Arteriosclerosis induces cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction. A multi-marker (a group of protein markers) that assesses the accurate pathogenesis of arteriosclerosis and enables the selection of an adequate treatment method for arteriosclerosis and prediction of the progression of arteriosclerosis, and an evaluation method for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of arteriosclerosis that uses said marker group as an indicator have been sought. The present invention relates to A method for evaluation of arteriosclerosis comprising the steps of (a) measuring the expression of von Willebrand factor and/or complement factor D in a sample derived from a subject, (b) measuring the expression of complement component C8 and/or vitamin K-dependent protein Z in the sample derived from the subject, and (c) evaluating arteriosclerosis in the subject on the basis of the results from (a) and (b).

The term "arteriosclerosis" is a general term for diseases characterized by arterial wall thickening caused by a variety of factors such as aging and lifestyle habits, decreased artery elasticity, and inner-cavity stenosis. Arteriosclerosis proceeds over a long period of time without subjective symptoms, inducing cardiac diseases such as myocardial infarction or cerebrovascular diseases such as cerebral infarction or cerebral-hemorrhage. Therefore, it is important to develop a method for conveniently and accurately assaying with certainty the severity and the extent of arteriosclerosis and therapeutic effects against arteriosclerosis. Conventionally, assays using as indicators, in addition to blood pressure levels or lipid marker levels (total serum cholesterol level, high LDL cholesterol level, and low HDL cholesterol level), blood concentrations of inflammatory markers including a high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), serum amyloidA (SAA), an oxidant stress-related factor homocystine, and the like have been examined in many epidemiological studies. However, since the levels of these factors vary in other diseases, a search for a more selective marker with high disease specificity has been an issue. Arteriosclerosis follows the multifaceted processes of lipid deposition in vascular intima, inflammatory cell infiltration, smooth muscle cell proliferation, foam cell formation of macrophage and/or smooth muscle cells, interstitial matrix formation, and the like. It has been demonstrated that in each process, various factors are synergistically involved in progression of lesions (Non-patent document 1). An assay with a combination of a plurality of markers is thought to be effective for accurately assessing pathogenesis.
Disease proteomics is a technique for exhaustively searching for an increase or a decrease in protein level, which varies depending on the specific disease, compared with a healthy state, using a body fluid such as blood, saliva, or urine, or a tissue sample, as a material. Disease proteomics is characterized by being capable of simultaneously extracting and/or detecting a plurality of factors with unknown relationships to the disease. Application of multiple specimens to and increased sensitivity of a 2D electrophoresis method and measuring apparatuses such as a protein microarray and mass spectrometry have been realized, and data analysis technology has been in place, which have been applied for searching markers for various diseases including cancer, immunity disorders, infections, and the like (Non-patent document 2).


Polythioethers and methods for forming polythioethers are disclosed herein. The polythioethers are prepared from thiols and hexahydrotriazines. The thiols may be, for example, dithiols, trithiols, monothiols, or mixtures thereof. The polythioethers are prepared from an efficient and simple synthetic method, and the properties of the prepared polythioethers can be readily tuned. The prepared polythioethers may additionally have improved thermal properties, improved mechanical properties, and enhanced functionality.

The present disclosure relates to polythioethers, and more specifically, to polythioethers prepared from hexahydrotriazines and thiols.
Polythioethers are commercially significant for example, because polythioethers generally high flexibility at low temperatures and fuel resistance. Polythioethers are commercially applied as adhesives and as scavengers for heavy metal ions. However, many methods of forming polythioethers result in low yields and do not allow for widely tunable properties. Additionally, many polythioethers lack tailorable functionalities.
A need exists for improved polythioethers and an improved method for forming the same.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

International Business Machines Corporation


A system for analysis and display of hydrocarbon play information according to some aspects determines a probability of source rock occurrence according to source rock age based on a proven play concept. The system can also determine a relative probability of migration for hydrocarbons from a source rock of a proposed petroleum play concept to a reservoir. A relative probability of wellbore success for the proposed play concept can be determined at least in part based on these probabilities. The system can display the relative probability of wellbore success for the proposed play concept, either alone as part of a displayed inventory of proposed hydrocarbon play concepts. The system can produce accurate results that facilitate rapid play concept investigations for hydrocarbon exploration.

A hydrocarbon play can include a group of fields or prospective fields in the same geographic region that are controlled by the same or similar set of geological circumstances. A play concept can be the combination of system elements that characterize a particular play. Geoscientists are routinely tasked with evaluating play concepts that have the potential to yield viable plays defining areas for the future placement of hydrocarbon wellbores. A relatively simplistic evaluation can yield valuable forecasts when the play concept is based on reservoirs and source rocks that do not vary much in age. However, when reservoirs and source rocks of different ages are known to exist in a region of interest and need to be considered, evaluation becomes more difficult, sometimes leading to arbitrary assignment of probabilities of viability to expedite decisions.


A paper cutter utilizing a lamp to illuminate a cutline scored into a transparent plastic surface located below directly below the paper to be cut. The silhouette of the cutline acts as the guideline for placement of the cutting blade of the paper cutter to thereby create the exact line of cut. A dual blade rotary cutter is also provided in a paper cutter with a toggle arrangement located on the carriage assembly which allows the user of the cutter to selectively engage one or the other of the blades to engage the cutter.

The present invention relates generally to paper cutters. More particularly, the invention is directed to a paper cutter including a cutting board, a rail assembly mounted for pivotal movement between operative and inoperative positions above the cutting board, and a rotary cutting blade carrier assembly mounted on the rail for movement across the cutting board.
The prior art discloses paper cutters of the above type. One of the problems with such cutters concerns providing an indicator for an intended cut which is a precise registration between the indicator and the true cut. If the indicator is independent from the cutter, normal and unavoidable manufacturing tolerances will create a disparity between the two, creating a cutting error instead of giving the precise and predictable results desired.
Another problem is that the cut line should ideally be visible while the paper is unobstructed by any clamp or cutting mechanism, so that the overall image may be clearly seen as it is positioned before the cut is made.
Yet another problem is that many times it is required or desirable to make different cuts in succession which are done by different cutters. The need to change the cutter to make the different styles of cuts takes time and makes that task substantially more difficult.


A computer-implemented method of registering image data in the context of a biometric security system includes receiving an indication of image data, detecting a first point set and a second point set, based on the image data, and generating a metric of closeness between the first point set and the second point set. In addition, the computer-implemented method includes applying the metric of closeness to a transformation model to obtain a transformation parameter and transforming the first point set with respect to the second point set, based on the transformation parameter. Further, the computer-implemented method includes determining whether transformation of the first point set with respect to the second point set indicates convergence and, if so, generating an output indicative of an aligned point set.

The present description generally relates to biometric security systems. More specifically, the present description relates to biometric security systems that defend against fraudulent attempts at accessing a secure system.
Biometrics includes information about physical or behavioral characteristics ubiquitous in nature. Physical and behavioral characteristics such as a user's voice, face, iris, DNA, fingerprints, palmprints, vein patterns, and gait can be examined to distinguish one identity to another, or to identity a matching identity.
It is to be appreciated that applications using biometric information should emphasize the importance of accuracy. If a user's identity is mistakenly identified due to inaccuracies that arise when comparing characteristics, secure information can be vulnerable to attack. One way to improve accuracy is by increasing the amount of information that can be used to identify a user. For instance, using a high-resolution camera allows for a more fine-tuned analysis of the characteristics identified from the image. However, using more detailed information is not necessarily a cost effective solution, nor is it a solution that is easily accessible to many users. This is partly due to the fact that biometrics are increasingly used for security purposes across a wide variety of different devices. These devices often vary by their hardware capabilities, meaning that accuracy of results can be limited by the quality of information capable of being extracted by a given device. It is generally difficult to draw accurate conclusions about biometric information when the underlying data is uncontrolled or otherwise varies in quality, particularly when that quality is dependent on the source of the underlying data. Thus, security systems would benefit from the ability to rely on raw, uncontrolled data from various different sources to process accurate conclusions about biometrics.
This would require that systems be upgraded with improved hardware. For instance, one solution might be to use a high-resolution camera to capture detailed images. Detailed images provide a large set of data points, and more clarity when there is a 'dirty' sample, for a more robust analysis when comparing samples. However, this is not a cost-effective solution due to increased costs of the hardware as well as the processing power. In addition, the use of biometric applications is increasingly popular in the mobile device market. Devices used across many personal and commercial networks operate in relatively uncontrolled environments. Despite this, they continue to rely on biometrics for security purposes. There is generally a need to improve the efficiency of security systems, and particularly those making conclusions about identity with uncontrolled data.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Biometric recognition for uncontrolled acquisition environments


A base station in a wireless communication network multi-codes a shared packet data channel using a continually changing set of spreading codes, and dynamically updates the transmission frequency of messages identifying the spreading codes to be used for that multi-coding based on tracking the net gain in data throughput for the shared channel that is obtained by transmitting such messages. In a 1xEV-DV network context, for example, a Walsh code in the defined Walsh code space that is not contiguous with the Walsh codes currently allocated to multi-coding the 1xEV-DV Forward Packet Data Channel (F-PDCH) generally remains unavailable for such use until an updated Walsh Mask Broadcast (WMB) message is transmitted to the mobile stations being served on the F-PDCH. The base station thus is configured to determine the frequency at which to send such messages and thereby make the unavailable codes available for multi-coding use.

The present invention generally relates to wireless communication networks, and particularly relates to the use of channel coding resources on shared packet data channels.
Wireless communication networks based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) generally transmit different streams of information on different code channels using orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal codes. Walsh codes of varying length stand as one example of such codes, and they find widespread use in wireless networks based on cdma2000 and Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) standards, for example.
A traditional approach to using Walsh codes involves the assignment of specific Walsh codes of desired lengths to each user. Accordingly, one or more of the available Walsh codes at a given network transmitter are used to create the dedicated code channel(s) assigned to each user, and additional codes are dedicated as needed for the various broadcast, control, and overhead signaling channels. Control logic in the network handles allocating and deallocating individual codes from the available set of codes dynamically in response to users being added or dropped from the network on an ongoing basis.
Newer network standards depart from the traditional approach of dedicating Walsh code resources to individual users, at least on the forward data link. For example, IS-2000 Revisions C and D represent attempts at satisfying the ever-present push for higher speed mobile data services. These revisions, often referred to as "1xEV-DV" (shorthand for 1× radio transmission technology Evolution for high-speed integrated Data and Voice), introduce a high-speed shared forward packet data channel, referred to as the "Forward Packet Data Channel" or F-PDCH, that uses multiple Walsh codes to provide high-speed packet data services to the users sharing that channel. The High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) channel of W-CDMA makes similar use of multiple codes to increase the available data rates on a shared packet data channel.
In 1xEV-DV, the F-PDCH is a rate-controlled channel rather than a power-controlled channel. It comprises an ongoing series of time slots—e.g., 1.25 ms/slot—with each slot of the F-PDCH generally comprising a multi-coded data transmission targeted to a given one of the mobile stations sharing the F-PDCH. Some type of "scheduler" generally manages time-sharing of the channel, so that each user sharing the channel can be served within the constraints of that user's radio conditions. In particular, the data rate used to serve each user at any given instant depends on the radio conditions dynamically reported by that user, the transmit power currently available for the F-PDCH, and the number of Walsh codes currently available for the F-PDCH. Scheduling and other transmission information associated with the F-PDCH is sent to the mobile stations sharing that channel via a Forward Packet Data Control Channel (F-PDCCH).
For a given transmit power availability, the maximum data rate achievable on the F-PDCH at any given instant depends on the number of Walsh codes available to it. Coding on the F-PDCH uses multiples, not necessarily contiguous, of length-32 Walsh codes from the defined Walsh (code) space. This approach is called multi-code CDMA (MCCDMA), and the more codes available for multi-coding the F-PDCH transmissions, the higher the achievable data rate.
In contrast, in previous revisions of the IS-2000 standards, Walsh code resources were solely dedicated to individual users, and higher data rates for individual users were achieved by increasing the length of the Walsh codes dedicated to them. Hence, to make the multi-coding methodology used for the F-PDCH backwards compatible, the F-PDCH is configured to use the "leftover" Walsh codes not dedicated to other channels. With this approach, Walsh codes are assigned as needed to control and signaling channels, and to traditional voice and data users, with the remaining Walsh codes available for use on the F-PDCH. More particularly, the F-PDCH can use up to 28 length-32 Walsh codes, with the rest of the Walsh codes used for control and signaling purposes, and for conventional voice/data channels.
Mobile stations receiving data on the F-PDCH have to know exactly which Walsh codes are being used in multi-coding the transmissions. Theoretically, the Walsh codes used for the F-PDCH can change every 1.25 ms—the "slot" timing of the F-PDCH—as the conventional voice/data channels occupy or abandon Walsh codes with the arrival or departure of conventional voice/data users. Randomness in that arrival/departure process creates fragmentation in the Walsh space, resulting non-contiguous leftover codes in the Walsh space. Hence, the typical network Base Station (BS) transmits a broadcast message on the F-PDCCH to apprise mobile stations of the ever-changing allocation of leftover Walsh codes being used for the F-PDCH.
Thus, running the F-PDCH at the highest data rates permitted by the instantaneously prevailing conditions—transmit power availability, user radio conditions, etc.—depends on adding length-32 Walsh codes to the multi-coding set used for the F-PDCH, as soon they become available. However, adding a Walsh code the multi-coding set generally requires notifying the mobile stations of the change.
The 1xEV-DV standard defines a Walsh Mask Broadcast (WMB) message that is transmitted on the F-PDCCH, and which comprises a "bit map" marking pairs of length-32 Walsh codes available for multi-coding on the F-PDCCH. The WMB message comprises 21 bits and the time consumed on the F-PDCCH by its transmission displaces control information needed for controlling the F-PDCH. Transmission of the WMB message thus imposes a throughput penalty on the F-PDCH.
At the same time, however, transmission of the WMB message offers a throughput benefit in that it allows the mobile stations to be informed of one or more additional Walsh codes newly available for multi-coding on the F-PDCH. One challenge, then, lies in determining at any given time whether the benefit of transmitting an updated WMB message outweighs the penalty that will be incurred by its transmission.

Optimal frequency of walsh mask broadcast for forward high-speed packet data channels


A movie theater headset accessible by access codes which are unique for the movie for an additional cost when the ticket is purchased for the movie at movie theaters. Within the theater or venue the audio portion of the movie is transmitted electronically, either wirelessly or on a wired network, and the headset allows the user to hear the transmission only when the access code is entered. The headsets may be rented or purchased at the theater or venue. Electronic stores may also sell the headsets, or conversion kits for existing headsets, which permit the use of the access codes for movies.

The invention relates generally to movie theater equipment, and in particular to a movie theater headset. Three types of people are generally dissatisfied with the audio portion of the movie theater experience. Some patrons have sensitive hearing and would like to be able to turn down the volume, to prevent pain or injury. Others are hard of hearing, and would like to be able to turn up the volume. Others would like to enjoy a higher quality of sound than that provided by the theater's speakers, with the ability to control the volume as desired. A movie theater headset, which may be activated by an access code provided by theater personnel, would allow the user to control the volume and would resolve this problem. The invention herein described is not intended to be limited to movie theater applications, but is also expected to be of utility in other venues to include but not limited to bands, concerts, and sporting events such as football, soccer, NASCAR, etc.


A receiving device reduces a frequency of performing AF check per a predetermined amount of time during a reception of a digital broadcast through a hybrid broadcast to less than a frequency of performing AF check per a predetermined amount of time during a reception of an analog broadcast through the hybrid broadcast.

In Band On Channel (IBOC) system is a broadcast system capable of simultaneously implementing an analog broadcast and a digital broadcast by using the existing AM/FM frequency bands. This system was authorized by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in 2002, and has been recently increasingly spreading as the HD radio broadcast.
In a receiving device for Radio Data System (RDS) or Broadcast Data System (BDS) which are FM multiplex broadcast systems, an Alternative Frequency (AF) check is adopted. The AF check is an operation for examining reception qualities of alternative frequencies in order to find broadcast stations broadcasting identical contents in a better reception quality than that of the current received station when the reception status of the current received station deteriorates. When the alternative frequency has the better reception quality, the alternative frequency is continuously received. When the alternative frequency has worse reception quality, the original frequency is received.
Patent Literature 1 discloses an example of a conventional receiving device for receiving a broadcast wave in the IBOC system. This device includes a diversity receiving unit to control a diversity switching part to be in an enabled state and to select an output of a narrow-band filter when determining that the received broadcast wave does not include IBOC broadcast wave. On the other hand, when the diversity receiving unit determines that the received broadcast wave includes IBOC broadcast wave, the diversity switching part is controlled to be in a disenabled state and to select an output of a wide-band filter. According to those controls, the reception status of IBOC broadcast and the analog broadcast are optimized.
The conventional receiving device typified by Patent Literature 1, however, has a problem in that, if an alternative frequency is received even for a short time by performing AF check during reception of a digital broadcast, a "synchronization loss" may occur at a timing when acquiring digital data while the alternative frequency is switched to the current received station that has received the digital broadcast. This situation sometimes causes deterioration of the performance of receiving the digital broadcast.
The present invention is made to solve the problem mentioned above, and an object thereof is to acquire a receiving device capable of preventing a reception of digital broadcast from a synchronization loss caused by AF check.

Receiving device for receiving a hybrid broadcast


A circuit arrangement for controlling an amplitude of an oscillator signal is accomplished by comparing the oscillator signal to reference signals. The amplitude of the oscillator signal is capable of being adjusted by means of a control signal. The control signal is developed by a regulating circuit that depends upon a comparison result of the oscillator signal with a reference signal such that the amplitude of the oscillator signal adopts a desired value. At least one further reference signal is compared to the oscillator signal and the regulating circuit is adjusted depending on the comparison.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to controlling oscillator signals. In particular, the invention relates to oscillator signals for a wide range of frequencies.
2. Background Information
For microprocessor applications, oscillator circuits are required for providing a time-standard or clock pulse signal. The oscillator circuits fulfill requirements for limiting the power consumption of microprocessors by reducing the frequency during low processor demand, for reducing phase fluctuations between the triggering signals and the clock pulse signal, and minimizing harmonic distortions of the oscillator signal. In each case, amplitude regulation of the oscillator signal is provided.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,443 discloses a circuit arrangement for regulating the amplitude of an oscillator signal by comparing the oscillator signal with a reference signal and controlling the amplitude of the oscillator signal with a control signal. The control signal serves to adjust and set an amplitude of the oscillator signal generated by an oscillator circuit.
The problem with conventional amplitude regulation is that the characteristic properties for a regulating circuit are fixed and can only be optimized for a specific oscillator circuit and a specific frequency range. This presents a problem if the oscillator circuit is replaced with an external or internal replacement circuit to provide a different operating frequency.

Method and circuit arrangement for amplitude regulation of an oscillator signal


A thermally assisted magnetic recording head has a generator end surface facing an air bearing surface (ABS), and includes: a near-field light (NF light) generator that generates an NF light on the generator end surface and irradiates a magnetic recording medium with the NF light, and a main magnetic pole end surface positioned in the vicinity of the generator end surface; a main magnetic pole that emits a magnetic flux from the main magnetic pole end surface to the magnetic recording medium and a shield end surface positioned in the vicinity of the generator end surface; and a return shield that is magnetically linked to the main magnetic pole, and that absorbs the magnetic flux returning from the magnetic recording medium at the shield end surface. The main magnetic pole and the return shield are positioned to be on the same side with respect to the NF light generator in the down track direction, and the NF light generator does not overlap with the main magnetic pole either in the down track direction or in the cross track direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermally assisted magnetic recording head, and it particular relates to a magnetic circuit used for recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in a magnetic recording device typified by a magnetic disk apparatus, in association with high recording density, there is a demand for improvement in performance of thin film magnetic heads and magnetic recording media. As the thin film magnetic head, composite-type thin film magnetic heads are widely used in which a reproducing head having a magneto-resistive effect element (MR element) for reading, and a recording head having an induction-type electromagnetic transducer element for writing, are laminated on a substrate.
The magnetic recording medium is a discontinuous medium where magnetic grains are aggregated, and each magnetic grain has a single magnetic domain structure. Each recording bit on the magnetic recording medium is configured by a plurality of magnetic grains. In order to increase the recording density, asperities at the border between adjacent recording bits need to be decreased by decreasing the size of the magnetic grains. On the other hand, decreasing the size of the magnetic grains, i.e., decreasing in the volume of the magnetic grains, results in a decrease in the thermal stability of magnetization in the magnetic grains. In order to resolve this problem, it is effective to increase the anisotropic energy of the magnetic grains. However, the increased anisotropic energy of the magnetic grains enhances the coercive force of the magnetic grains, making it difficult to record the information on an existing magnetic head.
As a method for resolving this problem, a so-called thermally assisted magnetic recording is proposed. In this method, a magnetic recording medium with a high coercive force can be used. At the time of recording information, the simultaneous addition of a magnetic field and heat to a portion of the recording medium where the information increases the temperature of that portion. This results in information being recorded by the magnetic field at the portion where the coercive force is decreased. Hereafter, the magnetic head used for thermally assisted magnetic recording is referred to as a thermally assisted magnetic recording head.
In thermally assisted magnetic recording, a near-field light (NF light) is used in general as a means for adding heat to the magnetic recording medium. The NF light is a type of electromagnetic field formed around the periphery of a material, and is not restricted by a diffraction limit due to light wavelength. As a result, it is possible to focus light onto a very small domain on the order of tens of nm.
A thermally assisted magnetic recording head using an NF light is described in US2010/0103553. A magnetic circuit that applies a magnetic field to a magnetic recording medium extends with a roughly U-shape within a plane that is orthogonal to an air bearing surface (ABS) of the magnetic head and the substrate, and a magnetic flux is emitted from the recording front end part that is one end of the U-shape, and the magnetic flux is absorbed from the other end. An NF light generator is positioned inside the U-shape within the plane, i.e. between both ends of the magnetic circuit when viewed in the down track direction (recording medium circumferential direction). In order to place the portion that is heated by the NF light on the magnetic recording medium and the portion where the magnetic flux is emitted as close as possible, the NF light generator is positioned close to the recording front end part in the down track direction.
Since the NF light generator is close to the recording front end part of the magnetic circuit, the light that is generated by the NF light generator is transmitted to the magnetic circuit, and the recording front end part is heated by this light. In order to enhance the magnetic flux density, a cross section that is orthogonal to the ABS of the recording front end part is generally small. Consequently, as the front end part is heated to a high temperature, it causes damages to itself, and to a dielectric body, such as Al2O3 and the like, covering the periphery of the magnetic circuit, abnormal deformation of the NF light generator and the generation of cracks. Further, the damage or omission of a protective layer made of diamond like carbon (DLC) and the like that protects the ABS occurs, which also causes a collision between the magnetic recording medium and the magnetic head.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a thermally assisted magnetic recording head that easily prevents heating of the recording front end part by heat from the NF light generator.

Thermally assisted magnetic recording head with main magnetic pole apart from near field light generator


In MU-MIMO scenarios, a target terminal can be exposed to data streams intended for other terminals. If the target terminal is capable of interference cancellation, then a network node, such as a base station or RNC, can provide the target terminal with interference information so that the target terminal can efficiently cancel interferences due to these interfering data streams. The interference information may include one or more interfering configuration, each of which characterizes a related interfering data stream. The interference information can also include the identity of the other terminal that is the intended recipient of the interfering stream. The network node may determine whether the target terminal can benefit from the interference information. If so, the network node can provide the interference information to the target terminal.

Mobile data traffic is projected to grow at a phenomenal rate in the years to come. To cope with such growth, cellular network operators and equipment vendors are exploring various technologies to significantly improve network capacity. Utilization of more radio spectrum, heterogeneous network (HetNet) deployment, cell site densification, and coordinated multiple-point (CoMP) transmission and reception are among the ones that are currently being explored.
Interference mitigation receiver is also a focus area. It can improve the network capacity of existing deployments. It can also maximize the benefit of HetNet and CoMP. A post-decoding successive interference cancellation (IC) receiver can achieve open-loop MIMO capacity under the condition of perfect per-layer rate control. A MIMO stream is detected and decoded first and then cancelled from the received composite signal before the next stream is detected.
The traditionally hard-decision based interference cancellation scheme has been extended to soft-decision based interference cancellation schemes. This allows cancellation to still be performed even when the previously decoded stream is not error free, e.g., when the per-layer rate control is not perfect. Soft symbol estimates can be formed based on the decoder output bit likelihood ratios (or bit log likelihood ratios). When the bit likelihood ratios are of high magnitudes, indicating strong confidence in the bit estimates, the soft symbol estimates are likely to be identical to, or in the vicinity of, the actual transmitted symbols. In such cases, interference contributed by these symbols can be very much cancelled. On the other hand, if the bit likelihood ratios are of low magnitudes, indicating weak confidence in the bit estimates, the soft symbol estimates will be in the vicinity of the origin, resulting in almost no cancellation.
Regardless of whether hard or soft decision based symbols are used in interference cancellation, forming interfering symbol estimates using the decoder outputs is an important aspect. This allows the quality of interference symbol estimates to be boosted by the coding gain. If the interfering symbols come from a MIMO stream intended for the same user equipment (UE) as seen in FIG. 1A, the UE 120 (of network 100) is informed of the interfering data stream's modulation and coding rate, so-called transport format (TF) or modulation and coding scheme (MCS). In this instance, post-decoding interference cancellation can readily be performed. In this Figure, a cell 130 is associated with the serving base station 110, and streams 1 and 2 are respectively assumed to be the desired and interfering data streams from the perspective of the UE 120.
However, in multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) scenarios, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, the interfering data stream is intended for another UE 122. In this figure, it is assumed that the UEs 120, 122 are co-scheduled UEs and data streams 1 and 2 are respectively intended for UE's 120 and 122. Thus, from the perspective of the UE 120, stream 2 is again the interfering stream. Since the interfering data stream is intended for another UE 122, the co-scheduled UE 120 does not have the knowledge of the TF or MCS used in the interfering data stream. It is therefore more difficult to cancel the interfering data stream. In LTE, the encoded bits of a physical data channel are scrambled by, or according to, an identity number associated with the intended UE. Thus, a descrambling step is needed before decoding. It is therefore more difficult to cancel the interfering data stream in the MU-MIMO case.
Severe inter-cell interference can be experienced by a UE 120 at a cell edge. Such interference can originate from different base stations as illustrated in FIG. 1C. In this Figure, it is assumed that the UE 120 is at an edge of the cell 130 being served by the base station 130 and the base station 130 is transmitting data stream 1 intended to the UE 120. It is also assumed that the base station 112 corresponding to a cell 132 is transmitting data stream 132 to its UE 122. Thus, again from the perspective of the UE 120, data stream 2 is an interfering stream. Like the case of MU-MIMO, the TF, MCS or UE ID of the interfering data stream is not known to the victim UE 120 at the cell edge.
The problem of inter-cell interference can be more pronounced in a range-expansion zone of a HetNet deployment as illustrated in FIG. 1D. In this Figure, the serving base station is the pico base station 110 associated with cell 130, which is within a cell 132 served by a macro base station 112. A range expansion zone 140, which is the striped area within the cell 130, represents a zone where the path loss to the macro base station 112 is higher than that to the closest pico base station 110 while the received power from the macro base station 112 is higher than that from the closest pico base station 110 due to large transmit power difference.
When the UE 120 is in the range-expansion zone 140, it can be beneficial to offload the traffic to the pico base station 110 as this allows the macro and other spatially isolated pico base stations to serve other UEs using the same radio resources (code, time and frequency allocation). However, the victim UE 120 in the range-expansion zone can be subject to severe interference from the macro base station 112 if one or more data streams (e.g., data stream 2) are transmitted by the macro base station 112.
For MU-MIMO and other-cell interference, it is beneficial to cancel the interfering data stream based on post-decoding symbol estimates. Such cancellation can provide dramatic throughput increases for an affected UE in many typical scenarios.
Without the knowledge of the TF, MCS or UE ID used in the interfering data stream, a victim UE has to detect this information blindly or through eavesdropping. However, the complexity of blindly detecting the coding rate is very high. Eavesdropping on the signalling channel carrying TF or MCS is also very difficult as such signalling channel is masked by the intended UE's identity, which is not known to the victim UE. The UE IDs may be inferred by using blind (hypothesis-testing) approaches, but the related complexity is again high and the detection robustness in environments with fast user turn-around may be low. Similarly, blindly inferring the UE ID from an LTE data channel is extremely difficult.
In addition to TF, MCS or UE ID, radio resource allocation parameters also need to be known. In high-speed packet access (HSPA), this includes the information about scrambling and channelization codes allocated to the interfering data stream, whereas in LTE, this includes the information about the radio resource elements (REs) allocated to the interfering data stream. Blindly detecting such radio resource allocation parameters is also extremely difficult.
In addition to blind detection complexity issues, obtaining the configuration information via eavesdropping is complicated by the fact that the downlink (DL) control channel for the other UE(s) may be received with insufficient signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) by the victim UE, due to worse effective geometry and/or transmit power control (TPC) being applied to the control channel.
A base station can signal its current antenna configuration information to inactive UEs for facilitating channel quality indicator (CQI) estimation and has been proposed in Grant et al., US Publication 2007/0286124 A1 herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. According to Grant et al., such signaling is broadcasted. Furthermore, a special group identifier may be used to reach a group of mobile UEs. However, broadcasting antenna configuration information alone does not help much in facilitating interference cancellation at mobile UEs.

Signaling data channel's configuration information to facilitate interference cancellation


Systems and methods to provide security to an occupant of a first vehicle. In an example method, a computer provided in the first vehicle establishes a geofence that surrounds the first vehicle. The computer may detect a second vehicle that is present inside the geofence at one or more times and may react to the detection by obtaining data that provides information about an identity of the second vehicle. In one scenario, the data may be obtained via vehicle-to-vehicle communication between the first vehicle and the second vehicle. The computer may evaluate the data to identify a driver of the second vehicle and to confirm that the second vehicle is carrying out a stalking operation and may pose a security threat. The computer may then automatically contact a police officer to report the security threat.

A person with illicit intent often carries out a reconnaissance operation before executing a crime. In some cases, the person may track the movements of a potential target, such as when the target is heading home or going to a bank to make a deposit, in order to find out whether the target is carrying any valuables. Tracking the movements of the target may involve following a vehicle driven by the target. The target may notice that his/her vehicle is being followed by a suspicious looking vehicle and may lodge a complaint with the authorities, such as the police. The police may inform the target that no tangible action can be taken against the person at this time because no crime had been committed. In some cases, the police may respond to the target's notification and pull over the suspicious looking vehicle only to discover that the driver of the suspicious looking vehicle is an innocent individual who merely happens to be traveling along the same travel route as the complainant.
It is therefore desirable to provide a solution to address the issue described above.

Providing security via vehicle-based surveillance of neighboring vehicles


A kit for creating an illusion that suggests a Santa Claus visit in a premises is disclosed. The kit includes items revealed to a child audience. These items include a displayer at which small items can be placed, and amusement items for use by at least a member of the child audience in carrying out steps that the child audience is invited to believe will assist Santa Claus in making the visit. The kit also includes items at least temporarily concealed from the child audience. The concealed items include means for making boot print resembling marks to mark an illusionary trail of Santa Claus in the premises.

Various types of kits and items have been manufactured for carrying out plays, games and other types of childhood amusements. Some of these kits and items are intended to be used during special periods of the year such as Christmas, Easter and Halloween. These particular kits and items are often sold alongside holiday decorations and seasonal ornamentation.
Abandoned U.S. patent application pub. No. 2002/0128081 of Clarke et al. published Sep. 12, 2002, discloses a holiday kit for entertaining children. Embodiments of the kit include a Christmas kit and an Easter kit. The Easter kit includes a container for "bunny food" and a rabbit pawprint maker, in the form of a stamp. A different embodiment of the kit includes a container for "reindeer food" and reindeer hoofprint maker, also in the form of a stamp. According to one method of use disclosed in this published application, children who have awoken on Christmas day can be led to believe that Santa and his reindeer have visited due to the presence of hoofprints and a personalized note from Santa Claus in their house.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,507 of Cruz issued Jun. 4, 1996 discloses a kit for enacting the Tooth Fairy fable. A pillow case disclosed in this patent has a front pocket. This pocket is for temporary reception of a baby tooth. The parent of a child can remove the tooth from the front pocket while the child is sleeping. A container of dispensable gold-colored powder is also disclosed in this patent. The powder is dispensed to indicate the recent presence of the Tooth Fairy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,989 of Delson issued Mar. 7, 1995 discloses a toy castle having a hidden storage compartment. A child's baby tooth can be placed inside a cloth sack that fits inside the compartment. The toy castle is a keepsake that can serve as a memento for the coming of the Tooth Fairy.
Known holiday kits for entertaining children have inadequacies. For example, many holiday kits do not facilitate sufficient interaction between parents and their children, or do not contain items that allow the child to participate in an activity that is connected with the holiday in a manner in which the child would believe that their actions brought about a special event. Also, many kits do not address common worries that children experience in conjunction with the holiday, such as the fear that Santa Claus might not leave presents at their house. Furthermore, many holiday kits do not take into account the fact that children can have relatively short attention spans, and in consequence the items in these holiday kits are likely to hold the interest of a child for only a short period of time.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved kit for creating an illusion that suggests a Santa Claus visit in a premises.


This invention relates to modulating (e.g., inhibiting) protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B).

Diabetes is generally characterized by relatively high levels of plasma glucose (hyperglycemia) in the fasting state. Type 2 diabetics can often develop insulin resistance, in which the effect of insulin in stimulating glucose and lipid metabolism is diminished. Further, patients who have developed insulin resistance, but not type 2 diabetes, are also at risk of developing Syndrome X (metabolic syndrome). Syndrome X is characterized by insulin resistance, along with obesity (e.g., abdominal obesity), hyperinsulinemia, high blood pressure, relatively low HDL and relatively high VLDL. Although current treatments for type 2 diabetes can result in reduced levels of blood sugar, side effects can include weight gain, hyperglycemia, edema, and liver toxicity.
Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1b (PTP1b), a ˜50 kd intracelluar PTPase abundant in various human tissues, has been studied for its potential role as a negative regulator of insulin signaling. Some studies have shown that PTP1b is a negative regulator of insulin signaling. For example, mice deficient in PTP1b were healthy and showed increased insulin sensitivity and resistance to diet-induced obesity. These mice had lower glucose, insulin and triglyceride levels as well as improved insulin sensitivity as measured by glucose and insulin tolerance tests. PTP1b has also been implicated in attenuation of leptin receptor signaling. PTP1b deficient mice were shown to be more sensitive to leptin, which may explain in part their resistance to weight gain when placed on a high fat diet. Thus, the main target tissues for PTP1b inhibition appear to be insulin action in muscle and liver, as well as leptin signaling in the brain, while the commercial diabetes drugs, the peroxisome proliferative activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-γ) agonist class of insulin sensitizers, target adipose tissue. Thus inhibition of PTP1b provides a target for regulating a variety of cellular responses important to human diseases related to obesity and type 2 diabetes.


Methods and apparatuses for blending two images using vector table look up operations. In one aspect of the invention, a method to blend two images includes: loading a vector of keys into a vector register; converting the vector of keys into a first vector of blending factors for the first image and a second vector of blending factors for the second image using a plurality of look up tables; and computing an image attribute for the blended image using the blending factors.

FIG. 3 shows a typical computer system having at least one host processor 1301 and host memory 1302. The system core logic chip 1300, also known as a memory controller or a north bridge, facilitates data transfer between the host memory 1302 through a memory interface 1304, the host processor 1301 through a host interface 1303, graphics controller 1308 through a PCI-0/AGP interface 1306 and other peripherals such as input/output (I/O) controller 1309 through PCI-1 interface 1307. An IEEE-1394 bus 1310, also known as a FireWire bus, may be coupled to the I/O controller 1309. The FireWire bus 1310, in some applications, may be directly coupled to the system core logic chip 1300 through the PCI-1 interface 1307. The FireWire bus 1310 provides interfaces to other FireWire devices, such as FireWire storage devices (e.g., FireWire hard disks). Other components such as universal serial bus (USB), Ethernet device, etc., may be coupled to the system core logic 1300. Due to these interfaces, the system core logic 1300 requires a large number of pins. On the other hand, the logic required for the system core logic functions is relatively small. The large number of interface pins causes the area of the system core logic 1300 to become quite large. The small amount of logic combined with continuing advancement in silicon technology, results in the significant portion of that area being unused.
The concept of a media processor has been around for a while. A media processor typically refers to an engine designed for the processing of a combination of audio, video and graphics data. A media processor can also be used for other tasks that require similar processing features. The media processors have so far been designed as stand-alone processors and have enjoyed moderate success in processing video data. The media processors can be used in add-in boards to perform various tasks. FIG. 4A shows an example of a conventional media processor in a computer system. The system 1400 of FIG. 4A includes a host processor or processors 1401, host memory 1402, a graphics controller 1404, and a media processor 1405. The bus 1403 interconnects these various components together. Other peripherals may be connected to the bus 1403.
FIG. 5A shows an example of a conventional media processor. The media processor 1500 includes an input/output (I/O) interface, which receives and transmits data between the media processor and other components of the system, such as host processor and host memory 1506. The media processor 1500 may also include a cache memory 1504 for temporarily storing data before the instruction decoder 1502 decodes the instructions and transmits them to different functional units, such as vector processors 1503. The media processor 1500 may include one or more register files for storing input or output data of the functional execution units 1503.
A media processor may employ multiple functional units (e.g., adder, multiplier, shift, load/store units), and use very long instruction word (VLIW) programming. Depending on the target application, the media processor may have a combination of functional units of different kind and there may be more or fewer of these units. Some media processors only integrate vector-processing units (e.g., vector processors). Vector processors allow execution of a single instruction on multiple data elements. There are several vector processors available on the market (e.g., Motorola's AltiVec, SSE-2, etc.). The conventional media processors use the scalar processing unit available through the host processors. Thus, the vector data are processed by the vector processing units and the scalar data are processed by the scalar processing units through the host system. This arrangement may require the data to be transferred between the host system and the media processor, thus it may impact performance.
The conventional media processor may use very long instruction word (VLIW) programming. Depending on the target application, the media processor may have a combination of functional units of different kind and there may be more or few of the functional units. The VLIW contains one instruction slot for each of these units. The VLIW programming is based on issuing instructions to all of these functional units in the same clock cycle of the host processor. Not all instructions may need to be issued on each clock cycle. If an instruction slot in the VLIW instruction is not used in a particular cycle, it is assigned a code of no-operation (NOOP), but it still occupies bits in the VLIW instruction. This results in code expansion and therefore in memory, bandwidth, and instruction cache related inefficiencies.
Typically, a graphics controller may be coupled to the PCI bus. PCI bus supports multiple peripheral components and add-in cards at a peak bandwidth of 132 megabytes per second. Thus, PCI is capable of supporting full motion video playback at 30 frames per second, true color high-resolution graphics and 100 megabytes per second Ethernet local area networks. However, the emergence of high-bandwidth applications, such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics applications, threatens to overload the PCI bus. As a result, a dedicated graphics bus slot, known as an accelerated graphics port (AGP), has been designed and integrated into the computer system, such as AGP interface 1306 of FIG. 3. AGP operates at higher frequency and transfers data at a rate up to 1 GB/sec. AGP's greater bandwidth will allow game and 3D application developers to store and retrieve larger, more realistic textures in system memory rather than video memory, without incurring a dramatic performance hit to the rest of the system.
Many computer systems, such as system 1300 of FIG. 3, use virtual memory systems to permit the host processor 1301 to address more memory than is physically present in the main memory 1302. A virtual memory system allows addressing of very large amounts of memory as though all of that memory were a part of the main memory of the computer system. A virtual memory system allows this even though actual main memory may consist of some substantially lesser amount of storage space than is addressable.
As a result, a system with a graphics accelerator connected to the AGP port of the system core logic normally requires graphics address re-mapping table (GART) to translate a virtual address space to the physical address. However, since the AGP address ranges are designed dedicated to the AGP accelerator, it is a fixed memory range that may not be shared with other components in the system.
In addition, the media processor in an AGP system normally uses mapped non-coherent memory access. Non-coherent memory operations are those operations where data goes directly to and from memory and is returned directly back to the media processor and never goes through the processor cache. On the other hand, a coherent memory system always goes through the host processor. The data of a coherent memory system may exist in the host processor's cache or in the host memory. Referring to FIG. 3, when a coherent memory access request is issued, the host processor 1301 checks whether the host processor's cache (not shown) contains newer data than the host memory 1302. If the host processor cache contains newer data, the host processor 1301 flushes its caches into the host memory 1302 before the data is read from the host memory. Lack of coherent access of the conventional approaches posts an inconvenience to the applications.
As graphics data processing is getting more complex, improvements in media data processing systems increase the ability to handle more complex processing.
Many applications, such as motion estimation for video images compressed in Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) standard, curve fitting, and others, require the computation of the sum of absolute difference of two vectors of numbers in order to determine a measurement of the distance (or difference) between the two vectors. If vector vA contains elements    {vA0, vA1, . . . , vAn},and vector vB contains elements    {vB0, vB1, . . . , vBn},the absolute difference |vA−vB| contains elements    {|vA0−vB0|, |vA1−vB1|, . . . , |vAn−vBn|}.The sum of absolute difference of vA and vB is    |vA0−vB0|+|vA1−vB1|+ . . . +|vAn−vBn|.
In one method according to the prior art, an instruction for vector maximum (Vec_max), an instruction for vector minimum (Vec_min), and an instruction for vector subtract (Vec_sub) are required to compute the absolute difference of two vectors using a vector processor. For example, the following sequence of instructions may be used to compute the absolute difference between vectors vA and vB.    Vec_max(vMax, vA, vB)    Vec_min(vMin, vA, vB)    Vec_sub(vResult, vMax, vMin)
In the above instructions, Vec_max selects the larger ones from the elements of vector vA and the corresponding elements of vector vB to produce vector vMax; on the other hand, Vec_min selects the smaller ones from the elements of vA and the corresponding elements of vB to produce vector vMin; and Vec_sub subtracts vMin from vMax to produce vector vResult, which is the absolute difference of vectors vA and vB. Such a method takes two vector registers for the storage of intermediate results and three instructions to obtain the absolute difference of two vectors of numbers.
In another method according to the prior art, the following sequence of instructions is used to compute the absolute difference between vectors vA and vB.    Vec_sub(vTemp0, vA, vB)    Vec_sub(vTemp1, 0, vTemp0)    Vec_max(vResult, vTemp0, vTemp1)
In the above instructions, Vec_sub first produces vector vTemp0=vA−vB, then, vector vTemp1=vB−vA; and Vec_max selects the positive ones from the elements of vTemp0=vA−vB and the corresponding elements of vTemp1=vB−vA to produce vector vResult, which is the absolute difference of vectors vA and vB. Such a method also takes two vector registers for the storage of intermediate results and three instructions to obtain the absolute difference of two vectors of numbers.
Since many applications, such as application programs for performing motion estimation and motion compensation in decoding video images encoded using an MPEG standard, require the computation of the sum of absolute difference of two vectors, it is desirable to have an efficient method to compute the absolute difference of two vectors.
Vector processors allow simultaneous processing of a vector of data elements using a single instruction. Table look-up for a vector of data elements maps the data elements of the vector into another vector of data elements using one or an array of tables. In one scenario, each data elements of a vector is looked up from a look-up table, and looking up the data element from the look-up table is independent of looking up other elements from other look-up tables and thus multiple look-ups are preformed sequentially over time.
In one embodiment of the prior art, a vector permutation instruction in a vector processor is used to implement table look-up for a vector of data elements. The instruction for vector permutation generates a new vector of data, vD, selected from two vectors of elements, vA and vB, according to a vector of index data, vI. For example, AltiVec, a vector processor by Motorola, implements vector permutation instruction Vec_perm. When executing    Vec_perm(vD, vA, vB, vI)the vector processing unit receives vectors vA, vB, and vI from a vector register file and produces vector vD. Vectors vA and vB are vectors of 16 data elements. Vectors vI is a vector of 16 integer numbers, containing control information to select 16 numbers from the 32 numbers in vectors vA and vB into vector vD. Each of the 16 integer numbers is encoded with i) information determining whether to select entries from either vA or vB, and ii) information determining the index for selecting a particular entry from a vector (vA or vB).
While this approach can be used to perform table look-up for a vector of data from a single small look-up table, there are severe limitations in its practical applications in processing large look-up tables. The indices for the look-up tables must be preprocessed to generate the index information in vector vI. The size of the look-up table that can be used in a table look-up in a single instruction is restricted by the number of bits allocated to represent the index information in vector vI, and by the total number of data elements that can be held by vector registers vA and vB. In a typical vector processor, two vector registers (vA and vB) can hold only 32 8-bit data elements. In general, it is necessary to use a program of multiple sequential instructions to implement vector look-up using one or an array of look-up tables. Further, due to the limited size of a vector register file, only a part of look-up table entries may be loaded into the vector register file when large look-up tables are used. Thus, when a set of large look-up tables are used, table look-up for a vector of data elements requires repeatedly loading table entries into the vector register file. Thus, it can be a very inefficient operation.
There are hardware implementations for table look-up. For example, most display hardware incorporates table look-up functionalities for gamma correction of displayed images. However, such functionality is very limited; and such hardware cannot be used to perform general purpose table look-up for a vector of data elements from an array of look-up tables.
Since many applications, such as software programs for computing pixel values in image processing, require the mapping of a set of values to another set of values using a set of different tables, it is desirable to have an efficient method to perform table look-up for a vector of data elements.
Variable length coding is a coding technique often used for lossless data compression. Codes of shorter lengths are assigned to frequently occurring fixed-length data to achieve data compression. Variable length encoding is widely used in compression of video data. For example, video images in accordance with JPEG, MPEG or DV standards are compressed using variable length encoding.
Variable length code words used in JPEG, MPEG, or DV compression schemes are typically from 2 to 16 bits in length. Thus, a single look-up table with 16-bit indices has potentially 64K entries. However, the majority of the 64K entries are redundant entries.
In one prior art embodiment, small look-up tables are arranged in a branched tree data structure with pointer logic to track the decoded value during decoding. A series of look-up operations using a number of small tables, typically, as many as four separate tables, are necessary in order to decode a code word.
To reduce the number of look-up operations and associated overhead, U.S. Pat. No. 6,219,457, incorporated by reference herein, describes a method for variable length decoding using only two look-up tables. A code word is first preprocessed to generate an index for a first look-up table to look up an entry for the generation of a pointer for a variable length code table. The entry looked up from the variable length table, using the pointer obtained from the first look-up table, provides information necessary to decode the code word. However, two sequential look-up operations, as well as associated overhead for preprocessing, are necessary to decode a code word.
Matrix transposition is a linear algebra operation commonly used in many fields of applications, such as in signal and image processing. The software implementations of matrix transposition are computationally expensive. When implemented on a scalar CPU, matrix transposition is performed by reading the elements of a matrix one element at a time and storing them in a transposed order.
The amount of computation can be greatly reduced by utilizing vector processing units. The efficiency of vector processing depends on the vector width and the flexibility of the instruction set supported by the execution units. One efficient method for matrix transposition on a vector processor (e.g., AltiVec by Motorola with vectors of 128-bit width) uses a series of vector merge instructions. An vector merge instruction interleaves halves of the elements from two vector registers to generate a new vector. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,355 describes methods to transpose a matrix using various data restructuring instructions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,420 describes a matrix transposition device using a plurality of storage devices which is arranged so as to be able to input and output column vectors in parallel. However, the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,420 is specialized for matrix transposition and is difficult to be adapted for other applications.
An image can be represented by a matrix of points referred to as pixels. Each pixel has an associated color. Typically, a color may be represented by three components. The three different components used to represent the color define a color space. Many color spaces are presently used in various applications. For example, in computer graphics colors are represented in a RGB color space, where a color is represented by the levels of Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B). In television equipment, colors are presented in a YUV space, where a color is represented by the levels of intensity (Y) and color differences (U and V). A YCrCb color space is a scaled and offset version of the YUV color space color, where the Y component represents luminance (intensity or picture brightness), the Cb component represents the scaled difference between the blue value and the luminance (Y), and the Cr component represents the scaled difference between the red value and the luminance (Y). Since digitized YCrCb components occupy less bandwidth when compared to digitized RGB (Red-Green-Blue) components, compressed video signals (e.g., DV signals) represent colors in a YCrCb space. The YCrCb color space was developed as part of a world-wide digital component video standard. However, many imaging and displaying devices generally use colors in a RGB space. Thus, a multimedia system must convert a video image from a YCrCb color space to a computer image in a RGB color space. Other commonly used color spaces include HLS, HSI, and HSV. Therefore, it is necessary to convert colors represented in one color space into colors represented in another color space for a set of pixels in an image. For a video stream, it is necessary to convert the color components for each frame of images in the video stream.
There are many techniques for color space conversion. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,510,852 describes a method and apparatus for performing color space conversion between digitized YCrCb components and digitized RGB components using a color look up table unit which is provided with transformation component values based on a selected one of two sets of conversions. A plurality of adders are coupled to the lookup table unit so as to receive the outputs thereof and generate individual color components of converted space by adding the transformation component values corresponding to each of the individual color components of converted space relative to the color components of original space. However, since dedicated hardware is required to perform color space conversion according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,510,852, such an approach is generally costly and is difficult to adapt to different configurations.
Blending two images into a new image is a common operation in many applications. For example, a video editing application may blend the images from two different video streams to create a new video stream with special effects. The general blending equation for computing an attribute of a pixel in a new image using those in two source images can be written as:D=K1*S1+K2*S2
where D is the resulting attribute of the pixel; S1 and S2 are the attributes of the pixel in the source images; and K1 and K2 are the blending factors for the corresponding source images.
The blending factors may be constants, but are more generally functions of alpha1 and/or alpha2. In the most common case, K1 equals alpha1 and K2 equals one minus alpha1. The alpha values, known as "alpha" in the graphics world and "key" in the video world, generally represent the desired opacity of the associated image pixel. Generally, the alpha value is not constant over an entire image.
Blending is generally implemented using 32 bit, IEEE 754 compliant floating point arithmetic to avoid visually distracting artifacts. However, video source data, including "key", is usually supplied in 8 or 10 bit integer format for each attribute; hence it is normally required to convert the integer source data to floating point data before applying the general blend equation and then convert the result back to integer data post blending.
To edit video streams, a video editing software application may be required to decode in real time several video streams in order to create video effects, such as blending of video sequences, picture in picture, titling, etc. The resulting uncompressed video images obtained after editing need to be compressed for storage. Compression/decompression of video data is an expensive operation. Add-in-boards are frequently used to accelerate the process of compressing or decompressing video data. Since such add-in-boards are quite expensive, video editing so far has been in the domain for video professionals. Consumer video editing software applications implemented on general purpose processors are slow and suffer from poor quality due to massive computation requirements.
The DV format, such as DV25 or DV50, due to its linear nature (i.e., the consecutive frames of video data are encoded in their display order), relatively low information loss (by using high bit rate coding) and the constant bit rate (i.e., each compressed frame has a constant size) is a preferred format for video editing on the desktop computers. Most of the digital video cameras produce DV bit streams. The compression and decompression processes of DV video streams are briefly outlined below.
DV compression belongs to a family of constant bit rate block based transform coding techniques. The input to a DV encoder is a 29.97 frames per second digital video stream in YUV color space. DV standards support various sampling structures in YUV color space, such as 4:1:1, 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 image sampling structures. An input video stream is processed in the units of 8×8 two-dimensional blocks of pixels. Blocks are organized into macro blocks, each consisting of four or six 8×8 pixel blocks. Macro blocks are organized into segments. A segment comprises 5 macro blocks (e.g., 30 blocks) and is compressed into a constant 400-byte bit stream.
Following the traditional transform coding approach, each pixel block is transformed into frequency domain using Forward Discrete Cosine Transformation (FDCT). The transformed coefficients are further quantized and entropy coded with variable length code words. Each compressed macro block in a segment has a header and a number of fixed size blocks (e.g., 4 luminance blocks and 2 chrominance blocks). In a segment, the code words for each block are concatenated before being distributed into the corresponding compressed-data area for the block in pass 1. In pass 2, the remaining of the blocks after the pass 1 operation that cannot be fitted into the corresponding compressed-data area are distributed in to their corresponding compressed macro block. In pass 3, the remainder after the pass 2 operation are distributed into the video segment.
The decompression process creates pixel data from a DV bit stream by performing reverse operations, namely Variable Length Decoding (VLD), Inverse Scaling (IS) and Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (IDCT). Since code words are distributed in a segment in 3 passes, three corresponding passes of VLD operations can be used to recover all the information encoded using variable length code words.
The documentation of standards IEC 61834 and SMPTE 314M contains detailed descriptions about DV standards. Other video standards and image formats, such as MPEG and JPEG, also involves discrete cosine transformation, quantization, and variable length decoding. The general procedure to compress and decompress such video streams or images are the same.
Various implementations of DV decoders currently exist in the industry. Some dedicated chipsets are used in hardware implementations; and there are software applications for general purpose processors. The drawbacks of the hardware implementations using dedicated chipsets are the high cost, lack of scalability, and lack of compatibility with other components in video systems. The drawback of the software decoders on the general purpose CPUs is that the performance of a decoder highly depends on the computing environment, such as the run time usages of the CPU, memory, cache, and I/O devices. The instruction sets of general purpose processors are not well suited for processing encoded bit streams.
Variable Length Decoding (VLD), when implemented on a general purpose processor, is limited in performance by the operations for table look-up and conditional branch. The Huffman code used in a DV video stream can be up to 16 bits in length. One of the most efficient methods to perform VLD on a general purpose processor is to use a single look-up table. However, the single look-up table contains 64K entries, each entry consisting of a triplet of {run, level, code length}. Since each entry stored in system memory may require 16 bits, the single look-up table may require 128 Kbytes of system memory. The look-up table may be resident in the system memory. A single look-up table approach is highly inefficient from caching point of view. The cache miss penalty can dramatically reduce the performance. Multi-table approaches reduce the amount of memory required by the look-up table by looking-up sequentially in a number of smaller look-up tables, and thus suffers from increased execution time due to multiple sequential look-up operations and associated overheads.
The video editing applications require decoding several video streams simultaneously. Further, with High Definition TV (HDTV), the amount of processing power required for decompression can be very high. Thus, it is desirable to have efficient methods and apparatuses for variable length decoding bit streams.


The present invention relates to a duct and ventilation system for livestock production buildings. The building comprises a plurality of containment rooms for livestock, a pit beneath the room, an attic above the rooms, a ventilation duct for each room and a ventilation house coupled to the pit. The containment rooms have slatted floors. The attic includes a vent. Each ventilation duct includes a manually actuable air flow control valve. The ventilation house includes an exhaust fan and is adapted to draw air through the vent and through the attic to one of the ventilation ducts and into one of the rooms through the slatted floor and out via the ventilation house. The building may include a manifold area adjacent the rooms and in fluid communication with the attic. Ventilation ducts comprise a laminar polymer sheet having a generally rectangular shape and forming a corner generally parallel to first and second side edges, a second laminar and planar polymer sheet having a first edge and a second edge, and a plurality of brackets. The first edge of the second sheet attaches to the first sheet such that the second sheet is substantially parallel to the corner. The brackets position the first sheet and the second sheet in the room.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to livestock production buildings and more particularly deals with production building ventilation and temperature control systems.
2. Background Art
The optimum feeding and finishing conditions for livestock and particularly hogs and pigs are a function of the total environment in which they live. Therefore, proper temperature and ventilation control are important to their growth, health and welfare. These same conditions are necessary to provide a comfortable and healthy working environment for the animal caretakers.
Additionally, it is important to provide cooling air to reduce or prevent temperature stress on the livestock. However, it is also important to avoid dramatic temperature changes which may in itself cause temperature shock or stress to the livestock. Therefore, as well as controlling the rate, velocity and direction it is important to facilitate the tempering of cooler intake air before it comes into contact with the livestock. During periods of hot weather, the combination of air temperature and the heat produced by the livestock requires a substantial volume of cooling air. The optimal ambient condition depends on the number, type and age of the livestock in the building, for example, younger and smaller pigs will require less cooling air because they put off less body heat and are not as closely confined.
Little cooling air is required during cold weather. Nevertheless minimal ventilation is still required to remove moisture and for the health of the livestock and the workers. Under cold weather conditions a minimum fresh air supply is required but the temperature of the fresh air must be controlled to prevent temperature shock to the livestock. This fresh air must also be evenly distributed throughout the pig space.
Current livestock ventilation apparatus have many inadequacies primarily due to the fact that ventilation apparatus merely draw a ventilating air flow through the buildings. Such apparatus failed to properly control the air flow velocity, rate and distribution of the incoming fresh air.
One known prior art apparatus discloses an animal production building with pit ventilation through a slatted floor using both intake and exhaust fan. Air is accumulated in the attic and is pushed and pulled through the ceiling past the animals into the pit.
Another known prior art apparatus discloses a livestock consignment house having a slatted floor, a disposal pit, and a reversible fan in the roof such that air can be pushed or pulled past the animals through the pit.
Yet another known prior art apparatus discloses a building ventilation system using pit ventilations having a plurality of openings in the ceiling which are selectively controlled by mechanically complex movable baffle device.
One problem with the existing livestock production buildings relates to the conditioning of the intake air. Often the blending and mixing of intake air fails to provide a constant temperature range or blends stale air with incoming fresh air.
Another problem with the existing livestock production buildings is the inability to individually control the ventilation for each of the rooms in the building except with multiple controllers and sensors.
Still another problem is the inability to distribute fresh air evenly and completely throughout the environment especially at minimum ventilation rates causing dead or stale air spots in the room.
Another problem of the current livestock production buildings relates to the uneven air flow in individual rooms especially at minimum ventilation rates.
Still another problem of the current livestock production buildings is the use of complex mechanical devices that will require maintenance.
Another problem of the current livestock production buildings is the loss of building heat with the exhaust air during cold weather.
The present invention provides for individual room ventilation and temperature control in a livestock production building with pit ventilation having a manifold area and/or manually actuable air flow control valve and ventilation ducts for each room.
The livestock production building of the present invention includes at least one ventilation house, an attic, a manifold area, a livestock containment area, and a pit below the livestock containment area. The ventilation house contains exhaust fans that pull intake air into the attic which is then provided to the manifold area. The manifold area allows the mixing and tempering of the intake air to a constant temperature before distributing the air to the livestock containment area. The livestock containment area includes a plurality of containment rooms, each having their own manually controllable flow valve. Each containment room includes a ventilation duct or ducts coupled to the flow control valve. The air from the ventilation ducts is distributed over the animals and pulled into the pit. The air in the pit is exhausted by the fans in the ventilation house. The ventilation house may also includes a heat exchanger directly coupled to the manifold area for use in colder weather.
One advantage of the present invention is the provision of a manifold area for tempering and mixing of the intake air to a constant temperature using all fresh air.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of manually actuable air flow control valve for each room to allow control of the ventilation in individual rooms depending upon the size and age of the livestock therein.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a ventilation duct or ducts in each room for evenly distributing the air flow in the room.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a duct system to carry and distribute fresh air evenly and completely throughout the environment.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a system free of mechanical actuators that require substantial maintenance.
Another advantage of the present invention is the use of one controller for a multiple room building.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a heat recovery system that is integrated into the ventilation system. The heat recovery system is designed for minimal maintenance and long life.
The present invention provides a livestock production building comprising a plurality of containment rooms for livestock, a pit beneath the room, an attic above the room, a ventilation duct for each room and a ventilation house coupled to the pit. The containment rooms have slatted floors. The attic includes a vent. Each ventilation duct includes a manually actuable air flow control valve. The ventilation house includes an exhaust fan and is adapted to draw air through the vent and into the attic to one of the ventilation ducts and into the rooms through the slatted floor and out via the ventilation house.
The present invention also provides a livestock production building comprising a containment room for livestock, a pit beneath the room, an attic above the room, a ventilation duct coupled to the attic to distribute air to the room, and a ventilation house coupled to the pit. The containment room has slatted floors. The attic includes a vent. The ventilation duct defines a plurality of separate air passages which include a plurality of openings allowing air to flow into the room. The ventilation house includes an exhaust fan and is adapted to draw air through the vent and into the attic to one of the ventilation ducts and then to the room through the slatted floor and out via the ventilation house.
The present invention also provides a livestock production building comprising a plurality of containment rooms for livestock, a pit beneath the room, an attic above the room, a manifold area adjacent the room and include communication with the attic, a ventilation duct in each of the rooms to distribute air within the rooms and in fluid communication with the manifold area, and a ventilation house coupled to the pit. The containment rooms have slatted floors. The attic includes a vent. The ventilation house includes an exhaust fan and is adapted to draw air through the vent and into the attic, then into the manifold area to one of the ventilation ducts and into one of the rooms through the slatted floor and out via the ventilation house.
The present invention provides a duct for providing air distribution in a room having walls and a ceiling. The duct comprises first and second laminar polymer sheets and a plurality of brackets. The first polymer sheet has a generally rectangular shape and forms a corner generally parallel to the first and second side edges. The second polymer sheet has a first edge and a second edge with the first edge attached to the first polymer sheet such that the second sheet is substantially parallel to the corner. The brackets position the first sheet and the second sheet in the room.

Individual room duct and ventilation system for livestock production building