He noted: "To communicate effectively, hypermedia authors must make use of a range of techniques, suited to their medium, that will enable the reader to process the information presented by this new technology." See Landow, George P. "The Rhetoric of Hypermedia: Some Rules for Authors." Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 1 (1989), pp. 39-64; reprinted in Hypermedia and Literary Studies, ed. by Paul Delany and George P. Landow, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991.
Hypervideo has its roots in both hypertext and film. As a result, hypervideo embodies properties of each field, but wholly can be placed in neither, for hypervideo is not strictly linear motion picture, nor is it strictly hypertext. This convergence known as hypervideo comments on each discipline, on their similarities, and on their differences. Hypervideo is potentially nonlinear, like hypertext, but displays moving images, like film. Hypervideo can signify through montage, like film, and can generate multiple dictions, like hypertext. Properties of each medium are present in hypervideo. These properties take on new forms and practices in hypervideo.
Hypervideo relocates narrative film and video from a linear, fixed environment to one of multivocality; narrative sequences (video clips followed by other video clips) need not subscribe to linearity. Instead of creating a passive viewing subject, hypervideo asks its user to be an agent actively involved in creation of text through choice and interaction. Hypervideo can potentially change viewing subject from a passive consumer of the text to an active agent who participates in the text, and indeed, is engaged in constructing the text.
Just as hypertext necessitated a re-reading of the act of reading and writing, hypervideo asks for a re-viewing of narrative film and film making and practices of viewing a film. Hypervideo redefines the viewing subject by breaking the frame of the passive screen. Hypervideo users are participants in the creation of text, as hypertext readers are.
Research is presently (circa 1997) projected to determine just how users of hypervideo systems navigate, interact with, and experience hypervideo-texts. Just as J. Yellowlees Douglas has exhaustively researched hypertext readers and the act of hypertext reading, similar projects are expected to be undertaken by hypervideo researchers. See Douglas, J. Yellowlees. "Understanding the Act of Reading: the WOE Beginner's Guide to Dissection." Writing on the Edge, 2.2. University of California at Davis, Spring 1991, pp. 112-125. See also Douglas, J. Yellowlees. "`How Do I Stop This Thing?`: Closure and Indeterminacy in Interactive Narratives." Hyper/Text/Theory, ed. by George P. Landow. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Hypervideo is related to film. Hypervideo has the potential to reveal important associations present in a film, and the constructedness of linear filmic narratives, and to this end, would be a beneficial tool for use with film studies education and research. Hypervideo can make available, by way of link opportunities, the different associations and allusions present in a filmic work. These associations are made manifest with hypervideo, made available for the student (or teacher) to see and explore. Relationships between different films can then be tracked, linked, commented on, revealed.
Hypervideo engages the same idea of "processing" that hypertext writing does: in writing hypertext, one makes available the process of writing, representing it visually (in the form of the web the writer builds), rhetorically (in the linking structure of the work, the points of arrival and departure present in the text)-and so one makes apparent the tensions and lines of force present in the act of writing, and the creation or reification of narrative. "Writing" hypervideo does the same for image-making-that is, makes clear the notion of constructing images and narrative. In the case of hypervideo, "narrative" refers to narrative film making. Just as hypertext has within it the potential to reveal the constructedness of linear writing, and to challenge that structure, hypervideo does the same for narrative film making-while also offering the possibilities for creating rich hypervideo texts, or videotexts.
How does narrative film function in hypervideo? Narrative film is necessarily re-contextualized as part of a network of visual elements, rather than a stand-alone filmic device. Because narrative segments can be encountered out of sequence and (original) context, even strictly linear video clips are given nonlinear properties.
Sergei Eisenstein pioneered the concept and use of montage in film. Hypervideo reveals and foregrounds this use. Eisenstein proposed that a juxtaposition of disparate images through editing formed an idea in the viewer's head. It was Eisenstein's belief that an idea-image, or thesis, when juxtaposed through editing, with another, disparate image, or antithesis, produced a synthesis in the viewing subject's mind. In other words, synthesis existed not on film as idea-image, but was a literal product of images to form a separate image-idea that existing solely for the viewer.
Eisenstein deliberately opposed himself to continuity editing, seeking out and exploiting what Hollywood could call "discontinuities." He staged, shot, and cut his films for the maximum collision from shot to shot, sequence to sequence, since he believed that only through being force to synthesize such conflicts does the viewer participate in a dialectical process. Eisenstein sought to make the collisions and conflicts not only perceptual but also emotional and intellectual." See Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. Fourth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993.
Hypervideo potentially reveals this thesis/antithesis dialectic, by allowing the user to choose an image-idea (in this case, a video clip), and juxtaposing it with another image-idea (another video clip). Hypervideo allows the user to act on discontinuities and collisions, to engage with colliding subtexts and threads.
The user selects a video clip from a black canvas of three or four clips. Each clip lies motionless on the canvas. The user drags a clip onto another one, and they both start to play. Voices emerge and collide, and once-separate image-ideas now play concurrently, with one image extending the frame of the other. The user is left to determine the relationship between the two (or three or four) video clips.
Such video intersections recall Jim Rosenberg's notion of simultaneities, or the "literal layering on top of one another of language elements." See Rosenberg, Jim. "Navigating Nowhere/Hypertex Infrawhere." ECHT 94, ACM SIGLINK Newsletter. December 1994, pp. 6-19. Instead of language elements, video intersections represent the layering of visual elements, or more specifically, visual elements in motion. This is not to say that words, in the case of Rosenberg's Intergrams, are not visual elements; on the contrary, they are. In fact, their image-ness is conveyed with much more clarity (and even urgency) than are non-simultaneous words, or words without an apparent visual significance (save the "transparent" practice of seeing "through" letter-images into words into sentences into concepts). Once the word-images have to contend with their neighbor-layers for foreground screen space, their role in both the practice of signification (where meaning is contingent on what neighborly 0's and 1's are NOT), and as elements of a user interface (words that yield to the touch or click or wave of the mouse) become immediate and obvious. Nor is this to say that video clips aren't "language elements"; on the contrary, they are. The hypervideo clip is caught, as are words and letters, in the act of signification and relational meaning-making (. . . what neighborly 0's and 1's are not . . . ), mutable to the very touch of user, to the layers above and below.
The hypervideo author can structure these video intersections in such a way that only X and Y clips can be seen together, or X and Z if Y has already been seen (like Storyspace's guard fields), and so on, and the author can decide if a third video should appear upon the juxtaposition of X and Y. For example, Video X is dragged onto Video Y and they both start to play. The author can make a choice to then show video Z as a product, or synthesis, of the juxtaposition of Videos X and Y, that reflects or reveals the relationship between Videos X and Y. This literal revealing of Eisenstein's synthesis is made possible with hypervideo. Of course, no synthesis need be literally revealed; that can be left up to the viewer. While the interactions are structured by the hypervideo author or authors (as Eisenstein structured the placement and editing of thesis and antithesis idea-images), the meaning-making is left up to the hypervideo user. His or her choice reveals meaning to him with each video intersection; meaning in the system is neither fixed nor pre-determined. This empowering principle of hypertext is also a property of hypervideo.
2.2. Recent Practical Developments in Hypervideo
The V-Active HyperVideo Authoring Environment of Ephyx Technologies, Ltd. is a hypervideo authoring tool reportedly designed to develop interactivity in full-motion digital video applications. The V-Active product is based on a proprietary hypervideo technology that enables (i) automatic definition of objects, or hotspots, within an application's video stream and (ii) linking of those objects to video, sound, and text files, plus Web URLs.
Using an image processing algorithm, the V-Active' product is reported to define a video hotspot once and to then automatically maintain this hotspot across the video sequence. The software is reportedly capable of maintaining the hotspots even through fast action and low-light video sequences. Developers can choose among a dozen hotspot attributes, including author-defined shapes, overlay colors, and cursor-overrun reactions.
Ephyx calls this authoring strategy hypervideo--full-motion digital video with embedded hyperlinks to related content through automated means of creating video "hotspots." In accordance with the general concept of hypervideo, these hotspots link moving objects within a video sequence to a variety of media, including static pictures, text, sounds, URLs, other video sequences, or executable software applications. Hotspots are evident to the user either by changes in the cursor shape or on-screen object-specific highlighting. Other features of the V-Active product include automated motion tracking, synchronized playback of multiple media elements streaming simultaneously, and platform independence and support for numerous digital video formats.
The Ephyx software reportedly also enables developers to create applications in which end-users simply click on highlighted objects within a video to link instantly to related content via various connections, including selected URLs. The V-Active product further reportedly permits that hyperlinked videos created with V-Active may be integrated into a variety of environments; a V-Active Director Xtra integrates V-Active interactive video elements into Director applications, while the V-Active ActiveX Control and V-Active Netscape Plug-In embed hyperlinked video into Web pages.
With V-Active, authors can enable pointing and clicking between digital video hotspots, and they can also define any moving objects as gateways to other video sequences or to activating other applications. Interactive video clips produced with V-Active can be integrated into existing environments using a Macromedia Director 5 Xtra and Microsoft Active X control. Refer to the web page and product literature of Ephyx Technologies, P.O. Box 12503, 9 Maskit Street, Herzliya 46733, Israel (http://www.ephyx.com as of 1998).

Hyperlinks resolution at and by a special network server in order to enable diverse sophisticated hyperlinking upon a digital network


A description language and a parser generator for top-down parsers allows grammars for top-down parsers to be defined using a sequence of productions written as extended BNF expressions. For productions that are ambiguous, a lookahead construct in the grammar allows the programmer to specify an increased number of lookahead tokens. The lookahead construct can be specified on an expansion-by-expansion basis. As a result, the generated parser only maintains an increased number of lookahead tokens when required to process ambiguous productions.

Parsers and parser generators are well known software tools. In general terms, a parser is a program which accepts data comporting with a source language. The input data generally includes words and symbols which comport with the source language and which are known collectively as tokens. The parser reads the tokens of the input data and matches sequences of tokens generally referred as constructs, with a set of rules known by the parser. As each construct is matched with a particular rule, the parser calls one or more actions associated with the matched rule. The process of matching constructs with rules and calling actions continues until the parser reaches the end of the input, or until a nonrecoverable error occurs in the input.
An example of a simple parser would be a parser which accepts a series of algebraic equations as an input which comports to a particular language. The parser would have a set of rules that represent various constructs of algebraic equations. For example, the parser would have a rule that would match constructs of the form "number+number" and another rule that would match construct of the form "number--number." As each construct is matched, the parser would perform the actions required by the particular construct matched. In the case of the construct "4-4", for example, the parser would call the actions required to generate the sum of sixteen.
Collectively, the set of rules implemented by a parser are known as a "grammar". Grammars can be organized using a tree-like hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy, there are general rules. Conversely, the bottom of the hierarchy is composed of the most specific rules. For example, in the case of the parser for algebraic equations already discussed, the top of the hierarchy might be composed of a rule that indicates that the source data is composed of a series of separate algebraic equations. The next level of the hierarchy would include rules describing which components are required for a single equation. Still further down the hierarchy would be rules for the sub-components that are required for each component of an equation.
Typically, parsers use one of two related but different techniques. These techniques are known as "bottom-up parsing" and "top-down parsing." In the case of bottom-up parsers, rules in the grammar are matched by first finding those constructs in the parser input which match the rules at the lowest level of the hierarchy. These matching constructs are then combined to match rules at the next higher level of the hierarchy, and so on, until an entire rule is matched. In contrast, top-down parsers attempt to match the highest level rules in the hierarchy first. These parsers then work their way down the hierarchy, matching rules at successively lower levels.
In practice, parsers are used for far more than evaluating algebraic equations. In fact, parsers can be used for a wide range of source languages to perform a wide range of functions. For example, parsers are commonly used to direct the actions of compilers and interpreters. Parsers are also used to process configuration files and to process the headers of electronic mail as well as a variety of other purposes. Generally, these uses require source languages and actions which are considerably more complex than the source language and actions described for the simple example of a parser which evaluates algebraic equations. The complexity of these source languages and their associated actions means that the parsers themselves are often quite complex and, as a result, often difficult to design and implement.
The complexity of parsers has lead to the development of a number of different parser generators. Parser generators are tools which allow a programmer to define a grammar which corresponds to a particular source language. The programmer adds actions which correspond to the rules in the grammar and the parser generator uses the grammar and rules to construct a new parser. When complete, the new parser functions as a parser for the source language which includes both the rules and the actions which the programmer has defined.
Traditionally, most parser generators have produced bottom-up parsers. For example, the "Yet Another Compiler Compiler (yacc)" parser generator used in the UNIX operating system programming environment is a well known parser generator which produces bottom-up parsers. More recently, however, parser generators, which produce top-down parsers (such as the parser generator supplied with the Prudue Compiler Construction Tool Set (PCCTS)), have increased in popularity. This increase in popularity is due partially to the fact that the parsers produced by top-down parser generators are more intuitive to human engineers who attempt to locate and correct errors in such parsers. In addition, many programmers find the task of defining actions to be easier when the actions are designed to be used in a top-down parser.
Unfortunately, there are still a number of disadvantages associated with the use of parser generators. One such disadvantage is the potential of ambiguity within the parser grammar. More specifically, when a grammar is constructed for a source language, there will generally be rules that will have some degree of ambiguity. Ambiguity, in this case, means that a given sequence of tokens may match more than one rule within the grammar. This is problematic for the parser, since the parser will not know which rule to choose when the parser encounters a token sequence which matches more than a single rule.
Fortunately, most ambiguities may be solved by increasing the number of tokens considered by the parser at a given time. Thus, when the parser encounters a sequence of tokens which match more than one rule, the parser examines the tokens subsequent to the ambiguous token sequence. If the subsequent tokens are inconsistent with a rule which matches the ambiguous token sequence, that rule can be removed from consideration by the parser. The subsequent tokens used by the parser are known as lookahead tokens and the consideration of lookahead tokens is generally referred to as parser lookahead.
Traditionally, parser generators have provided a fixed number of lookahead techniques. As a result, the use of additional lookahead tokens to disambiguate grammars has not generally been possible. More recently, parser generators, have allowed programmers to specify an increased number of lookahead tokens using two different techniques. One technique is to allow the programmer defining the grammar to specify the number of lookahead tokens that must be maintained by the parser. This method causes the parser generator to construct a parser which always maintains the number of lookahead tokens specified by the programmer. Unfortunately, it is often the case that the number of lookahead tokens specified by the programmer will only be required for resolving disambiguities in a very small portion of the parser's rules. The remaining rules generally require few, if any, additional lookahead tokens. Since maintaining additional lookahead tokens is relatively time-consuming, parsers which maintain a specific number of lookahead tokens can be relatively inefficient.
The second technique employed by parser generators to deal with the problem of token lookahead is to employ what is generally known as infinite lookahead. Infinite lookahead is a technique which causes the parser to start accumulating lookahead tokens whenever it encounters a sequence of input tokens which may be matched by two or more rules. The process of accumulating input tokens continues until the parser is able to resolve the ambiguity. Unfortunately, the process of iteratively fetching lookahead tokens is also inefficient.


The present invention provides a process comprising the steps of forming a cast amorphous alloy from an alloy which exhibits glass transition behavior, heating the amorphous alloy to a temperature between Tg and Tx while subjecting the alloy to drawing to obtain a wire and cooling the wire to (Tg-50 K) or lower. By this process, it is possible to produce an amorphous alloy wire at a low cost and provide an ultrafine wire having high strength and high corrosion resistance as well as flexibility. The amorphous alloy wire can be utilized as a reinforcing wire for a composite material, a variety of reinforcing members, a woven fabric and the like.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing an alloy wire having excellent strength and corrosion resistance as well as flexibility.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional production of an amorphous alloy wire has heretofore been carried out by means of the in-rotating-water spinning or the like, because of the high cooling rate required to obtain iron-based or nickel-based wires of several tens of .mu.m in diameter. Advantage has been taken of the characteristics of the wires thus produced to use them as reinforcing fiber for automobile tire and women's underwear. However, the in-rotating-water spinning method using water as the cooling medium has been accompanied with difficulty in producing a sound wire from an alloy containing a reactive metal, such as Al, Mg, Zr or a rare earth metal.
As described hereinbefore, the production of usual amorphous alloy wire can be performed by the direct quenching method, such as the in-rotating-water spinning method, etc. However, in the case of an alloy containing a reactive metal, it is difficult to produce a sound alloy wire, since the alloy reacts with water to sometimes form an oxide film. On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Patent-Laid-Open Nos. 275732/1989, 10041/1991 and 36243/1991 and Japanese Patent application No. 158446/1991, an alloy which exhibits glass transition behavior can be made into a wire by conducting extrusion, rolling, drawing or the like singly or in combination thereof with an amorphous alloy obtained in the form of ribbon or powder. Although the above-disclosed production processes are excellent, they have suffered the disadvantage that each of them involves a lot of steps, leaving some room for economic improvement. Under such circumstances, it was found by the present inventors that an alloy exhibiting glass transition behavior as described in the aforestated patent applications can be made into an amorphous bulk material by means of in-rotating-water spinning, direct casting or the like, and the patent application was already filed (Japanese Patent application No. 49491/1990). Later on, it was further found by the present inventors that a continuous wire can be produced easily and economically by subjecting the bulk material to drawing at a temperature in the range of the glass transition temperature (Tg) to the crystallization temperature (Tx), which finding finally led to the present invention.

Process for producing high strength alloy wire

11-806, Kawauchijutaku, Mubanchi, Kawauchi