Provided is an integrated coating system. An integrated coating system according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes: a unwinding means provided with a roll to supply a web; a worktable roll configured to support the web supplied from the unwinding means; a plurality of printing means configured to perform printing or coating on the web supplied from the unwinding means; a plurality of curing means each of which is modulated to cure a printing material on the web passing through at least one printing means; and a winding means around which the web, of which printing or coating work is completed by passing through the curing means, is wound in a roll shape.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated coating system, and more particularly, to an integrated coating system capable of integrally coating and printing materials having various physical properties from low viscosity to ultra high viscosity by using integrated equipment.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A lithography technology has been widely used for an existing electronic element manufacturing technology. The lithography technology is a technology of forming an integrated circuit by directly drawing an extremely fine and complex electronic circuit on a semiconductor substrate, and the photolithography technology to which a photographic technology is applied has been first developed and used. The photo lithography technology employs a method in which a pattern of the IC carved in the mask is transferred in photo resist by irradiating ultraviolet rays to a substrate on which the photo resist is applied through a photo mask (original plate).
However, in constructing an actual process by using the photo lithography technology, there is a problem in that a process design and a device construction become complex because various and complex detailed processes, such as vacuum deposition, exposing, developing, plating, or etching, are necessary. Further, due to the development of a fine technology in various fields, a method of manufacturing an integrated circuit by another method other than the photo lithography method has been sought.
A printing electronic technology is a technology employing a method of manufacturing an electronic device by simply performing a printing process. Since the printing electronic technology fundamentally removes process complexity contained in the photo lithography process by substituting the aforementioned photo lithography process, an application range of the printing electronic technology has been recently expanded to various fields and in this respect, researches on the printing electronic technology have been actively conducted. As a recently utilized printing technology, a representative non-contact printing technology includes inkjet coating, spray coating, and slot-die coating, and a representative contact printing technology includes a gravure method, a gravure offset method, a reverse offset method, and a screen printing method. There are many various types of printing electronic technologies, which may be appropriately selected according to a characteristic, such as viscosity, of a material to be printed to be used. That is, there is a technology appropriate to be applied to a low viscosity material having low viscosity, and there is a technology appropriate to be applied to a high viscosity material having high viscosity. For example, it is known that a technology, such as slot-die coating, is appropriately applied to a high viscosity material, and a technology, such as gravure offset, is appropriately applied to a low viscosity material.
Recently, a case where a film type substrate formed of a flexible material, not a substrate formed of a solid material, is used in a semiconductor manufacturing technology has been increased. In a case of using the film type substrate, there is a merit in that a processing speed is increased, thereby achieving mass production. In this case, in view of a fact that production efficiency may be further improved when the aforementioned printing electronic technology is combined, researches on a combination of a roll-to-roll production method and the printing electronic technology have been very actively conducted.
As described above, it is well known that there are various types of materials for forming the integrated circuit, and more appropriate printing technologies to be applied are different according to the respective physical properties (viscosity and the like) of the materials.
In the past, since there are many cases where the materials for forming the integrated circuit is low priced, and the printing electronic technology is not various, an economical problem is not significantly generated in performing various tests. However, according to the development of the semiconductor manufacturing technology, a high-priced material is used often, the printing electronic technology becomes changes too much, and a price is also increased in proportion to performance of each printing electronic device itself, so that there is a problem in that costs are excessively increased for conducting various tests. In addition, in a state where an integrated circuit configuration technology itself is developed and, a multilayer configuration more complex than that of the related art is increased, there may incur a problem of an increase in inconvenience and a decrease in accuracy in a process of performing an operation while moving one substrate to various printing electronic devices.
Korean Patent Publication No. 2011-0003444 ("COLOR FILTER MANUFACTURED BY USING ROLL PRINTING METHOD", Jan. 12, 2011, Prior Document 1) discloses a technology of manufacturing a color filter by performing multiprinting by using a plurality of printing rolls and coaters, and Korean Patent Publication No. 2010-0016385 ("COMPLEX ROLL PRINTER", Aug. 31, 2011, Prior Document 2) discloses a technology relating to a complex roll printer selectively implementing roll-to-roll printing and roll-to-plate printing. As such, an effect to perform more various and complex work in the printing electronic technology with integrated equipment is made in the related art. However, in a case of Prior Document 1, a plurality of substantially same equipment is simply arranged, and in a case of Prior Document 2, a device for transferring a substrate to a printing device simply selectively replaces a film type substrate or a plate type substrate, but the printing device itself simply uses the same single printing technology.
Ink used for printing electron has various viscosity from a viscosity of 1 cP, which is watery like water to a viscosity of several hundreds of cP like screen paste. Further, the materials used for ink are very various, such as a metal material, such as silver, copper, and gold, an inorganic material, such as SiO2, ZnO, TiO2, and an organic material, such as P3HT, PCBM, and PeDOT, a size of a particle of the material is various from several nanometers to several tens of micro, and a shape of the particle is very various, such as a globular shape, a flake shape, and a cylinder shape. The various ink needs to be cured after printing, and a curing characteristic is different according to a mix of respective materials, such as thermal curing, IR curing, and UV curing. Accordingly, it is essentially necessary to apply a printing technology appropriate to the ink and a technology of curing the ink.
A printing device in which the materials having the various physical properties (viscosity) may be freely used and various printing technology appropriate to the various physical properties may be easily changed and used has been steadily demanded, but there is presently no printing device satisfying the demand.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

KOREA INSTITUTE OF MACHINERY & MATERIALS


A plant, generator and rotating member for the production of power from currents in a body of water, comprising a fixedly mounted of floating structure, and a plurality of replaceable generator units (750) supported by the structure and which are driven by the water currents. The structure comprises arms (615, 720, 730). The rotating member (400) comprises a plurality of member sections (410) rotatably mounted on a shaft (405) between an end piece (407) and a tip (406). The generator comprises a contra-rotating rotor (550) and stator (800) connected to respective shafts (500, 820) and bearings, where the stator frame (800) is axially supported (810) on the first shaft (500) and the first shaft (500) at one end thereof is axially supported (810) on the stator frame. The generator according to the invention can be used for the production of electric power, and as an electromotor for the production of mechanical rotational energy.

Current in large bodies of water, as for instance that generated by tidal variations, is a renewable source of energy which thus far has not been exploited in Norway. This is the case even though such currents are highly predictable and readily available per se along the Norwegian coast.
When currents in large bodies of water (e.g., oceans or rivers) are forced through channels or other narrow passages, the velocity of flow will increase and will to a very great extent be aligned. The current in the central region of the narrow passage will have an almost equal velocity across the whole of the cross-section in question, which means that it is advantageous to position a power generator in this region.
There are a number of known apparatus and methods for the production of energy from ocean currents.
Norwegian Patent Application 1999 1984 (Hammerfest Strøm) describes a plant for the production of electric power from ocean and river currents. The whole of the plant is located below the surface of the water and comprises a plurality of turbines having blades, a support system, a system of stays and a generator. The turbine shafts are oriented perpendicular to the direction of movement of the water, and the blades are wing-shaped so that the turbine rotates in the same direction, regardless of the direction of movement of the water. The turbine shafts are supported in a framework of buoyancy tanks, secured to the support and bearing system. The plant is built up of modules. The plant has positive buoyancy regulated by the buoyancy tanks and a system of stays secured below the surface of the water, so that the plant is held below the surface of the water by the system of stays. The plant employs conventional blades.
Danish Patent 155454 (Hans Marius Pedersen) describes a floating water current power station which consists of a ring-shaped pontoon which by means of a bitt is anchored to anchors on the bottom. All the turbines are replaceable and are arranged on a common beam and can as a unit be swung up to the surface within the area defined by the ring pontoon. The power station may move around the bitt, the upper end of which is connected to a front pontoon and the lower end of which is secured to the anchors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,176 describes a submersible water turbine plant comprising turbines/generators in different combinations suspended below a submerged platform of the tension leg type.
Generators with contra-rotating rotor and stator are well known. In the field of wind energy technology coaxially contra-rotating propellers are known, inter alia, as a measure for extracting the rotational energy with which the air current is supplied when it passes the first propeller. The contra-rotating propellers may be on the same side of the generator, or on each side thereof. The propellers are either connected by means of gears to the same generator, or one propeller is connected to the rotor and the other propeller is connected to the field coils. The previously known contra-rotating propellers connected to the same generator require complex gearwheel drive and transmissions, which results in further energy loss. A contra-rotating propeller connected to the rotor and the stator respectively is much simpler from a mechanical point of view, but in the solutions known hitherto the field coils require slip rings which may render the solution more complex, in addition to there being an electrical and mechanical power loss.
In the known cases where the propellers are on each side of the generator (and the tower), it is preferable as a rule that the downstream propeller should be smaller than the upstream propeller, and set to stall at a higher wind speed.
On the production of electricity from water currents, a lowest possible propeller speed is required. The consequence is a high torque and it is very difficult to dimension a standard gear solution.
Known generator solutions usually have a constant rotational speed (pitch adjustment of the propeller) and stator that is stationary. This results in the generator housing having a very large diameter, which is a disadvantage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,291,233 describes a wind turbine generator having oppositely rotating rotor and stator. Rotational energy from a wind-driven turbine (propeller) having a preferably horizontal shaft is transformed into rotational energy in two preferably concentric shafts, via a bevel gear drive. The propeller shaft is attached to the bevel gear drive, which engages with upper and lower pinion gears that rotate in opposite directions. The pinion gears are secured to respective shafts which are preferably concentric and arranged vertically. The two shafts—which rotate in opposite directions—are connected to a rotor and a stator respectively.
DE 43 04 577 A1 describes a wind turbine generator having two pairs of vanes connected to a rotor and a stator respectively in order to turn the pairs of vanes in opposite directions. Both pairs of vanes are arranged on the same side of the generator, and function as two contra-rotating, double-bladed propellers. This document does not disclose any further details with regard to the interaction of the stator and the rotor.
DE 196 43 362 describes a wind or turbine generator having oppositely rotating rotor and stator. A shaft 8—having a first end 10 connected to a turbine or propeller 3—is secured to a rotor 9. A stator 13 is secured to a second shaft end 11, which in turn is connected to a turbine or propeller 4. The shaft end 11 is supported on the shaft 8 via a bearing 14, so that the rotor and the stator can rotate relative to each other.
Reference is also made to an auxiliary rotor 17 and an auxiliary stator 18, where the rotor 17 is secured to the housing. Thus, the relative speed between the components 17 and 18 is half of the speed between the components 9 and 13.
The known contra-rotating generators can be divided in to two main groups:                (i) the rotor and stator are driven by the same turbine or propeller        (ii) the rotor and stator are supplied with rotational energy from their respective turbine or propeller.
The first category of generator can be illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 4,291,233 (described above). The disadvantage of this generator is that much energy is lost in the many transmissions that are used to contra-rotate the stator. Furthermore, this generator is bulky, and will probably be expensive both to manufacture and to maintain. Therefore, there is a need for a simplified type of generator, where the rotor and the stator are driven by the same turbine or propeller, and where a minimum of gear transmissions are used and the use of bevel gears is avoided.
The second category of generator can be illustrated by DE 196 43 362 (described above). The drawback with this generator is that it includes an outer member which does not rotate, and which is equipped with a conventional stator winding. This housing also has base lugs and takes up about half of the total torque.
The main cylinder is assumed to have magnets on both sides and is rotated by a separate shaft. Within this rotor there is another rotating stator (or rotor). The torque that arises between the innermost rotor (9) and the magnet rotor (13) does not impact on the base lugs, but is taken up in the magnetic field between the propellers. Therefore, there is a need for a simplified type of generator, where the rotor and stator are supplied with rotational energy from their respective turbine or propeller, where the base is not required to take up the torque in the generator between the rotor and the stator, and where the torque of the propellers is used in its entirety to generate electric power.

Plant, generator and propeller element for generating energy from watercurrents


Pathological binaural phase time delay (BPTD) asynchrony is measured at a variety of frequencies and to speech stimuli to develop a BPTD profile for a subject. Then a corrective device (600, 1000) is designed to apply clinical BPTD to compensate for the subject's pathological BPTD. An electronic device (500) is used to measure the subject's ability to comprehend words at a variety of relative time delays between ears to estimate the ideal overall relative time delay. The optimal relative phase shift at a variety of frequencies is also measured. An electronic device (600) may be used to correct the pathological BPTD by delaying sound in different frequency bands differently to the target ear, according to the BPTD profile, or a passive filtered earplug (1000) may be used to correct smaller amounts of BPTD.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for diagnosing, quantifying, and correcting for human central auditory nervous system (CANS) impairment, and in particular binaural phase time delay asynchrony.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Preliminary studies indicate an important connection between the binaural synchronization of the central auditory nervous system (CANS) and gross, fine and oral motor function. A binaural phase time delay (BPTD) is defined herein as a synchronization disruption (delay) in phase and time of the auditory input signals to the two ears. Two types of BPTDs have been defined by the investigators: pathological BPTDs which are "built-in" to a person's CANS, as is the case with a person with neurological injury or disease process, and clinical BPTDs which are induced in a person's CANS using an external device, to compensate for a pathological phase time delay.
A BPTD is a combination of a phase shift and a time delay. For pure tones, a specific phase shift results in a specific time delay. For example, at 1000 Hz a 180° phase shift results in a 0.5 ms time delay. However for speech and other multi-frequency sounds, one specific time delay would result in several different frequency-dependent phase shifts. Note that a time delay can be much larger than the maximum phase shift for a given frequency.
Operationally, binaural interaction of the CANS requires the two ears to integrate dichotic signals separated in time, frequency, and/or intensity. The brain stem is crucial for binaural interaction of acoustic stimuli. Stillman (1980) has emphasized that precise timing of excitatory and inhibitory inputs to each cell along the auditory pathway is critical if each cell is to respond in an appropriate manner. Oertel (1997) has also studied the effects of timing in the cochlear nuclei. The superior olivary complex is an important relay station of the ascending tract of the CANS and is critical for binaural listening capabilities. It is this cross correlation behavior of the two ears that afford the selective listening capability in noisy environments, and the ability to spatially localize sound sources. However, it has been shown that signals from the two ears must have synchronized arrival times for binaural cells to be activated in the superior olivary complex. A delayed signal from one ear negates a binaural response. There is evidence that the synchronization of auditory stimuli is important above the superior olivary complex, at the levels of the brainstem and cerebral cortex.
In individuals (adults and children) with an impaired CANS, a pathological BPTD has been observed between the two ears which is in some cases is quite large (15–20 msec). The pathological BPTD not only decreases speech intelligibility in complex listening environments, but also (somewhat surprisingly) degrades motor (gross, fine, oral) and visual performance. Furthermore, a clinically-induced BPTD, designed to compensate for the pathological BPTD in the subject, significantly improves the speech intelligibility, gross and oral motor function the subject.
It is well known that head injury frequently results in generalized trauma to the brainstem and to higher cortical mechanisms which include the central auditory nervous system, resulting in central auditory processing function abnormalities. Other conditions such as sensory integration problems, speech and language delays, hearing impairment, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, autism, stuttering, developmental delays, central auditory processing disorders, psychological disorders, and neurological disorders have been associated with CANS dysfunction. Individuals with central auditory processing problems often demonstrate difficulty comprehending and remembering auditory information. In addition, these individuals have particular difficulty attending to auditory information in the presence of auditory distractions.
In some traumatic brain injuries and other debilitative neurological brain disorders, the processing of information by the central auditory nervous system is impaired and affects comprehension and recall of auditory information. Operationally, the central auditory nervous system typically receives auditory information from both ears and integrates the input received, even though the acoustic signals received by the ears may be somewhat separated in time, frequency, and/or intensity. Such binaural integration by the central auditory nervous system may be substantially provided in the brain stem. Further, it has been observed that the precise timing of excitory and inhibitory inputs to cells of the central auditory nervous system can affect these cells' behavior to respond appropriately. In particular, it has been shown that auditory signals from both ears must have a relatively synchronized arrival time for certain binaural cells to be activated in the superior olivary complex. Thus, a delayed (e.g. millisecond) response from one ear can impair the integration of binaural response. This is not reflected in the function of the inner ear. However, an individual with a peripheral hearing loss may also have CANS dysfunction or a mechanical effect that creates a disruption of the synchrony between the two ears.
Behavioral and physiological (auditory brainstem response, middle latency response, cortical evoked potentials and mismatched negativity) methods have been employed to measure time parameters of the central auditory nervous system. Previous studies, however, have only analyzed the relationship of timing differences with respect to various pathologies (e.g. a latency in response has occurred). In particular, the development of tests quantifying the changes in auditory input between a subject's ears has been solely used as a diagnostic procedure for identifying a central auditory processing dysfunction. Since the anatomy of the brain stem indicates links between binaural signal processing and integration and motor control, it is not surprising that disorders of the central auditory nervous system often affect other functions such as sensory perception, integration, fine and gross motor, oral motor and visual processing. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide procedures and a diagnostic device that more accurately identify and quantify binaural processing disorders and the relationship of such disorders to other neurologically-based abnormalities. Further, it would also be useful to have a device that subjects manifesting binaural dysfunction-derived disorders can utilize to enhance day-to-day activities so that there may be enhanced speech understanding and recognition, concentration, gross motor movements (e.g. walking), fine motor movements (e.g. writing), oral-motor movement (e.g. speaking) or visual function.
The following references are relevant to the present invention:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,924 to Jampolsky; "Two New Methods for Assessment of Central Auditory Function in Cases of Brain Disease," Matzker, Annals Of Otology, Rhinology, & Laryngology 68, 1185–1196, 1959; "Auditory and Vestibular Aberrations in Multiple Sclerosis," Noffsinger et al, Acta Otolaryngologica, 303 (Suppl.), 1–63, 1972; "Assessing Central Auditory Behavior in Children," Willeford, Central Auditory Disfunction, 43–72, 1977; and Westone style # 47 Soft PVC Custom Molded Ear Plug with Quiet Tech Int. Filter.
A need remains in the art for apparatus and methods for diagnosing, quantifying, and correcting for binaural phase-time delay asynchrony.

Apparatus and methods for mitigating impairments due to central auditory nervous system binaural phase-time asynchrony


It is an object of the invention to perform memory management for power control appropriately in an information processing apparatus including a non-volatile memory. The information processing apparatus attaches peculiar memory block names to memory blocks allocated in a storage area of the non-volatile memory, respectively, and uses a memory management table for identifying the memory blocks according to the memory block names to perform memory management for the non-volatile memory. When a power supply is turned on again, an application designates a memory block name, whereby the memory block name is searched in the non-volatile memory and data of a memory block corresponding to the memory block name is accessed. Therefore, it is possible to perform memory management for power control appropriately in the information processing apparatus including the non-volatile memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that is capable of autonomously controlling supply of electric power inside the apparatus and a memory managing program and a memory managing method for the information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in the field of the computer system technology, power control techniques for reducing power consumption at standby time by stopping supply of electric power inside an apparatus when processing is not performed and resuming the supply of electric power instantaneously when processing is required, for example, when input operation is applied to the apparatus have been developed.
In addition, in recent years, non-volatile memories such as a Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FeRAM) and a Magneto-resistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) have been developed. Such non-volatile memories do not require electric power for maintaining storage of information. Thus, for example, even when the power control described above is performed and supply of electric power to the memory is stopped, information, which is stored before the supply of electric power is stopped, is held on the memory.
Since it is possible to access such non-volatile memories at high speed, it is expected that the non-volatile memories are used as general-purpose memories in computer systems.
Incidentally, in the conventional software techniques, as in the power control techniques described above, it is not assumed in principle that processing is resumed after power supply to a computer is suspended temporarily. In restarting the computer, in general, operating system software (OS) performs start involving initialization of a system (so-called cold start).
Note that, concerning the power control for the computer systems, for example, JP9-114557A discloses a technique such as suspend or resume.
However, in the conventional computer systems, when the memory is managed, a method of managing a starting address of an area in use on the memory and, in allocating or releasing the memory, designating the starting address of the area is used.
Therefore, even when the non-volatile memories such as the FeRAM and the MRAM are used, when supply of power is suspended as described above and the supply of power is resumed as required by processing, there is a problem in that management information of a memory address is lost and the information stored on the memory cannot be accessed as the OS performs the cold start.
When the OS performs the processing such as suspend or resume, the management information of the memory address is stored in a storage such as a hard disk. Thus, it is possible to access the information on the memory even when the power supply of the computer is turned on again.
However, the conventional processing such as suspend or resume is not processing that assumes use of a non-volatile memory. There is a problem in that it is necessary to save a large quantity of information in the memory or the hard disk in executing the processing and, when the power supply of the computer is turned on again, the information does not surely return to an original state in some cases.

Information processing apparatus, memory managing program, and memory managing method


A method for human face detection that detects faces independently of their particular poses and simultaneously estimates those poses. Our method exhibits an immunity to variations in skin color, eyeglasses, facial hair, lighting, scale and facial expressions, and others. In operation, we train a convolutional neural network to map face images to points on a face manifold, and non-face images to points far away from that manifold, wherein that manifold is parameterized by facial pose. Conceptually, we view a pose parameter as a latent variable, which may be inferred through an energy-minimization process. To train systems based upon our inventive method, we derive a new type of discriminative loss function that is tailored to such detection tasks. Our method enables a multi-view detector that can detect faces in a variety of poses, for example, looking left or right (yaw axis), up or down (pitch axis), or tilting left or right (roll axis). Systems employing our method are highly-reliable, run at near real time (5 frames per second on conventional hardware), and is robust against variations in yaw (±90°), roll(±45°), and pitch(±60°).

The detection of human faces in natural images and videos is a key component of a variety of applications in human-computer interaction, search and indexing, security and surveillance. As a result, face detection approaches—and in particular learning-based approaches to face detection abound—including real-time methods such as those described by P. Viola and M. Jones, in a paper entitled "Rapid Object Detection Using a Boosted Cascade of Simple Features", which appeared in Proceedings, IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pp. 511-518 in 2001. Approaches based on convolutional networks have also been explored and described in various publications, including a paper by R. Vaillant, C. Monrocq and Y. LeCun entitled "Original Approach For the Localisation of Objects in Images", that appeared in IEEE Proc. on Vision, Image, and Signal Processing, vol 141(4): pp. 245-250 in August 1994 and one by C. Garcia and M. Delakis entitled "A Naural Architecture for Fast and Robust Face Detection", which appeared in IEEE-IAPR Int. Conference on Pattern Recognition, pp. 40-43, in 2002.
An alternative approach—a view-based approach—involves building separate detectors for different views and either: 1) applying them in parallel (see., e.g., A. Pentland, B. Moghaddam, and T. Starner, "View-Based and Modular Eigenspaces for Face Recognition", CVPR, 1994; K. Sung and T. Poggio, "Example-Based Learning of View-Based Human Face Detection", PAMI, Vol. 20, pp. 39-51, 1998; H. Schneidermn and T. Kanade, "A Statistical Method for 3D Object Detection Applied to Faces and Cars", Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2000; and S. Z. Li, L. Zhu, Z. Zhang, A. Blake, H. Zhang, and H. Shum, "Statistical Learning of Multi-View Face Detection", Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Computer Vision—Part IV", 2002); or 2) using a pose estimator to select a detector as was described in "Fast Multi-View Face Detection", written by M. Jones and P. Viola, in a Technical Report R2003-96, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, 2003.
Yet another approach to human face detection—described by H. A. Rowley, S. Baluja, and T. Kanade in a paper entitled "Rotation Invarient Neural Network-Based Face Detection", that appeared in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition", in 2000—estimates and corrects in-plane rotations before applying a single pose-specific detector.
Finally, in still another approach, a number of Support Vector Regressors are trained to approximate smooth functions, each of which has a maximum for a face at a particular pose. Such an approach was disclosed in a paper entitled "Support Vector Regresion and Classification Based Multi-View Face Detection and Recognition", authored by Y. Li, S. Gong and H. Liddel and published in Face and Gesture, in 2000. This approach requires another machine trained to convert resulting values to estimates of poses and a third machine trained to convert the values into a face/non-face score. As can be appreciated such approaches are very slow.
Given the limited success experienced by prior-art approaches, new systems and methods that facilitate the real-time, simultaneous, multi-view face detection and facial pose estimation would represent a great technological step forward. Such a system and method are the subject of the present invention.

Synergistic face detection and pose estimation with energy-based models


An apparatus, method, and article of manufacture for providing compatibility between an application program and a renderer executing on a computer. An application program, executed by the computer, receives commands from a user via the input device and generates an output command stream in response thereto, wherein the output command stream comprises one or more instructions for generating the graphic images. A version renderer program, executed by the computer and coupled to the application program, translates the output command stream received from the application program into a renderer command stream. One or more renderer programs, executed by the computer and coupled to the version renderer program, receive the renderer command stream from the version renderer program, selectively modify the renderer command stream, and selectively transmit the renderer command stream to the graphics peripheral device or to one or more of the other renderer programs.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to graphics software construction, and in particular to immediate drawing interfaces.
2. Description of Related Art
In graphics software construction, renderers may be device drivers for virtual graphics devices. These virtual graphics devices, and their associated renderers, will have different capabilities--some might be photo-realistic, some might be especially fast, some will support hidden surface removal using a Z-buffer. They all essentially do the same things, such as draw lines, but they do them in different ways.
Existing renderers interact with specific devices. For example, a PCL (Printer Control Language) ADI (Autodesk Device Interface) renderer receives ADI commands from an application and provides PCL commands to a plotter. To draw figures on a screen, an application must provide commands to the particular renderer for that screen. This causes problems for the graphics software developer in that certain renderers may be better for some geometries, e.g., lines, while others may be better for other geometries, e.g., polygons. The developer must select one or the other.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a drawing interface that allows a graphics application to invoke multiple alternative renderers and graphics device drivers at run time. However, the ability to invoke multiple renderers at run time brings with it the need to manage versions of renderers. When the version of an interface between an application and a renderer changes, i.e., a new version of the interface is created, the renderer must be updated to adhere to the new interface or the application must continue to use the old interface. These are two distinct cases.
In the optimal situation, the renderer is updated to adhere to the new interface. When the renderer cannot be updated, the situation is sub-optimal, but accounting for the sub-optimal case should not impact the optimal case. That is, having a new application support an old renderer should not penalize the application's ability to use new renderers. The prior art, however, imposes an equivalent penalty on renderers, old and new alike. For example, the ADI pipeline handles driver versioning by always copying internal application data structures to the structures needed by the version of the renderer in use. This copying operation allows versioning to any new version, but it is at the expense of performance, and is always done, regardless of the renderer and application versions.
The Microsoft COM (Common Object Model) technology allows interfaces between software components to be modified while retaining the ability for an old component to talk to a new component. This is done through versioning of interfaces. The COM solution imposes an overhead burden that is unacceptable for graphics interfaces. This burden exists even for situations where an original interface has not been modified. In other words, the performance penalty is applied even for newly created components adhering to current interfaces. Thus, there is a need in the art for a drawing interface that provides improved versioning of interfaces.

Immediate mode drawing interface for the construction of graphics software


A document rendering system includes a standard schema and a graphical user interface configured to receive graphically represented presentation constraints. A translation engine is configured to translate the graphically represented presentation constraints into a presentation schema conforming with a syntax of the standard schema. A validation engine is configured to validate a document respective to the standard schema and respective to the presentation schema. A rendering engine is configured to render a document conditional upon validation by the validation engine.

The following relates to the document presentation arts. It especially relates to presentation of documents in the extensible markup language (XML) format, and is described with particular reference thereto. However, the following is applicable to presentation of structured documents generally, including for example documents in XML, the standard generalized markup language (SGML), or so forth.
An advantage of using a structured document format such as XML is that the document can be validated as to whether it conforms with a standard schema. Some example presentation-focused XML schema that are presently in use include the W3C scalable vector graphics (SVG) schema, extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML), XML formatting objects (XML-FO), and so forth. Before the document is rendered, it is checked, or validated, by a suitable validation tool to ensure that the document conforms with the standard schema. The rendering engine is configured to properly render any document conforming with the standard schema.
Thus, for example, by validating before rendering an input document using a SVG validation tool such as RelaxNG or Schematron and a suitable schema, it can be assured that the document will be properly rendered by the SVG rendering engine. If the validation detects errors, these errors can be brought to the attention of a human publisher before rendering. The human publisher can then either modify the input document to correct the detected error, or go forward with the rendering in spite of the detected error.
Validation prior to rendering ensures that the document can be properly processed by the rendering engine. However, it does not ensure that the rendered document will conform with a presentation appearance desired by the document publisher. For example, the publisher may want to produce a brochure in which text is presented in three columns per page. The document may pass the validation tool but not satisfy the publisher's appearance requirements, for example if the document is in proper SVG format but includes only two columns per page. Validation occurs because nothing in the standard schema constrains the number of columns per page.
One option is to provide a more specific presentation-focused standard schema, for example requiring three columns per page. However, the goal of the standard schema is to balance between constraining the document presentation to ensure proper rendering, on the one hand, and providing the publisher with flexibility in selecting the presentation appearance, on the other hand. Presentation-focused standard schema such as SVG, XHTML, XML-FO, and so forth have generally been configured to maximize flexibility, so as to make the standard schema widely usable by a large cross-section of publishers. Including a specific constraint such as a specific number of columns per page would limit the usability of the standard schema.
Another option is to provide a number of a different standard schema conforming with the different presentation appearance objectives of different publishers. However, construction of a schema, or even modification of an existing schema, heretofore has been a laborious process suitably performed by highly skilled persons having extensive knowledge of non-intuitive low-level schema definition syntax. Applying such specialized expertise to generate a specialized standard schema targeting a small number of publishers may not be commercially viable. That is, a more specialized standard schema would have a smaller market, and thus would be less likely to be commercially successful.
Accordingly, the usual process is for the publisher to perform validation with a flexible standard schema such as SVG, XHTML, XML-FO, and so forth, and to render the document upon successful validation. The publisher then visually reviews the rendered document to detect deviations from the desired presentation appearance. If such deviations are detected, the document is modified and the validation and rendering repeated until conformance with the desired presentation appearance is achieved. This procedure takes a substantial portion of the publisher's time, may require multiple validation and rendering cycles, and is susceptible to human error. Moreover, the procedure must be repeated for each and every document that is validated and rendered. In applications in which the rendered document is ultimately physically printed, presentation errors that slip by unnoticed by the publisher can result in printing a large number of non-conforming, and perhaps useless, documents.

Method for generating presentation oriented XML schemas through a graphical user interface


An improved two-row, four-wheel cane harvester includes first and second front carrier assemblies for carrying cut cane rearward in first and second passageways each passing between the pair of front wheels and then outwardly between the respective front and rear wheels. First and second rear piler assemblies are provided for receiving cane from the respective first and second carrier assemblies and moving the cane transversely before releasing the cut cane across a cut cane row spaced between the first and second rows. Third and fourth side piler assemblies are provided each selectively moveable between an opened position and a closed position, such that in the closed position each of the side piler assemblies receives cane from the respective first and second carrier assemblies and transfers the cane to the respective rear piler assembly, and in the opened position receives cane from the respective first and second carrier assemblies and releases cane on existing heap rows spaced outward from the respective front and rear wheels. A rear axle interconnects the pair of rear wheels and provides for reliable harvester sterring. The techniques of the present invention reduce the amount of cane that is left in the field and thus increase yield, while simultaneously increasing the reliability and improving the yield of the harvesting operation.

Various types of sugar cane harvesters have been devised in the last 30 years, and the improved technology resulting from these harvesters has reduced both the length of time and manpower required to harvest and truck sugar cane to a processing plant. With increasing environmental regulations, frequent reminders of poor seasonal weather harvesting conditions, and the continual insistence of cane processors to reduce the handling of dirt and waste products, improved equipment and techniques will be required to meet the demands of the 21st century for those people depending on the sugar cane industry for their livelihood.
Cane harvesting equipment in use today generally has high maintenance costs resulting from the overall harvester design. Some sugar cane which is cut by the harvester is left in the field, thereby reducing profits. When cane is not cut and piled in a manner substantially transverse to the cane rows, the cane pick-up operation performed by the loaders cannot effectively convey the cane onto trucks, so that more manpower is lost. Harvesting equipment must be continually regulated and the harvesting operation modified by a skilled operator, thereby draining the operator's energy and taxing his patience. Critical areas of the harvesting operation and cane movement through the harvester cannot be easily viewed by the operator. The overall design of the harvester results in a cloud of dust and debris which generally surrounds the harvester when in use, thereby creating a substantial nuisance and safety concerns for the harvester operator.
Early cane harvesters were designed for single row harvesting. Advantages of two or multiple row harvesters were well known, two row harvesters have been commonly used for decades. U.S. Pat. No. 3,090,183 disclosed a two row cane harvester which deposits the cut cane on a common cut cane row (heap row) between the two growing cane rows. Cut cane can also be moved laterally with cane pilers to drop the cane on an existing heap row. Cane travels through the harvesters with a hook chain which moves in channels defined by deflector bars. The basic mechanism described in this patent for moving cane through a harvester is still in use today.
Tricycle-type cane harvesters have been proposed, with the center or third wheel riding either within the furrow between the two rows of cane being cut or behind one of the front wheels. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,308,281 and 4,473,130 disclose such three wheel harvesters. Can harvesters of this type have inherent safety concerns involved in three wheel equipment, although tricycle-type cane harvesters are still widely used in the United States.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,165,596 and 4,232,775 also disclose four wheel, two row cane harvesters. The harvester according to the '596 patent is steered with differential drums and tackle for pivoting of front wheels, while the harvester of the '775 patent utilizes non-steerable front wheels and beelcranks connected to the steerable rear wheels for differential pivoting by the steering mechanism. In both embodiments, the cane moves from the front to the back of the machine in a pair of cane passageways generally in alignment with the two rows of growing cane, i.e., between the left side and right side wheels. One of the reasons for the relatively complex steering control mechanisms provided by these patents relates to the absence of a rear axle, which cut cane would otherwise have to pass up and over. Four wheel, two row cane harvesters have not been commercially accepted in the United States due to concerns associated with their overall design.
Another significant problem with prior art cane harvesters relates to the low velocity of the cut cane relative to the earth when the cane reaches the end of the first row conveyor system. The cane lacks uniform positioning when it reaches the end of the conveyor system, and when the pilers at the end of this system try to "trip" the cane across the rear of the machine, the cane frequently does not fall in a manner so that it is stacked substantially transverse to the cane rows. Harvester operators find it particularly difficult to trip the cane in the heap row transversely behind the machine, and accordingly a good amount of cane gets left in the field because it is not picked up by the loading equipment which relies on the assumption that the stacked cane will be generally transverse to the growing cane rows. Very significant problems are created when a loader operator, in an attempt to lift non-transverse cane, buries the loader piler into the soil and thus loads a good amount of mud and soil with the cut cane onto the transport, which is then hauled to the sugar mill and adversely affects refining operations. When harvesting the "fly" rows, existing cane harvesters also allow excess amounts of cane to be left in the field since the cane travels down relatively long conveyors and/or piler mechanisms positioned such that the cane travels in pathways substantially parallel to the growing rows on its way to being stacked in an existing cut cane row transverse to the growing rows. The greater distance cane must be moved from one point in order to be positioned properly for pick-up by the loaders, the greater the opportunity for the cane to drop out of the conveyor system and be left in the field. A still further problem with existing cane harvesters is that the operator cannot easily monitor either the tripping of cane when harvesting the center or heap rows (since the cane is tripped behind the machine), or the travel of cane in the carrier as it moves through the harvester to the pilers.
The design of prior cut cane harvesters also does not allow the harvester operator to easily monitor the height which the growing cane is cut off the ground. Accordingly, excess cane stubble is left in the field, particularly when cutting the first two rows of cane. The operator also cannot easily view the "downed" cane not picked up by the gathering assemblies and thus left in the field, and accordingly cannot reliably alter the operation of the front end gathering assemblies. The problem is in part dependant upon the overall design of the cane harvesters which, as previously noted, also results in large quantities of dust and debris following the harvester through the field. The successful operation of a cane harvester requires a significant amount of training and expertise, and even with this training, use of harvesting equipment is highly taxing upon the operator. One of the difficulties encountered by a harvester operator relates to the operator continually adjusting the speed of the main carrier mechanism through the harvester and the position of the base or foot of the cut cane in an attempt to control the cane as it is tripped across the rows.
These and further disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the present invention, and an improved cane harvester is hereinafter disclosed.


In a transmission system capable of measuring packet loss ratio between arbitrary devices upon a transmission path without increasing bandwidth of an OAM frame band, a plurality of transmission devices which have been disposed upon a transmission path are provided with a frame analysis unit which receives data frames so as to analyze the type of the data frames, a count processing unit which stores the number of received frames included in the data frames into storage module provided beforehand, an output line end portion which outputs the data frames, and an OAM processing unit which calculates the packet loss ratio in the transmission path using the number of received frames. The frame analysis unit has a function which, if the data frames are OAM frames, copies the data frames and the OAM processing unit has a function which calculates the packet loss ratio using the copied OAM frames.

Ethernet (registered trademark) is a communication standard widely used in a computer network (LAN: Local Area Network) of a small scale area such as a network built within a same building. Recently, in order to reduce the network operation cost and the like, there is presented a type of network in which functions regarding network remote surveillance are added to Ethernet for expanding Ethernet to be used for WAN (Wide Area Network) which is a larger scale network. This is called Ethernet OAM (Operations, Administrations, Maintenance).
The Ethernet OAM is standardized as Y.1731 by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector) in 2006. Non-Patent Document 1 is the document of the standardization of Y.1731. Further, IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) also standardized it as IEEE 802.1ag in 2007.
In Non-Patent Document 1, a single end LM (Loss Measurement) protocol that is one of protocols used in the network remote surveillance is defined. The single end LM is a two-way protocol (bidirectional) with which a transmission device of one end transmits a message and a transmission device on another end upon receiving it returns a massage.
In the single end LM protocol, a part of the data packet transmission path on the network is defined as a maintenance section called MEG (Maintenance Entity Group), and the end point of the maintenance section is defined as MEP (Maintenance Entity Group End Point). Then, through transmitting and receiving OAM frames between the defined MEPs, the network remote surveillance functions such as failure surveillance, performance measurement, and protection switching are achieved.
With the single end LM protocol depicted in Non-Patent Document 1, the packet loss ratio that is the data packet loss generation ratio between MEPs is calculated by exchanging the transmission/reception numbers of user frames between MEPs that are the both ends of the maintenance section (MEG). Hereinafter, calculation of the packet loss ratio will be described.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory chart showing the structure of a transmission network 901 that is the target of the packet loss ratio calculation by the single end LM protocol depicted in Non-Patent Document 1. The transmission network 901 is constituted by connecting a plurality of transmission devices 910a, 910b,—(referred to as the transmission devices 910 as a general term hereinafter) disposed on a transmission path 930 for relaying communication OAM frames via the transmission path 930 and an operation management device 920 which executes operation managements of those transmission devices 910.
Note here that the four transmission devices 910a to d are disposed on the transmission path 930. A point-to-point transmission network (MEG: Maintenance Entity Group) is constituted by having the transmission devices 910a and 910d among those as both end points (MEP: Maintenance Entity Group End Point) and the transmission 910b and 910c as the relay points. Further, transmission from the transmission device 910a to 910d is referred to as the forward direction, and transmission from the transmission device 910d to 910a is referred to as the reverse direction.
FIG. 7 is an explanatory chart showing the actions for measuring the packet loss ratio between the transmission devices 910a and 910d on the transmission path 930 shown in FIG. 6. First, a first LMM frame including a latest transmission counter value TxFCf (a1) of the device itself is transmitted from the transmission device 910a to the transmission device 910d (step S950a).
The transmission device 910d upon receiving the first LMM frame adds a latest reception counter value RxFCf (d1) of the device itself within the first LMM frame (step S950a), generates a first LMR frame as a response for the first LMM frame, adds a latest transmission counter value TxFCb (d1) of the device itself thereto, and transmits it to the transmission device 910a (step S951d).
The transmission device 910a upon receiving the first LMR frame refers to the latest reception counter value RxFCb (a1) (step S951a). Then, the transmission device 910a transmits a second LMM frame after a predetermined waiting time (100 msec, for example) has passed from the transmission of the first LMM frame (step S952a). The second LMM frame contains a transmission counter value TxFCf (a2).
As in steps S950d and 951d described above, the transmission device 910d upon receiving the second LMM frame adds a latest reception counter value RxFCf (d2) to the received second LMM frame (step 952d), generates a second LMR frame that is the response for the second LMM frame, adds a latest transmission counter value TxFCb (d2) of the device itself, and transmits it to the transmission device 910a (step S953d).
The transmission device 910a upon receiving the second LMR frame refers to the latest reception counter value RxFCb (a2) (step S953a), and calculates the frame loss number by following Expression 1. Note, however, that ∥ shows that it is an arithmetic operation between modulo 32 (32-bit integer with no signs). For example, |0x000000001−0xFFFFFFFF|=2.
                              (              Expression                                                  1            )                  Forward                                      direction                                      frame                                      transmission                                      number        =                                  TxFCf                                (                          a                                                                                2                        )                          -                  TxFCf                                (                          a                                                                                1                        )                                                Forward                                      direction                                      frame                                      loss                                      number        =                                                TxFCf                                      (                              a                                                                                2                            )                                -                      TxFCf                                      (                              a                                                                                1                            )                                                  -                                            RxFCf                                      (                              d                                                                                2                            )                                -                      RxFCf                                      (                              d                                                                                1                            )                                                              Reverse                                      direction                                      frame                                      transmission                                      number        =                                  TxFCb                                (                          d                                                                                2                        )                          -                  TxFCb                                (                          d                                                                                1                        )                                                Reverse                                      direction                                      frame                                      loss                                      number        =                                                TxFCb                                      (                              d                                                                                2                            )                                -                      TxFCb                                      (                              d                                                                                1                            )                                                  -                                            RxFCb                                      (                              a                                                                                2                            )                                -                      RxFCb                                      (                              a                                                                                1                            )                                                  Thereby, frame loss number frame transmission number, i.e., the packet loss ratio, in both directions can be calculated with MEGs constituted between the transmission devices 910a and 910d that are MEPs.
Relating to that, there are following technical documents, for example. Among those, depicted in Patent Document 1 is a frame loss measurement method which, when a relay device receives an OAM frame, identifies the frame transmission/reception number in each section by writing the frame counter value of that device into the OAM frame and relaying it. Depicted in Patent Document 2 is a packet loss measurement system which collects flows constituting the traffic on a network, counts the flows from the start of a measurement, and calculates the packet loss ratio from the flow information of a same account.
Depicted in Patent Document 3 is a packet loss ratio calculation system which adds a transmission counter and a reception counter to quality measurement packets on both probes of the transmission side and the reception side and transmits/receives those to calculate the packet loss ratio of the outward and inward paths thereby. Depicted in Patent Document 4 is a monitoring method which compares BROAM cells transmitted/received mutually between the end points of a network and specifies the performance deteriorated section.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2008-244870    Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2002-152266    Patent Document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2008-085906    Patent Document 4: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Hei 09-200228
Non-Patent Document 1: "ITU-T Recommendation Y. 1731-OAM functions and mechanisms for Ethernet based networks", Jan. 31, 2006, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), (Searched on May 20, 2011), Internet<URL: http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/sg13aap/recaap/y1731/>
Loss of the data packet stops the communication on the network or causes a great deterioration in the communication speed and the communication quality, so that the packet loss ratio needs to be suppressed to a specific numerical value or less. In order to do so, it is necessary to quickly specify the occurrence point of a failure (e.g., cut in the optical fiber, fault generated in the transmission device, or the like) which may cause the packet loss on the transmission path.
However, the method of the single end LM protocol depicted in Non-Patent Document 1 shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 can only measure the packet loss ratio in MEG by having transmission devices at specific two points on the transmission path as MEPs and taking those MEPs as both ends.
FIG. 8 is an explanatory chart showing the method for specifying a fault occurrence point, which is the packet loss ratio measurement method depicted in Non-Patent Document 1 shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7. For example, in a case where a high packet loss ratio is measured by having the transmission devices 910a to 910d as MEG (end-end surveillance section), it is necessary to designate more fractionated sections (segment surveillance sections) such as the segments between the transmission devices 910a to 910b, between 910b to 910c, and the like as MEG for specifying the occurrence point.
With the specifying method shown in FIG. 8, it is necessary to start a new OAM session individually for each of the fractionated MEGs. This causes complication in the management for setting each session. Further, each of the sessions transmits/receives the OAM frame by each MEG without synchronizing with each other, so that the measurement time in each MEG is not necessarily consistent. Thus, there are cases where there is no same phenomenon occurred even when the measurement results of each session are collated. In such case, it is difficult to specify the occurrence point.
The technique depicted in Patent Document 1 is designed to overcome such issue. However, with this technique, it is necessary to execute a series of processing such as "discriminate the OAM frame→acquire the latest reception counter value→write the acquired reception counter value to the OAM frame→transmit the OAM frame" for the received OAM frame in each of the relay devices existing on the transmission path.
FIG. 9 is an explanatory chart showing an example where the frame transmission order is inverted in the relay device existing in the middle of MEG on the transmission path, which is the packet loss ratio measurement method depicted in Non-Patent Document 1 shown in FIG. 6 to FIG. 8. A thick-line arrow shows the OAM frame, and a thin-line arrow shows the user frame, respectively.
With the LM protocol, a strict order characteristic is required between the user frame and the OAM frame. When there is an inversion of the transmission order occurred as shown in FIG. 9, the counter value contained in the OAM frame becomes invalid, so that an accurate packet loss ratio cannot be calculated.
Therefore, the technique which requires actions for adding new data by processing the OAM frame in the relay device in the middle of the transmission path such as the technique depicted in Patent Document 1 has a risk of causing inversion of the transmission order as shown in FIG. 9. That is, such action for adding new data needs to be executed at a same speed as that of the regular data frame (user frame) transfer. Thus, a high performance is required for the hardware and software which execute that processing.
Further, when new data is added to the OAM frame in the relay device in the middle of the transmission path, the band of the OAM frame itself is increased thereby. Particularly, when transmission is done via multiple stages of relay devices, new data is to be added every time when going through the relay device. Thus, the band is increased greatly. In accordance with the increase in the band, a new frame loss is to be generated.
Therefore, when applying such technique, it is necessary to take a measure such as predicting in advance the increase in the band generated according to the measurement of the packet loss ratio and restricting the band of the user frame coming in from MEP in the measurement section, for example.
All the techniques depicted in Patent Documents 2 to 4 add new data to the data that is being transmitted as in the technique of Patent Document 1. That is, none of the techniques depicted in Patent Documents 1 to 4 can overcome the above-described issue. It is the same even when those techniques are combined.
The object of the present invention is to provide a transmission system, a transmission device, a packet loss ratio measurement method, and a packet loss ratio measurement program, which are capable of measuring the packet loss ratio between arbitrary devices on a transmission path without increasing the band of the OAM frame.

Transmission system, transmission device, packet loss ratio measurement method, and packet loss ratio measurement program


Methods, systems, and computer readable mediums for selecting and configuring a computing system to support a replicated application are disclosed. According to one example, a method includes capturing resource availability data associated with a plurality of computing systems, wherein each of the plurality of computing systems resides at a separate and distinct geographical site. The method further includes determining, for each of the plurality of computing systems, a suitability score based on the captured resource availability data and at least one external factor associated with the computing system, selecting one of the plurality of computing systems to host the replicated application based on the determined suitability scores, and establishing a logical environment on the selected computing system to support the enterprise application.

The concept of utilizing geographic redundant computer clusters to support enterprise applications is a prevalent business practice that is recognized as a standard approach for the deployment of many telecommunications and/or web-based services. The notion is that an enterprise application, which is hosted by a computing system residing in a first geographic location, is replicated on a computing system that is situated at a second physical location that is geographically displaced from the first host site (e.g., hundreds of miles or kilometers away). This deployment arrangement effectively averts the consequences of unavoidable catastrophes (e.g., natural disasters) with respect to the service uptime of the given application since the computing system residing at the redundant site is able resume operations in lieu of the original host located at the primary site. Notably, the establishing of a geographically redundant site to host a replicated enterprise application involves several manual tasks that are associated with significant time overhead pertaining to the assessment and configuration of the selected site.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A recording and playback apparatus for a digital video cassette recorder is provided with a data conversion unit for recording a compressed video signal in a more compressed format on a digital recording medium and a data inverse recording unit for playing out the recorded video signal. The data conversion unit includes a controller, encoder and multiplexer. The controller has for its inputs ID information decoded from the compressed video data signal by a decoder and a recording signal instructing the recording of the compressed video signal on a recording medium. At the start of picture recording the controller provides a selection signal to a multiplexer and a decoding instruction to an encoder to enable the encoder to recode the entire picture region of the decoded video data in an intraframe manner with a header which contains the decoding instruction information. The data inverse conversion unit includes a header decoder, a buffer controller, and a buffer. The buffer controller has as inputs the decoded instruction information output from the header decoder and a playback signal instructing the playback of compressed video data from the digital recording medium. Thus, both intraframe and interframe coded pictures can be viewed without degradation, even when playout is begun from a stopped position in the middle of a program.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the recording and playback of a digital video cassette recorder (VCR), and more particularly to a recording/playback apparatus for a digital VCR that prevents a degradation in a picture quality when playing back compressed video data of sequential programs edited, recorded on a single digital storage media (DSM) or when the digital VCR begins a playback operation again after being stopped.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a block diagram of a conventional recording/playback apparatus for a digital VCR. As shown in this drawing, the conventional recording/playback apparatus comprises a formatter 1 for converting a format of compressed video data inputted therein into a recording format of a magnetic tape T, an error correction coder 2 for performing an error correction coding operation for output data from the formatter 1 to prevent it from being mixed with an error, a channel modulator 3 for modulating output data from the error correction coder 2 suitably to a channel characteristic of the magnetic tape T, and a recording amplifier 4 for amplifying output data from the channel modulator 3 so that it can be recorded on the magnetic tape T and output to a recording bead HD1.
The conventional recording/playback apparatus also comprises a playback amplifier 5 for amplifying by a predetermined level the compressed video data which is detected from the magnetic tape T by a playback head HD2, a channel demodulator 6 for demodulating output data from the playback amplifier 5, an error correction decoder 7 for performing an error correction decoding operation for output data from the channel demodulator 6 to correct an error mixed therewith in recording and playback processes, and a deformatter 8 for converting a format of output data from the error correction decoder 7 into the format of the original compressed video data.
The operation of the conventional recording/playback apparatus with the above-mentioned construction will hereinafter be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. FIG. 2 is a view illustrating a conventional manner of compressing high definition television (HDTV) video data and FIG. 3 is a view illustrating a conventional manner of playing back the video data compressed by the conventional manner of FIG. 2 with two programs edited and recorded on the magnetic tape.
As shown in FIG. 2, the HDTV video data of one picture is compressed by an intraframe coding (dashed region) and an interframe coding (non-dashed region). For the purpose of preventing an error generated in a certain picture from having an effect on the subsequent pictures, the intraframe coding is performed cyclically on left, middle and right sides of the pictures at an interval of three pictures.
Upon inputting the HDTV video data compressed in the above manner, the formatter 1 converts the format of the inputted video data into the recording format of the magnetic tape T. The error correction coder 2 performs the error correction coding operation for the output data from the formatter 1 to prevent it from being mixed with an error. The channel modulator 3 modulates the output data from the error correction coder 2 suitably to the channel characteristic of the magnetic tape T. The recording amplifier 4 amplifies the output data from the channel modulator 3 so that it can be recorded on the magnetic tape T and outputs the amplified data to the recording head HD1. Then, the output data from the recording amplifier 4 is recorded on the magnetic tape T by the recording head HD1.
For the playback of the compressed video data recorded on the magnetic tape T in the above manner, the compressed video data is detected from the magnetic tape T by the playback head HD2 and then applied to the playback amplifier 5, which amplifies the detected video data by the predetermined level. The channel demodulator 6 demodulates the output data from the playback amplifier 5. The error correction decoder 7 performs the error correction decoding operation for the output data from the channel demodulator 6 to correct an error mixed therewith in the recording and playback processes. The deformatter 8 converts the format of the output data from the error correction decoder 7 into the original format of the compressed video data.
However, in the case where the compressed video data with a plurality of programs (for example, two programs) are edited, recorded on the magnetic tape and played back as shown in FIG. 3, an interframe coded region (non-dashed region) of a start picture (picture 3) of the program 2 is played back on the basis of a last picture (picture 2) of the program 1, resulting in degradation in a picture quality. Such a degradation may be extended at the maximum to six of the pictures of the video data compressed as shown in FIG. 2. Also, the number of degraded pictures increases in number as an intraframe coded region is made narrower.

Recording/playback apparatus for digital video cassette recorder


In a remote controller, a conductive air mouse button is electrically connected to one terminal of a battery. A conductive lower case is electrically connected to the other terminal of said battery. Light-emitting and light-receiving devices which transmit/receive radio signals when said air mouse button and said lower case are contacted by fingers, to thereby be electrically connected to form a closed circuit.

The present invention relates to a remote controller, and more particularly, to a remote controller having an improved structure to reduce battery consumption. Also, the present invention relates to a remote controller by which the selected mode of electronic products can be easily recognized.
A remote controller is widely used for the convenience of users of electronic products such as television sets. A dry cell or a storage battery is usually used as a power supply means for the remote controller. Thus, minimization of battery consumption is required to extend the use time of the remote controller.
In the meantime, the latest remote controller adopts an air mouse function which enables a user to select from a menu displayed on a monitor by moving a cursor arrow to a desired menu item and pressing an air mouse button. In this case, since the mouse cursor must continuously be displayed on the monitor, the power of the remote controller must be kept on, thus draining the battery.
An example of a conventional remote controller which concurrently operates a television set, a VCR and a CD player is shown in FIG. 1. As shown in the drawing, when a user presses any one of mode buttons 1 on the remote controller in order to select a desired mode, a display lamp 2 corresponding to the selected mode is lit such that the selected mode can be visually recognized.
However, the user cannot be sure of the selected mode after the display lamp 2 is off. That is, when the user wishes to operate another mode, e.g., another electronic product, other than the selected mode, for example, to control a TV set while in a VCR mode, the user may not realize that the TV mode is not selected until they press a button for a TV function many times to operate the TV, and realize that it does not work. Then, they must press the TV mode button to set the TV mode.
In one proposal to solve the above problem, when a user presses an arbitrary button on the remote controller, the display lamp 2 thereon is lit according to a set mode so that the currently selected mode can be noticed by the user.
The drawback in such proposed remote controller is that the arbitrary button must be pressed to confirm which mode is set.


A system for measuring gap and mismatch by optical triangulation projects two parallel light planes onto the parts to be characterized so as to form two brightness lines. The three-dimensional profiles of the parts are calculated along the brightness lines. Raw values of gap and mismatch are calculated, preferably using particular reference points and lines. These raw values are then corrected by reference to the separation between the light planes and the change in position of a reference point of the profile of one of the parts from one brightness line to the other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dimensional measurement and, more particularly, to a system for the measurement of gap and mismatch between opposing surfaces.
In the industrial field it is often necessary to measure spaces which exist between two opposing surfaces with the aim, for example, of ensuring that these are indeed approximately equal to predetermined values and to access how these values change with time. The gap which exists between two surfaces is often significant from the point of view of the mechanical operation of the ensemble. The mismatch is closely related to the gap in certain complex configurations where parts are in contact, but more often it is related to aesthetic and aerodynamic considerations. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the gap and mismatch between two opposing parts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional method for measuring gap and mismatch, particularly in the automobile or aeronautical industries, consists in the use of calipers or gauge blocks. The measurement instrument itself in often associated with a housing including components for storing and processing the collected data, and/or is connected to a computer or printer. These conventional systems have a number of disadvantages.
Firstly, any measurement system involving physical contact runs the risk of damaging the surfaces on which the measurement is made. Besides the problems of creating scratches on the surfaces, the stress exercised on the surfaces by the arms of a set of calipers can cause an increase in the size of the gap between the surfaces and, thus, distort the measurement. The latter problem is particularly serious in the case of measurements performed on thin cantilevered metal panels. Moreover, with these conventional systems it is not possible to satisfy the requirements of resolution and speed of measurement which are becoming more and more severe in the industrial sphere. Finally, and more importantly, the quality of the measurements made with such instruments is highly dependent upon the positioning of the apparatus with respect to the surfaces upon which the measurement is to be made. Thus the repeatability and reliability of the measurements that are obtained is highly dependent on the user.
More recently, non-contact systems, such as, for example, an optical triangulation system, have been proposed for the measurement of gap and mismatch. (An example of a system for measuring gap and mismatch by optical triangulation consists of the product known by the name AFFLEUREDIX, manufactured by the company EDIXIA). The general construction of such a system is illustrated in FIG. 2.
The basic principle underlying the system for measuring gap and mismatch by optical triangulation shown in FIG. 2 is derived from photogrammetry. A laminar beam of laser light is generated by a source (for example a laser diode 5) in association with optical elements. This planar sheet of light is projected onto the surfaces 1,2 on which the measurement is to be performed, in such a way as to illuminate a region including the interface between these surfaces and thus to create a brightness line, if possible perpendicular to the centre of the gap. The brightness line is located within the field of view of a video camera 7 which comprises an array (CCD type) image sensor. The array sensor of the camera is illuminated by the rays coming from the brightness line.
By virtue of a preliminary calibration step the internal geometry of the camera 7 is known and it is thus possible to associate to each pixel of the sensor a straight line in space. Thus, a straight line in space can be associated with each image point on the brightness line. The intersection between this straight line and one of the rays making up the incident light plane creates a triangle located in a plane called the "epipolar plane". The preliminary calibration also enables the separation between the camera 7 and the light source 5 (the baseline) to be determined, as well as the angle between this baseline and each point on the brightness line. For each point on the brightness line, it is thus possible to resolve the corresponding triangle located in the epipolar plane in order to determine the position of this point in three dimensions.
When the three-dimensional positions of the points on the brightness line have been determined, the positions of the edges of the two opposing surfaces are found and then the separation (the gap and mismatch) between these edges is found. The calculation of mismatch involves the determination of the location of the major surface of each of the opposing parts and the calculation of the height difference between these major surfaces.
The known optical triangulation systems enable rapid measurements of gap and mismatch to be made without risk of damaging the surfaces. However, the quality of the measurement that is made still depends upon the orientation of the measurement apparatus. This problem will now be explained with reference to FIG. 3.
FIG. 3 illustrates the case of a projected brightness line which is not perpendicular to the centre of the gap. In such a case, the measured value, J*, does not represent the true gap which exists between the surfaces 1 and 2. The true value of gap, J, is equal to J*cos .theta., where .theta. represents the rotation of the measurement apparatus with respect to the orientation which would have produced a brightness line perpendicular to the centre of the gap. The same problem arises in relation to mismatch, when the apparatus is rotated in another direction.
The repeatability of the measurements made with the known systems is also influenced by the choice of the reference points and lines between which the spaces are measured, especially when curved (i.e; convexedly-curved) surfaces are being characterised.
Any algorithm used for calculating gap and mismatch must include a definition of the reference points and lines (or planes) between which the spaces will be measured. The quality and the repeatability of the gap and mismatch measurements depends upon a judicious choice of the definitions of those reference points and lines. The definitions must correspond to locations which are stable between different samples of the parts being tested. They must also facilitate the establishment of a geometrical construction which enables a measurement of gap or mismatch to be obtained which corresponds to the physical dimension which is normally understood by this expression.
The importance of this choice of reference points, lines and planes is particularly great given that the current trend in the design of bodywork tends towards shapes which are more and more curved, more closely resembling non-standard surfaces than combinations of planes and cylinders. The definitions of the reference parameters used in the known systems are not well-adapted to the characterisation of parts having this type of shape.
Here, the expression "non-standard surface" means any geometrical surface which cannot be strictly described by an equation.
The U.S. patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,590 describes an apparatus for measuring gap and mismatch between two opposing parts, using optical triangulation principles in order to determine the three-dimensional positions of points situated on two brightness lines created by two converging planes of light. Each of the two brightness lines illuminates the interface between the two parts and preferably extends perpendicularly to the centre of the gap (this orientation representing the ideal case). The measurements made by this apparatus are claimed to be reliable even in the case where the apparatus is rotated by 10.degree. with respect to the ideal orientation. The calculations of gap and mismatch include a step of defining reference lines and planes for each of the opposing parts. For each part, these reference parameters are calculated from position data relating to the two brightness lines (more particularly, based on data relating to the portions of the two lines which are located on this part). The gap and mismatch are then calculated by an analyse of the interval or spacing between the reference parameters determined for each part.
Because the light planes used in the system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,590 converge, the separation between the two brightness lines depends upon the distance between the measurement apparatus and the surfaces upon which the measurement is being made. This imposes constraints upon the user in terms of the positioning of the apparatus, because he must ensure that the two brightness lines are located within the field of view of the camera and that they are spaced apart by a distance sufficient to enable them to be resolved by the camera. This problem is solved in U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,590 by obliging the user to place the measuring instrument right up against the parts to be measured. However, this solution involves a risk of damaging the parts. Moreover, the user cannot see the precise spot where the measurement will be made, which makes it more difficult to position the apparatus at the correct location.
The fact that the light planes used in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,590 system converge means that each of the planes is incident on the parts at an oblique angle, typically 40 to 45.degree.. The images generated by the intersection of the light planes with the parts thus does not correspond to the geometric shape of the parts but to a distorted version thereof caused by perspective.
Further, in the system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,590, the image data is binarized before the calculation of the three-dimensional positions of the reference points. This procedure eliminates the possibility of performing a "subpixel" interpolation of the position of the brightness line within the image. This leads to a loss of resolution. In addition, the calculation of gap and mismatch according to this known system involves the modelling of each part by a plane determined using the least squares method. This method does not enable a reliable result (or, even, any result at all) to be obtained in the case of measurements made on parts having curved surfaces.

System for measuring gap and mismatch between opposing parts


An organic electroluminescent device, particularly for use as a display, is disclosed which is driven according to a pulsed mode of operation which allows much higher current densities to be injected into the device. This is achieved by selection of particular pulse durations and duty cycles, and by an improved geometry for the electroluminescent device in which the resistance of anode lines is reduced.

Organic electroluminescent devices are made from materials that emit light when a suitable voltage is applied across electrodes deposited on either side of the organic material. One class of such materials is semiconductive conjugated polymers which have been described in our earlier U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,190, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
One particular advantage such devices have over traditional inorganic light emitting diodes is the ease with which they can be patterned to produce areas of light emission. This is extremely important for the fabrication of dot-matrix displays. The speed of switching of organic light emitting diodes is limited by the transport time of carriers (electrons and holes) moving from their respective electrodes into the material where they combine to form excitons which can radiatively decay to produce light. Because the organic layers can be made very thin (typically <1 micron e.g. 0.1 micron) this transport time can be of order 0.1-1 microsecond even though the mobility of carriers in the organic materials is considerably less (by several orders of magnitude) than the mobility in traditional semiconductors.
One of the primary consequences of this relatively low mobility is a limit to the peak current that can be injected into the device. This is because of space charge effects. Such effects lead to an accumulation of charge within the devices which reduce the further injection of carriers. This has been studied recently in organic LEDs, for example in P. Blom et al, Appl Phys. Lett. p 3308, Vol 68, 1996. The present inventors have reasoned that higher mobilities would lead to higher peak currents and therefore higher peak brightnesses and faster switching times. This is important for many applications including time multiplexed displays. High injection currents are also likely to be required for operation of electrically pumped lasers. If the increase in mobility also leads to a balancing of charge injection this will have the additional benefit of increasing the emission efficiency of these devices.
Attempts have been made to operate electroluminescent devices in a pulsed mode. For example, reference is made to D, Braun et al, Appl. Phys. Lett., p3092, vol. 61, 1992. In that paper, 1 .mu.s voltage pulses of 40V were applied to an EL device. It is stated that at a duty cycle of 0.5% (1:200), the EL intensity remained proportional to the current up to 10 A/sqcm. We believe this is still much too low to have any significant effect on mobility.
In F. Hide et al in Science, p1833, vol.273, 1996, a possibility of obtaining current densities of 25 A/sqcm when operated with 3 .mu.s pulses at a low duty cycle of 1:30 is discussed. We believe again that this is too low to have any significant effect on light output or emission efficiency.
In a paper by L. Rothberg et al, Synthetic Metals, p41, vol.80, 1996, it is suggested that a theoretical maximum value for peak current injection would be 200 A/sqcm. However this is based on expectations for carrier mobility in PPV and removal of space charge limits which are wholly unrealistic in the context described by Rothberg.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a pulsed mode of operation of an EL device which significantly exceeds any existing realistic expectations of current density.

Organic EL devices and operation thereof