An apparatus for normalizing speech feature elements in a signal derived from a spoken utterance. The apparatus includes an input, a processing unit and an output. The input receives speech feature elements transmitted over a channel that induces a channel specific distortion in the speech feature elements. The processing unit is coupled to the input and is operative for altering the speech feature elements to generate normalized speech feature elements. The normalized speech feature elements simulate a transmission of the speech feature elements over a reference channel that is other than the channel over which the transmission actually takes place. The apparatus can be used as a speech recognition pre-processing unit to reduce channel related variability in the signal on which speech recognition is to be performed.

This invention relates to the field of speech recognition and more particularly to a method and apparatus for normalizing channel specific feature elements in a signal derived from a spoken utterance. In general the method aims to compensate for changes induced in the feature elements of the signal as a result of a transmission of the signal through a certain communication channel.
In a typical speech recognition application, the user inputs a spoken utterance into an input device such as a microphone or telephone set. If valid speech is detected, the speech recognition layer is invoked in an attempt to recognize the unknown utterance. In a commonly used approach, the input speech signal is first pre-processed to derive a sequence of speech feature elements characterizing the input speech in terms of certain parameters. The sequence of speech feature elements is then processed by a recognition engine to derive an entry from a speech recognition dictionary that most likely matches the input speech signal. Typically, the entries in the speech recognition dictionary are made up of symbols, each symbol being associated to a speech model.
Prior to the use of a speech recognition system, the entries in the speech recognition dictionary as well as the speech models are trained to establish a reference memory and a reference speech model set. For speaker-independent systems, training is performed by collecting samples from a large pool of users. Typically, for a speaker-independent system, a single speech model set is used for all speakers while in a speaker-specific system, each user is assigned a respective speech model set. Speaker-specific systems are trained by collecting speech samples from the end user. For example, a voice dictation system where a user speaks and the device translates his words into text will most likely be trained by the end user (speaker-specific) since this training fashion can achieve a higher recognition accuracy. In the event that someone else than the original user wants to use the same device, that device can be retrained or an additional set of speech models can be trained and stored for the new user. As the number of users becomes large, storing a separate speaker specific speech model set for each user becomes prohibitive in terms of memory requirements. Therefore, as the number of users becomes large, speech recognition systems tend to be speaker independent.
In addition to interacting with different users, it is common for a speech recognition system to receive the signal containing the spoken utterance on which the speech recognition process is to be performed over different communication channels. In a specific example, a speech recognition system operating in a telephone network may process speech signals originating from a wireline communication channel or wireless communication channel, among others. Generally, such speech recognition systems use a common speech model set across the different communication channels. However, the variability between communication channels results in variability in the acoustic characteristics of the speech signals. Consequently, the recognition performance of a speech recognition system is adversely affected since the speech models in the common speech model set do not reflect the acoustic properties of the speech signal, in particular the changes induced in the signal by the channel used for transporting the signal. Since different channels can be used to transport the signal toward the speech recognition apparatus, and each channel induces different changes in the signal it is difficult to adapt the speech models such as to accurately compensate for such channel specific distortions introduced in the feature elements.
A commonly used technique to overcome this problem is exhaustive modeling. In exhaustive modeling, each communication channel that the speech recognition system is adapted to support is associated to a channel specific speech model set. For each channel, a plurality of speech samples are collected from the end-users in order to train a channel specific speech model set.
A deficiency in exhaustive modeling is that it requires a large amount of training data for each communication channel. This represents an important commissioning expense as the number of environmental and channel conditions increases.
Another common approach to improve the performance of speech recognition systems is adaptation: adjusting either speech models or features in a manner appropriate to the current channel and environment. A typical adaptation technique is model adaptation. Generally, model adaptation starts with reference speech models derived from one or more spoken utterances over a reference communication channel (say wireline communication channel) and then, based on a small amount of speech from a new communication channel (say a wireless communication channel), new channel-specific models are iteratively generated. For a more detailed explanation on model adaptation, the reader is invited to consult R. Schwartz and F Kubala, Hidden Markov Models and Speaker Adaptation, Speech Recognition and Understanding: Recent Advances, Eds: P. Laface et R. De Mori, Springer-Verlag, 1992; L. Neumeyer, A. Sankar and V. Digalakis, A Comparative Study of Speaker Adaptation Techniques, Proc. Of EuroSpeech ""95, pp. 1127-1130, 1995; J.-L. Gauvain, G.-H. Lee, Maximum a Posteriori Estimation for Multivariate Gaussain Mixture Observations of Markov Chains, IEEE. Trans. on Speech and Audio Processing, Vol.2, April 1994, pp. 291-298; and C. J. Leggetter, P. C. Woodland, Maximum Likelihood Linear Regression for Speaker Adaptation of Continuous Density Hidden Markov Models, Computer, Speech and Language, Vol.9, 1995, pp. 171-185. The content of these documents is hereby incorporated by reference.
A deficiency in the above-described methods is that, in order to obtain channel-specific models providing reasonable performance, a relatively large amount of data that may not be readily available is required.
Consequently, there is a need in the industry for providing a method and apparatus to compensate for channel specific changes induced in the feature elements of a signal derived from a spoken utterance, the signal being intended for processing by a speech recognition apparatus.
In accordance with a broad aspect, the invention provides an apparatus for normalizing speech feature elements in a signal derived from a spoken utterance. The apparatus has an input for receiving the speech feature elements which are transmitted over a certain channel. The certain channel is a path or link over which data passes between two devices and is characterized by a channel type that belongs to a group of N possible channel types. Non-limiting examples of possible channel types include a hand-held channel (a path or link established by using a hand-held telephone set), a wireless channel (a path or link established by using a wireless telephone set) and a hands-free channel (a path or link established by using a hands-free telephone set) among a number of other possible channel types.
The apparatus includes a processing unit coupled to the input. The processing unit alters or skews the speech feature elements to simulate a transmission over a reference channel that is other than the channel over which the transmission actually takes place.
The signal output by the apparatus is suitable for processing by a speech recognition apparatus.
One of the benefits of this invention is an increase of the speech recognition accuracy by a reduction in the variability introduced in the speech signal on which the recognition is made by the particular channel over which the signal is transmitted.
The reference channel can correspond to a real channel (for example, the hands-free channel) or it can be a virtual channel. Such a virtual channel does not physically exist. It is artificially defined by certain transmission characteristics that are arbitrarily chosen.
In a specific non-limiting example of implementation, the processing unit classifies a speech feature element that contains channel specific distortions in a class of speech feature elements selected from a set of possible classes of speech feature elements. This classification is done at least in part on the basis of acoustic characteristics of the speech feature element. The processing unit then derives transformation data from a set of possible transformation datum on the basis of the class to which the feature element has been assigned. The processing unit processes the feature element containing the channel specific distortion on the basis of the transformation data to generate a normalized speech feature element.
In accordance with another broad aspect, the invention provides a method for normalizing speech feature elements in a signal derived from a spoken utterance. The method comprises receiving the speech feature elements transmitted over a certain channel, the certain channel being characterized by a channel type that belongs to a group of N possible channel types. The method includes altering the speech feature elements at least in part on the basis of the channel type to generate normalized speech feature elements. The normalized speech feature elements simulate a transmission of the speech feature elements over a reference channel that is other than the channel over which the actual transmission takes place.
In accordance with another broad aspect, the invention provides a computer readable medium comprising a program element suitable for execution by a computing apparatus for implementing the above-described method.
In accordance with another broad aspect, the invention further provides a computer readable storage medium holding a data structure that stores of a plurality of transformation sets. Each transformation set is associated to an identifier allowing uniquely distinguishing the transformation sets from one another. Each transformation set includes at least one transformation data element allowing normalizing a speech feature element.
In accordance with another broad aspect, the invention provides an apparatus for generating a transformation set associated to a given communication channel. The apparatus has a stereo database, a processing unit and an output. The stereo database includes a plurality of data element pairs, each data element pair being derived from a spoken utterance. Each data element pair includes a first data constituent derived from the spoken utterance conveyed over a reference communication channel and a second data constituent derived from the spoken utterance conveyed over the given communication channel.
The processing unit is coupled to the stereo database. The processing unit groups the data element pairs to generate a set of classes. A certain data element pair is associated to a certain class at least in part on the basis of acoustic characteristics of the certain data element pair. The processing unit then processes the set of classes generated to derive a transformation set, the transformation set including a plurality of transformation data elements.
For the purpose of this specification, the expression xe2x80x9cspeech feature elementxe2x80x9d is used to designate an element that alone or in combination with other such elements characterizes or defines acoustically speech sound information. Examples of speech feature elements include feature vectors. The feature vectors may be comprised of spectral parameters, audio signal segments, band energies and cepstral parameters, among others.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying figures.

Method and apparatus for normalizing channel specific speech feature elements


The present disclosure describes techniques of synchronizing subtitles in live broadcast The disclosed techniques comprise obtaining a source signal and a simultaneous interpretation signal in a live broadcast; performing voice recognition on the simultaneous interpretation signal in real-time to obtain corresponding translation text; delaying the simultaneous interpretation signal to obtain a first delayed signal; delaying the source signal to obtain a second delayed signal; obtaining proofreading results of the first delayed signal and the corresponding translation text; determining proofread subtitles based on the proofreading results; and sending the proofread subtitles and the second delay signal to a live display interface.

Video news live broadcast generally broadcasts news online to users through streaming media servers, and the users watch the video news through clients. However, as the video news live is broadcasted simultaneously, cannot be translated in advance, and users in different countries cannot quickly understand the content of the news due to language problems, which limits the regionalism of the news live.

Implementation method and system of real-time subtitle in live broadcast and device


Method and apparatus for modifying or reducing effects of signals added to a video signal to permit more unhampered copying and/or viewing thereof. In one version the method and apparatus replace or level shift portions of a video signal to overcome effects caused by these pulses. Typically these pulses are added for copy protection purposes. Modification of the video signal allows for more unhampered viewing and/or copying of the video signal.

1. Field of the Invention
Enhancements to a video anticopy process, the enhancements causing additional degradation to the picture quality when a copy of a protected recording is played back, and additionally which reduce the viewability of unauthorized recordings of the protected recording.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Video anticopy processes are well known. An example is Ryan, U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,603 issued Dec. 23, 1986, incorporated by reference which discloses (see Abstract):
xe2x80x9cA video signal is modified so that a television receiver will still provide a normal color picture from the modified video signal while the video tape recording of the modified video signal produces generally unacceptable pictures. This invention relies on the fact that typical videocassette recorder automatic gain control systems cannot distinguish between the normal sync pulses (including equalizing or broad pulses) of a conventional video signal and added pseudo-sync pulses. Pseudo-sync pulses are defined here as any other pulses which extend down to normal sync tip level and which have a duration of at least 0.5 microseconds. A plurality of such pseudo-sync pulses is added to the conventional video signal during the vertical blanking interval, and each of said pseudo-sync pulses is followed by a positive pulse of suitable amplitude and duration. As a result, the automatic gain control system in a videotape recorder will make a false measurement of video level which causes an improper recording of the video signal. The result is unacceptable picture quality during playback.xe2x80x9d
Column 2, beginning at line 5 states that the added pulse pairs (each pair being a negative-going pseudo-sync pulse followed by a positive-going xe2x80x9cAGCxe2x80x9d pulse) cause an automatic level (gain) control circuit in a videotape recorder to erroneously sense video signal level and produce a gain correction that results in an unacceptable videotape recording.
Therefore this prior art xe2x80x9cbasic anticopy processxe2x80x9d causes an abnormally low amplitude video signal to be recorded when a copy is attempted. Some of the effects observed when the illegal copy is replayed are horizontal tearing (positional displacement) and vertical displacement of the picture. Whether this occurs or not is often largely dependent on the picture content, i.e. presence of white (light) and black (dark) areas in the picture. Therefore this prior art process, while generally providing excellent copy protection, with some combinations of videotape recorders (such as VCRs) and television sets provides a picture viewable by persons willing to tolerate a poor quality picture.
Also, with certain VCRs and TV sets the various well known prior art copy protection processes provide little picture degradation. Certain markets for prerecorded video material have a high rate of piracy, i.e. illegal copying of videotapes, in spite of copy protection and these viewers apparently are relatively insensitive to the poor quality picture in illegal copies caused by the prior art copy protection processes. Thus there is a need for copy protection process enhancements which degrade the quality of the picture even more than that of the prior art processes.
In accordance with the present invention, the above-described prior art xe2x80x9cbasicxe2x80x9d copy protection process is enhanced by further modifying the video signal in several ways to ensure that the necessary picture content requirement is met to maximize effectiveness of the basic copy protection process.
The further modifications include blanking a portion of the active video in the overscan area of the picture just prior to the occurrence of the (1) horizontal or (2) vertical synchronization (sync) signals, and inserting into the blanked portion a waveform that (for a video signal having reduced amplitude) is perceived by the TV receiver or videotape recorder as a sync signal, and so causes incorrect synchronization of the VCR or TV receiver. Using this modification especially only on certain video lines or fields causes substantial picture degradation of an unauthorized copy. Another modification narrows the horizontal sync pulses to cause sensing of a spurious vertical sync signal in a TV set and will also affect certain videotape recorders.
In the horizontal modification, the right edge of the picture is replaced by a xe2x80x9ccheckerxe2x80x9d pattern appearing (like a checker board) of black and gray rectangles. The width of this checker pattern is chosen to be within the overscan (not viewed) part of the picture when displayed on a standard television receiver. It will be understood that with an abnormally low signal amplitude, when the picture content is light (such as mid gray), the left edge of the black rectangle in certain video lines will trigger an early horizontal retrace as being a negative-going (towards blanking level) transition. When the picture content is dark, the right edge of the gray rectangle (adjacent to a dark picture area), in certain video lines will trigger an early retrace on each line as also being a negative-going transition. (The description of video waveforms herein follows the convention of positive amplitude being white and negative amplitude being black).
The horizontal modification checker pattern in one embodiment is generated at a rate slightly asynchronous to the video field repetition rate, so that the checker pattern appears to slowly move up or down the picture, at a rate of about 1 second for any given point to migrate from the bottom to the top of the picture or vice versa. The checker pattern has no effect on the picture when an original (authorized) cassette is replayed since no signal conditions are present in the TV set which are in any way abnormal.
However, when an illegal (unauthorized or pirated) copy of the cassette is replayed using a videotape recorder, the signal attenuation resulting from the above-described prior art copy protection process, in combination with the checker pattern, causes the television set horizontal retrace to occur early in each video line where either when the black or gray rectangle is present, depending on picture content and the characteristics of the videotape recorder and TV set. The black checkers and gray checkers each may cause a transition of sufficient amplitude depending on the previous active video picture content. If the picture content is light (white), the left edge of the black checker causes a negative-going transition to black; if the picture content is dark, the right edge of the gray checker causes a negative-going transition from gray to the following dark area (typically blanking level). The difference between lines ending in black or gray in turn causes a horizontal displacement to the picture information, i.e. a wiggle, which moves slowly up or down the picture.
The tendency of a television set to retrace (perform the horizontal flyback early) is exploited by providing the light to dark transition (the left edge of the black checker or the right edge of the gray checker) prior to the location in the video line of the genuine horizontal line synchronization (sync) signal. The early retrace so triggered causes the picture information on the succeeding line to be advanced, i.e. displaced horizontally to the right by an amount equal to the distance between the negative transition and the location of the leading edge of the genuine horizontal sync signal. This displacement causes a xe2x80x9ctearingxe2x80x9d (horizontal repositioning) of picture information.
A somewhat similar modification in the vertical picture sense inserts alternating dark and white bands in place of active video in the last few lines of selected video fields in the lower overscan portion of the picture just prior to the vertical blanking interval, and/or extending into the first few lines of the vertical blanking interval.
This vertical rate modification is implemented in several ways. In one embodiment several of the active video lines (five or so) immediately prior to the vertical sync signal are made to alternate between blanking level and a gray level (typically about 30% of peak white) at a rate of about 1 to 5 cycles per second. This can cause drum servo unlock in the copying videotape recorder, or erroneous vertical retrace in the TV set, causing the picture from the unauthorized copy to exhibit vertical instability (jump up and down) at that particular rate, substantially degrading the quality of the image. In another version, two to five lines of alternating (modulated) white-black-white are inserted at the end of each or alternate video fields, with the same result of loss of vertical lock in a copying videotape recorder or viewing TV set due to interpretation of the inserted pattern as a vertical sync signal when the video signal amplitude has been reduced through AGC response to a copy protection signal.
These vertical modifications in another version are both extended into the first few lines of the subsequent vertical blanking interval.
Addition of pulses to portions of the video signal after normal horizontal or video synchronization pulses cause an abnormal video retrace at this point, thereby being an effective enhancement to the prior art basic anticopy process. Typically these added post-vertical synchronization pulses are at e.g. lines 22-24 of an NTSC television signal.
Thus, the processes in accordance with the invention ensure optimum conditions in terms of picture content for causing the maximum level of subjective degradation (1) to the replayed picture quality of the unauthorized copy and (2) to the recording and playback functions of videotape recorders.
The television set in response to the horizontal and vertical modifications erroneously performs the horizontal or vertical retrace at an abnormal point. In the same way that a TV set will misinterpret the signal, both the recording videotape recorder when the copy is made or the playback videotape recorder when the copy is replayed can also be affected. In this case it is the color circuitry of the videotape recorder which is affected, with resultant picture degradation additional to that caused by the basic anticopy process. This is an additional effect to what has been described so far. This is because of the special way a videotape recorder processes the color information. The picture distortions include inaccurate color rendition and intermittent or permanent loss of color. The objective of the modifications thus is to further destroy the entertainment value of the illegal copy, over and above the degradation of the picture quality caused by the above-described basic prior art copy protection process.
The third modification to the video signal involves narrowing horizontal sync pulses. In combination with a copy protected video signal having reduced signal amplitude when re-recorded (copied), this narrowing causes the sensing of spurious vertical sync signals by a videotape recorder or TV set, causing vertical retrace to take place at other than the beginning of a field and so further degrading picture quality. This modification narrows the width (duration) of the horizontal sync pulses on certain lines (such as lines 250-262) of the video field. These narrowed horizontal sync pulses, when combined with a video signal that is of diminished amplitude, trigger a spurious vertical retrace in many TV sets and videotape recorders, further degrading the displayed picture. Narrowing the horizontal sync pulses where the checker patterns exist (lines 10-250) also enhances the checker pattern distortion when an illegal copy is made.
It has been observed that the degradation of the picture quality in accordance with the present invention is particularly useful where the prior art basic copy protection process provides relatively small degradation of picture quality or relatively small degradation of videotape recorder recording or playback. Thus the combination of the prior art process and the present processes severely reduces entertainment value of the illegal copy on a much larger combination of videotape recorders and TV receivers than does the basic prior art process by itself.
Provision of the horizontal checker pattern or vertical modification only in the overscan portions of the television picture ensures that when the original recording or signal is viewed there is no visibility of the checker pattern or vertical modification, and indeed the presence thereof is not known to the viewer of the original recording.
In other embodiments, the process user might trade off picture area for effectiveness. (The user may elect to trade off visibility of the process when the xe2x80x9clegalxe2x80x9d recording is played, in order to enhance the process anticopy effectiveness.) Thus, the modifications may in violation of broadcast TV standards extend into the viewable portion of the video field, but still be acceptable in many applications. Furthermore, in another embodiment, the process trades off deviations from accepted signal standards to further enhance the anticopy effectiveness.
The modified signal in any case is displayed normally on any TV receiver or monitor, providing the signal is of the correct amplitude. When the modified signal amplitude is reduced, as on an illegal copy, the conditions are optimized for the TV receiver to display or for a videotape recorder to playback a distorted picture. This will occur in a back-to-back video tape recorder copying situation using two videotape recorders when the recording being (illegally) copied is provided with the basic anticopy process of the above-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,603.
The video signal modifications in accordance with the invention, in addition to causing lack of horizontal or vertical stability in a TV receiver, also additionally have similar effects as described above on a typical videocassette (videotape) recorder, both during recording and playback. VCRs use the leading edge of the horizontal sync pulse to correctly position the burst gate. If the burst gate is incorrectly positioned, the color burst is not be sampled properly and loss of color or distorted color results. The horizontal modification causes misinterpretation of the position of the leading edge of horizontal sync. This will occur in the VCRs involved in both the recording and playback of a (copy protected) copy, resulting in color loss/distortion. This effect can also be caused independently in the TV set. In the same way that a TV set will tend to lose vertical lock as a result of this process, so will a VCR. The result is a loss of drum servo lock in the VCR.
The modifications disclosed herein ensure that the required conditions for maximum picture disruption are always present, rather than relying on chance (the particular picture being displayed) that these conditions occur. Therefore the above processes which may include the horizontal and/or vertical modifications and/or horizontal sync pulse narrowing have substantial value in enhancing the above-described basic prior art copy protection process, and more generally enhance any copy protection process which reduces the amplitude of the video signal which is recorded when an unauthorized copy is attempted. Another embodiment to enhance horizontal jitter with illegal copying of video tapes is to use post horizontal pseudo sync pulses of approximately xe2x88x9220 IRE amplitude (xe2x88x9240 IRE equals normal sync amplitude) and a width of about 1-2 xcexcs varying in position in about a range of 1-2 xcexcs after color burst.
While the embodiments disclosed herein are in the context of the NTSC television standard, with modifications apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art they are applicable to SECAM or PAL television standard.
Also disclosed herein in accordance with the invention are several methods and apparatuses for removal or xe2x80x9cdefeatxe2x80x9d of the above-described video signal modifications, to permit unhampered copying and viewing thereof. The defeat method and apparatus in one version replace or level shift the vertical and horizontal modification pulses with a fixed level gray signal, and defeat the sync pulse narrowing modification by sync widening or replacement.
In other versions, the defeat method uses added pre-horizontal sync pulses, post-horizontal sync pulses, or attenuation averaging. Also disclosed is a new method of defeating the prior art basic video anticopying process.

Method and apparatus for modifying a video signal by back porch lowering


Wireless communication apparatus and methods related to dynamic TDD are described. In aspects, a method of wireless communication over a shared medium may include, receiving, from a base station, control information in a first portion of a transmission opportunity (TXOP), wherein the control information indicates a configuration for triggering a communication of at least one shared medium reservation signal associated with one or more remaining portions of the TXOP; and in response to receiving the control information in the first portion of the TXOP, monitoring for or transmitting the at least one shared medium reservation signal, based on the configuration.

Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations (BSs), each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
A wireless communications system may operate over a shared medium or spectrum, meaning that the wireless communications system includes one or more frequency bands that may be shared by multiple network operating entities. In some instances, multiple network operating entities may share their licensed spectrum with each other or with other third-party operators to better utilize the spectrum. One approach to sharing a medium or a spectrum is to employ a priority-based coordinated access scheme. In the priority-based coordinated access scheme, a shared spectrum is partitioned into multiple time periods. At any time period, one operator may be a primary user and have priority to access the spectrum while other operators may opportunistically access to the spectrum when the spectrum is available.
In addition to prioritizing medium or spectrum access for different network operating entities, the scheme can prioritize shared medium or spectrum access for different communication directions within a network operating entity. While the scheme allows for dynamic TDD, where a link communication direction priority can be changed from a default link communication direction, a target receiver of a low priority link communication direction has no knowledge of whether a transmitter of the low priority link communication direction may proceed with a transmission as scheduled or yield medium access to a high priority link communication direction.

Methods and apparatus for dynamic time-division duplexing (TDD)


An apparatus for receiving harmful substances from a cigarette includes a heating chamber provided with a heating element heating a treating solution consisting of 75% alcohol and 25% of hydrogen peroxide so that the latter evaporates and by transversing the cigarette, carries away the harmful substances from the chamber.

It is well known that cigarettes contain, amongst other things, nicotine and tar as well as nitric acid from the impregnation of thee cigarette paper. Recent statistical studies regarding smoking and the incidence of cancer, as well as other well known studies on the general adverse effects of cigarettes on human health, such as, the formation of carbon monoxide, have forced the tobacco producing companies to display a health warning sign on all their advertisements, as well as on the cigarette packs themselves and in many countries have led to the banning of smoking in closed public places.
In order to reduce the concentration of harmful constituents in cigarettes, tobacco industries have produced extra light cigarettes with lower content in tar and nicotine. Special filters have also been manufactured in the form of smoking pipes for controlling tar. Other filters with many small holes have also been used. Such efforts have however led to considerable reduction of the pleasure associated with smoking.
Various methods are disclosed in the prior art for treating tobacco or tobacco leaves, with the purpose of decreasing nicotine content and/or conditioning tobacco, i.e. expanding the same to render it suitable for use. Such methods are for example disclosed in Chemical Abstracts, vol. 80, No. 9, Abstract 45796 or Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 94, no. 15, Abstract 118063 or JP-A-551279 80 (WPI/DERWENT) Abstract AN-80-81756C or FR-A-2 272 612 or U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,933), wherein variations of heat treatment with H.sub.2 O.sub.2 is proposed, however relating only to tobacco, tobacco leaves or rolled and cut tobacco stems.
Alternatively WO-A-0/03124 proposes a device for the otherwise conventional steam treatment of tobacco, in particular it proposes a treatment of a movable, vibrating stream of tobacco particles by means of steam. Eventually, both U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,933 and SU-A-799714 make reference to treating tobacco with infrared light with a view of drying and expanding the same.
With the exemption of WO-A-90/03124, none of the above cited references discloses a particular apparatus for treatment of tobacco products. However, the apparatus disclosed in WO-A-90/03124 relates to a movable and vibrated stream of tobacco particles, being treated by steam passing therethrough and has no structural or functional resemblance to the apparatus disclosed in the present invention wherein, besides other things, a quite extended period of time of tobacco products exposure is necessary to allow interaction of vapors of the working liquid and infrared radiation with tobacco. Moreover, the disclosed methods of treatment relate only to tobacco or tobacco leaves or rolled and cut tobacco stems still within the phase of their treatment at an industrial scale and in no way do they make any reference to treatment of ready made cigarettes or tobacco.
Thus, all the above methods and related products being made available by industry itself do not allow the possibility for the end user--the smoker--to proceed with treatment of the cigarettes or tobacco he buys in order to remove harmful constituents thereof before smoking. Moreover, the success rate in retention of harmful constituents using the methods of the prior art has proven frustrating and ineffective.

Method and apparatus for the removal of harmful constituents from cigarettes and tobacco before smoking

20 Dimitriouralli Street, Agia Paraskevi


A light source unit of EUV light is provided as a light source unit comprising a plasma light source for emitting EUV light, a collective mirror which has a reflecting surface of an ellipsoid of revolution and at a first focal point of which the plasma light source is located, and an auxiliary collective mirror which has a reflecting surface of a spherical surface and a spherical center of which is located as displaced from a position of the plasma light source.

The exposure apparatus for production of semiconductor devices is arranged to project and transcribe a circuit pattern formed on a mask, onto a photosensitive substrate such as a wafer coated with a resist, through a projection optical system.
With the exposure apparatus of this type, there are desires for a further improvement in resolving power as the circuit pattern to be transcribed becomes finer and finer, and light of a shorter wavelength is being used as exposure light. In recent years, the exposure apparatus using the EUV (Extreme UltraViolet) light with the wavelength of approximately 5 to 50 nm (hereinafter referred to as "EUVL (Extreme UltraViolet Lithography) exposure apparatus") has been proposed as next-generation equipment.
At present, there are the following three types of light sources proposed heretofore, as light sources for supplying the EUV light:
(1) Light sources for supplying SR (synchrotron radiation);
(2) LPP (Laser Produced Plasma) light sources for obtaining the EUV light by focusing a laser beam on a target to turn the target into a plasma;
(3) DPP (Discharge Produced Plasma) light sources for obtaining the EUV light by applying a voltage on an electrode of a target substance, or between electrodes in a state in which a target substance is present between the electrodes, to turn the target material into a plasma.
The DPP light sources and LPP light sources will be generically referred to hereinafter as "plasma light sources."
The EUV light is isotropically radiated from a plasma light source. Namely, the plasma light source can be regarded as a point light source. The size (diameter) of the plasma light source is approximately from 50 to 500 μm.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a conventional collector optical system. A collective mirror 2 has a reflecting surface shaped in an ellipsoid of revolution, and, when the plasma light source 1 is positioned at the first focal point of the ellipsoid (hereinafter referred to as the first focal point), the EUV light reflected on the collective mirror 2 is collected at the second focal point of the ellipsoid (hereinafter referred to as the second focal point) to form a light source image 3 there. A stop 7 for blocking beams directly incident from the EUV light source 1 without being collected is located on a plane passing the second focal point of the collective mirror 2 and being perpendicular to the optical axis (hereinafter referred to as a second focal plane). An illumination optical system is located downstream of this stop 7.
In the above-described collector optical system as shown in FIG. 1, most of beams traveling from plasma light source 1 to the downstream area (to the right in FIG. 1) are not collected by the collective mirror 2 to be wasted. A conceivable means for collecting such beams traveling to the downstream area as well is the collector optical system as shown in FIG. 2.
Part of the EUV light diverging isotropically is also collected by collective mirror 2 having a reflecting surface shaped in an ellipsoid of revolution similar to the conventional collective mirror shown in FIG. 1, to form a light source image 3 on the second focal plane. On the other hand, other part of the EUV light is reflected by an auxiliary collective mirror 4 having a reflecting surface of spherical shape centered on the position of plasma light source 1, to be once collected at the same position as the plasma light source 1 is located. Thereafter, the light is reflected by the collective mirror 2 to be focused at the same position as the light source image 3 is formed.
Namely, a real image of the plasma light source 1 by the collective mirror 2 and a real image by an optical system as a combination of auxiliary collective mirror 4 with collective mirror 2 are formed as superimposed at the position of light source image 3.
Since this collector optical system is able to guide the beams diverging from the plasma light source 1, over a wider range of solid angles to the light source image 3, the quantity of light guided to the illumination optical system increases. The collector optical systems based on this idea are already put in practical use as collector optical systems of projectors or the like (e.g., production information of Panasonic DLP projector Lightia TH-D9610J [browsed May 26, 2003], Internet <http://panasonic.biz/projector/lightia/d9610/kido.html>).
The plasma used as an EUV light source strongly absorbs the EUV light in general. The reason why the EUV light of a specific wavelength is generated from the plasma is that an electron transits between energy levels inherent to an atom. Light is generated upon a transition to a lower energy level, whereas light of the same wavelength is absorbed upon a transition to a higher energy level. Therefore, light generated from a plasma is essentially largely absorbed by the plasma.
Therefore, the collector optical system of FIG. 2 cannot be applied directly to the EUV exposure apparatus.
The reason is that in the collector optical system of FIG. 2 the EUV light reflected by auxiliary collective mirror 4 and returning to the position of EUV light source 1 is absorbed by the plasma and thus cannot reach the position of the light source image 3 in fact. Accordingly, there is no increase in the total quantity of the collected EUV light.

Collector optical system, light source unit, illumination optical apparatus, and exposure apparatus


A method of calculating the amount of work done by an internal combustion engine, which is capable of calculating a work amount parameter indicative of the amount of work done with accuracy while compensating for a phase delay in in-cylinder pressure data caused e.g. by a filtering process performed thereon. The method calculates the work amount parameter Pmi indicative of the amount of work done by the engine 3 including a combustion chamber 3b, as follows: Pressure in the combustion chamber 3b is detected to obtain in-cylinder pressure data P indicative of the detected pressure. Volume data V indicative of a state of change in volume of the combustion chamber 3b is obtained. The obtained volume data V is subjected to a first predetermined filtering process. The work amount parameter Pmi is calculated based on the detected in-cylinder pressure data P, and the volume data filtered value VF obtained by subjecting the volume data V to the first filtering process.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of calculating a work amount parameter, such as indicated mean effective pressure, which is indicative of the amount of work done by an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a method of calculating indicated mean effective pressure has been disclosed e.g. in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H11-182319. In this method, the indicated mean effective pressure is calculated as follows: In-cylinder pressure, i.e. pressure in a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine, is detected by an in-cylinder pressure sensor of a piezoelectric element type which is mounted to a spark plug of the engine. Then, the indicated mean effective pressure is calculated by subtracting a value obtained by integrating the product of the detected in-cylinder pressure and the rate of change in volume of the combustion chamber (hereinafter simply referred to as "the volume change rate") as the piston of the engine is moved from a bottom dead center (BDC) position to a top dead center (TDC) position, from a value obtained by integrating the product as the piston is moved from the TDC position to the BDC position.
In the above conventional method, however, there can occur a large error in the calculated indicated mean effective pressure. More specifically, an in-cylinder pressure signal indicative of the detected pressure in the combustion chamber delivered from the in-cylinder pressure sensor, as described above, usually contains noises, and hence if in-cylinder pressure determined based on the in-cylinder pressure signal is used as it is for calculation of the indicated mean effective pressure, there is a fear that the calculated indicated mean effective pressure contains a large error due to influence of the noises.
To avoid the above inconvenience, it is envisaged, for example, to eliminate noises contained in the in-cylinder pressure data by filtering the in-cylinder pressure signal by a low-pass filter having a relatively low cutoff frequency. In this case, however, the low-pass filter generally has a characteristic that it delays the signal as it filters the same, and the delay is increased as the cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter is lower. This causes a relatively large phase delay of the filtered in-cylinder pressure with respect to the actual in-cylinder pressure. In this connection, since the indicated mean effective pressure is calculated based on the product of the in-cylinder pressure and the volume change rate, it is possible to regard the indicated mean effective pressure as a correlation coefficient between the in-cylinder pressure and the volume change rate. Further, a correlation coefficient between two data tends to be largely changed as phase deviation of one of the data from the phase of the other is larger. Therefore, due to the large phase delay which the in-cylinder pressure experiences as described above, the calculated indicated mean effective pressure comes to suffer from a significant error or difference from the proper value.

Method of calculating the amount of work done by an internal combustion engine


A system for marking a non-human biological object and removing a sample of the biological object includes a first tag part, a second tag part, a pin connected to the first tag part by its first end and provided with a head at its second end, a sample removing stopper which, while attaching the tag parts on the biological object and removing the sample therefrom, is positioned on the head of the pin. The stopper has a cutter at its front, which cutter delimits a sample receiving cavity. The second tag part is provided with a passage for the stopper and the head of the pin. The second tag part is provided in the region of the passage of the second tag part with a sample fixating spike member.

In the past few years, the desire and need to reliably identify individual animals has been increasing further. Particularly if the animals' meat is intended for human consumption or if the animals are going to be part of the human consumption chain in some other way, there is a need for reliable identification. One example is the BSE problem, where the accurate determination of the origin and the life history of the animals are of importance. However, the reliable identification of animals also is desired for animals that are not destined for consumption, but e.g. is a pet, (race) horse, or the like.
The invention relates to a system which not only provides for a tag, such as an eartag, to be attached to the animal, but also achieves the simultaneous removal and storage of a sample of biological material from the animal. The removal of a small sample of the biological material and storage thereof in the sample container can have various purposes, e.g. identification of individual animals based on the "genetic fingerprint" which can be determined using the sample taken. The removed sample can also be used for other purposes, such as that one or more test are performed on the sample, e.g. molecular genetic tests, blood test(s), etc.
Such systems are known, inter alia, from WO 02/39810, WO 2006/000869, and WO2009/010658.
In presently marketed systems the stopper has a circular cutter at its front with a cutting ring made of metal. This cutter delimits a sample receiving cavity which is open at the front. The cutter removes a sample from the object with a diameter of about 4 to 5 millimeters. An issue relating to the practical use of such tagging and sampling systems is the sampling failure rate. In practice specialized laboratories receive the filled and closed sample containers from farmers and check whether a sample is actually present in the sample container. If no sample is present in the container, the laboratory informs the farmer that no sample is present and requests that a new sample is taken from the same animal. Even at failure rates between 0.5 and 1.5% this means an undesirable effort for the laboratories and farmers in view of the enormous number of animals that are to be tagged and sampled with these systems.

System for marking a non-human biological object and for taking a sample of the biological object


A method is presented for address resolution mapping in a wireless multihop communication network wherein the network is built up by client devices and/or infrastructure devices, network traffic is based on using ARP forwarding and rebroadcasting to locate devices in such a network architecture. The invention also includes devices for such a network and the complete communication system is described.

Wireless communication between mobile users is becoming more and more popular as devices and technology is developed. The infrastructure roll out is expanding within both telecom systems and data network systems. Today also the telecom systems are increasingly using packet switched networks and the trend is clear towards this scheme of packet based routing. This system has been used for many years in the data networks and thus many standardized routing protocols exist for this purpose. However, they are not prepared for rapidly changing network topographies like for instance so called ad hoc networks.
Wireless ad hoc networks are characterized in that they do not have the same static nature as an ordinary wired network infrastructure, the ad hoc based network do not have a centralized control and is often created in a spontaneous manner. It maintains control through a decentralized concept. Nodes can be connected or disconnected in an uncontrolled manner as compared to standard fixed network architectures; the nodes may come and go quickly which leads to a dynamically changing network topology. In some cases such ad hoc networks are formed by user/client devices themselves as infrastructure components. These components are then truly mobile in the sense that the users move around, in and out of a network cell, and therefore the infrastructure will move around and change dynamically accordingly. This is an exciting and promising way of building an infrastructure; however, it sets very high demands on the routing protocol.
Other problems in a wireless environment are due to radio specific questions that will degrade the performance and efficiency of the network flow. There may be fading problems due to the movement of infrastructure nodes or movement of objects in the radio environment, and there may be problems due to interference from other radio sources within range.
These kinds of network topographies have been used in the military environment but are now migrating into the civilian area as well. Wireless systems are now used to rapidly build infrastructure areas for, e.g. wireless broadband access in residential areas or commercial areas. It may be used for temporary infrastructure build up, for example in an emergency situation, in a disaster area, or on the battlefield for military purposes. It could also be used to build up temporary access coverage areas during events like, for example, concerts, conferences, meetings, or seasonal tourist areas. In these kinds of areas, it is not necessary to have coverage all year around but only during specific periods, thus a fixed infrastructure build up in such a case may prove to be too expensive.
Today, several Internet Service Providers (ISP) offer wireless access at public or semi-public areas such as airports, restaurants, coffee shops, and hotels using fixed wireless infrastructure systems. These systems are often referred to as so called hotspots.
As the demand from the users to gain access increases considering coverage and bandwidth, one way of expanding the area of wireless coverage or bandwidth is to install more infrastructure components, however doing this with normal fixed wireless components are expensive and thus the idea to build networks using wireless routers has emerged. In this case ad hoc routing protocols may be used to have a simplified installation procedure.
There are basically two kinds of network usages when discussing ad hoc networks; the first one is the build up of a local area network without any external gateway providing access to an external network, for example Internet. This scheme may be found in installations concerning disaster areas or military installations on the battlefield. The other and probably more common usage is when one or several gateways provide the network with external connections to, for example, an IP (Internet Protocol) based network, private or public, e.g. Internet. In such a network configuration, data packets may take different routes and/or use different gateways depending on, for example, the data traffic type, congestions, or routing cost.
Packet based routing schemes often build their communication network systems around a layered model, for instance the OSI reference model. The communication software or hardware is divided into several smaller sub units, layers, working in a hierarchical manner. Information and communication control parameters are passed up and down locally and between the same layers between the sending and receiving ends. Each such layer is responsible for different tasks in the communication order. In respect to routing the first three layers according to the OSI reference model are the most important.
Layer 1 is responsible for the physical transmission of bits of data; examples of physical means may be, for instance, the wired link in an Ethernet based network or a wireless link in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN).
Layer 2 is often called the Link layer or the MAC layer and is responsible of transmitting chunks of data, error detection, and network resource coordination.
Layer 3 is often called the Network layer; it is responsible for enabling communication between any pair of nodes in a network. This layer takes, for example, care of routing calculations and some congestion control. For this purpose different routing protocols has been developed depending on the type of network.
Packet routing protocols in the IP-based networks are generally based on routing algorithms using distance vector or link state information to find and maintain a route for each pair of source and destination nodes in the network. In principle, in the distance vector routing algorithms, each router broadcasts the distance to all hosts to its neighbor routers, and each router receiving the information calculates the shortest route to each of the hosts in the network. In the link-state routing algorithms, each router broadcasts the status information of each of its adjacent network links to its neighbor routers, and each router receiving the information maintains the database of the entire picture of the network from the link status information and calculates the shortest route to each host based on the link costs in the database. These routing algorithms are designed for relatively static networks and thus new routing algorithms must be designed for ad hoc networks whose topology changes frequently.
There are basically two categories of existing routing protocols for ad hoc networks. These are "proactive" (table driven) and "reactive" (on-demand) routing protocols. Protocols having combinations of these protocols are also possible.
Proactive routing protocols constantly and periodically calculate a route to all hosts in the ad hoc network, and thus a route is always available when a packet needs to be sent to a particular destination host. The results are kept in routing tables in all nodes.
In order to maintain routes to each host, control messages are exchanged among the routers to notify changes of the network configuration and link status. Distance vector and link state routing protocols are both categorized as proactive protocols. It should be noted that control messages lead to overhead and may result in reduced network efficiency. Also, the proactive protocols may have difficulty in maintaining valid routes when the network topology changes frequently.
DSDV (Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector Routing) is a proactive routing protocol based on the distance vector algorithm, adapting the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) to ad hoc networks. Each node maintains a routing table in which the node stores the next hop node and hop count to each of all the reachable destination hosts. In DSDV, each node broadcasts or multicasts routing updates periodically, or when it detects changes of the network topology. Incremental updates, which update only information about changes since the last update, are also used in order to reduce control traffic.
A reactive protocol only performs control message exchange to find/update a route when there is a data packet to be sent. When a source node wants to send data packets, it initiates the control protocol to find a route by sending a route request message to its neighbor nodes. By this principle, the reactive approach is good in that network resources are not wasted when there are no packets to be transported. However, it takes longer time to send packets when a route has to be formed for the first time. AODV and DSR are representative reactive protocols.
AODV (Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing) protocol uses the DSDV algorithm and creates/updates routes on an on-demand basis, that is, only when a source node wants to send a data packet. This leads to reduction of the number of required broadcasts for finding/updating a route.
In AODV, each node maintains a list of detected neighbor nodes. The neighbor list is updated in one of the following three ways: a) when a packet is received from the neighbor node, b) by receiving local advertisement, that is, hello message, from the neighbor node, or c) through feedback from the link layer. Hello messages are broadcasted periodically from each node to its neighboring nodes to inform them about its presence.
In AODV, each node maintains a routing table for all the destinations, each of which the node is either communicating with or forwarding data packets to on behalf of other nodes. For each destination, there is an entry in the routing table that contains information about the destination, such as the IP address, the sequence number for the destination node, hop count to the destination, the next hop node to the destination, and lifetime for the route.
When a node wants to communicate with a destination node, that is, to send data packets to the destination, then the source node initiates a route discovery mechanism, where the source node broadcasts a route request (RREQ) to all detected neighbor nodes. When the neighbor node receives the RREQ message and has the entry for a fresh enough route to that destination in its routing table, then it sends back a route reply (RREP) message to the source node. If the neighbor node does not find a route entry for that destination, then it forwards the RREQ message to its own detected neighbor nodes. When the destination node receives the RREQ, it returns the RREP message to the source node.
In the process of forwarding the RREQ packet, each intermediate node records the IP address of the neighbor node from which the first copy of the broadcast RREQ is received, by which a reverse route is established. The copies of the same RREQ messages received later are all discarded. The intermediate nodes add an entry to their routing table for the destination, where the neighbor node from which the RREP was received is recorded as the next hop node for that destination. The destination sequence number and lifetime of the route are copied from the RREP and recorded in the entry. When the RREP message is returned to the source node finally, a forward route from the source to destination is formed.
When a node detects that a route becomes unavailable by failure of the incident link on the route, it sends a route error (RERR) message to all the neighbor nodes, which use the route. The RERR message is sent on to their neighbor nodes and so on until it reaches the source node. The source node can then decide to either stop sending data packets or initiate a new route discovery.
DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) protocol uses a source routing mechanism in which the source node determines the complete sequence of nodes along the route on an on-demand basis and sets the list of the intermediate nodes in the packet header to indicate the sequence of nodes for the route. In this way, each packet has to carry the overhead for packet routing. However, the intermediate nodes do not need to maintain any information about the route and they can learn routes when delivering data packets.
In DSR, each node stores (caches) the routes it has learned. When a source node wants to send data packets to a destination node and has no entry in the cache for that destination, then it initiates a route discovery mechanism by broadcasting a RREQ message on its link-layer. Each node receiving the RREQ message appends their IP addresses to the RREQ message and then forwards it further. This process is done until the route to the destination is found or another node can provide a route to the destination node. Then a route reply (RREP) message containing the sequence of network hops to the destination node is returned to the source node.
In DSR, when a link failure is detected at a node (i.e. when the packet has been retransmitted a maximum number of times), that node removes the link from its routes cache and sends a route error (RERR) message to each of the nodes that have used that link since an acknowledgement was last received. Those nodes have to remove the routes including that link. The retransmission of the data packet from the source node is then handled by upper layers such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).
One problem with the TCP/IP protocol is that it only makes use of IP addresses and in a data link in an Ethernet or token ring example, the network components has its own addressing scheme to which any network layer using the data link must conform. In, for example, an Ethernet several different network layers can cooperate at the same time, several network applications can use the same physical cable. When an Ethernet frame or packet is sent from one location to another it uses a 48 bit Ethernet address for determining the destination and source of the packet. A unique 48 bit Ethernet address is found in all Ethernet networking hardware and often called the MAC address (Media Access Control). This 48 bit address can be compared with the 32 bit IP address used in IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). Address resolution provides the mapping scheme between the two different forms of addresses. This mapping is done by the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol). ARP provides the mechanism to dynamically map hardware MAC addresses to IP addresses in a temporary memory space called the ARP cache. In other words the ARP translates the IP address to a MAC address.
The basic operation of ARP is as follows: when the IP layer wants to communicate with another device on the network, it checks the ARP cache (to see if there is a match with an Ethernet address). If there is no matching entry in the ARP cache, an ARP broadcast datagram is sent out that basically says: "The device with this IP address, reply with your Ethernet address?". The receiving station (that has the IP address) responds with an ARP datagram that says: "This is my IP address and here is my Ethernet address", The ARP cache is updated and the original IP layer information is passed on to the MAC layer for processing.
This scheme work fine for fixed line networks, but in wireless ad hoc and/or multihop networks not all network units can hear each other, in this case the standard ARP solution will not suffice. For this purpose some different layer 2.5 solutions for mapping IP and MAC addresses have been developed.
There are mainly two different routing protocols working as intermediary between layer 2 and 3, so called layer 2.5 protocols:                1. Lightweight Underlay Network (LUNAR). Instead of utilizing pure ARP, the ARP traffic is trapped by the Translating Underlay Network (SelNet) and rewritten to the extensible Resolution Protocol (XRP). XRP permits a much richer set of expressions than standard ARP. To maintain routes in LUNAR, all routes are cleared every third second and the path discovery procedure is redone.        2. Layer two DSR (the original version. In the route discovery process the packets used for routing is similar to ARP, but all addresses of the nodes along are recorded. As the protocol is a source routing protocol the whole route will also be added to every header of the data packets. The number of such addresses is limited and thereby results in a limited number of hops. The route maintenance is operating by detecting acknowledgements (ack.) hop by hop for each data packet transmitted. When no acknowledgement is achieved, the packet is retransmitted a certain number of times until the link is considered broken and another route is searched for.
The problems with the above mentioned solutions can be summarized as follows:                1. Standard ARP can only be used for local peer-to-peer communication in a wireless network.        2. Packets in the network are normally not reused in ad hoc routing protocols.        3. LUNAR protocol is limited to a maximum of 10-15 nodes in total in a network cell and a maximum of 3 hops. In order to keep updated mapping tables it floods the network often, which results in additional control traffic. Also, it utilizes an external additional protocol to enable multihop functionality.        4. DSR on layer 2 is limited to a certain number of hops since all network addresses are stored in all packets (both data and control traffic packets). This solution demands additional resources and a new ARP like protocol is introduced.
Accordingly the above mentioned solutions will not be transparent in a standard IP based network and will take up extra resources both from the available network resources and from the computing power of the involved routing components.

Method, communication device and system for address resolution mapping in a wireless multihop ad hoc network


A magnetic data track used in a magnetic shift register memory system may be fabricated by forming a multilayered stack of alternating dielectric and/or silicon layers. A trench is etched in the multi-layer stack structure. A selective etching process is used to corrugate the walls of trench. A seed layer is applied to the walls and bottom of the trench; the seed layer is covered with a magnetic layer. The trench is filled with an insulating material. A patterned layer is applied and portions of insulating material exposed by the pattern are removed, forming holes. Magnetic material and seed layer exposed in holes is selectively removed. The holes are filled with insulating material and connecting leads are attached to data tracks.

The two most common conventional non-volatile data storage devices are disk drives and solid-state random access memories (RAM). Disk drives are capable of inexpensively storing large amounts of data, i.e., greater than 100 GB. However, disk drives are inherently unreliable. A hard drive comprises a fixed read/write head and a moving medium upon which data is written. Devices with moving parts tend to wear out and fail. Solid-state random access memories currently store data on the order of 1 GB (gigabyte) per device, and are relatively expensive, per storage unit, compared to a disk drive.
The most common type of solid-state RAM is flash memory. Flash memory relies on a thin layer of polysilicon that is disposed in oxide below a transistor's on-off control gate. This layer of polysilicon is a floating gate, isolated by the silicon from the control gate and the transistor channel. Flash memory is relatively slow, with reading and writing times on the order of a microsecond. In addition, flash memory cells can begin to lose data after less than a million write cycles. While this may be adequate for some applications, flash memory cells may begin to fail rapidly if used constantly to write new data, such as in a computer's main memory. Further, the access time for flash memory is much too long for computer applications.
Another form of RAM is the ferroelectric RAM, or FRAM. FRAM stores data based on the direction that ferroelectric domains point. FRAM has access times much faster than Flash memory and consumes less energy than standard dynamic random access memory (DRAM). However, commercially available memory capacities are currently low, on the order of 0.25 MB (megabyte). In addition, memory storage in a FRAM relies on physically moving atoms, leading to eventual degradation of the medium and failure of the memory.
Yet another form of RAM is the Ovonic Unified Memory (OUM) that utilizes a material that alternates between crystalline and amorphous phases to store data. The material used in this application is a chalcogenide alloy. After the chalcogenide alloy experiences a heating and cooling cycle, it can be programmed to accept one of two stable phases: polycrystalline or amorphous. The differences in the respective resistances of the two phases allow the chalcogenide alloy to be used as memory storage. Data access time is on the order of 50 ns. However, the size of these memories is still small, on the order of 4 MB currently. In addition, OUM relies on physically changing a material from crystalline to amorphous, likely causing the material to eventually degrade and fail.
Semiconductor magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) encodes data bits in a ferromagnetic material by utilizing the direction of the material's magnetic moment. Atoms in ferromagnetic materials respond to external magnetic fields, aligning their magnetic moments to the direction of the applied magnetic field. When the field is removed, the atoms' magnetic moments still remain aligned in the induced direction. A field applied in the opposite direction causes the atoms to realign themselves with the new direction. Typically, the magnetic moments of the atoms within a volume of the ferromagnetic material are aligned parallel to one another by a magnetic exchange interaction. These atoms then respond together, largely as one macro-magnetic moment, or magnetic domain, to the external magnetic field.
One approach to MRAM uses a magnetic tunneling junction as the memory cell. The magnetic tunneling junction comprises two layers of ferromagnetic material separated by a thin insulating material. The direction of the magnetic domains is fixed in one layer. In the second layer, the domain direction is allowed to move in response to an applied field. Consequently, the direction of the domains in the second layer can either be parallel or opposite to the first layer, allowing the storage of data in the form of ones and zeros. However, currently available MRAM can only store up to 1 Mb (megabit), much less than needed for most memory applications. Larger memories are currently in development. In addition, each MRAM memory cell stores only one bit of data, thereby limiting the maximum possible memory capacity of such devices.
A multi-layered magnetic shift register replaces many conventional memory devices including but not limited to magnetic recording hard disk drives, and many solid-state memories such as DRAM, SRAM, FeRAM, and MRAM. The multi-layered magnetic shift register provides capacious amounts of storage comparable to those provided in conventional memory devices but without any moving parts and at a cost comparable to hard disk drives.
Briefly, the multi-layered magnetic shift register memory device uses the inherent, natural properties of the domain walls in ferromagnetic materials to store data. The multi-layered magnetic shift register memory device utilizes one read/write device to access numerous bits, on the order of ten to 100 bits of data or more. Consequently, a small number of logic elements can access tens to hundreds of bits of data.
The multi-layered magnetic shift register memory device uses spin-based electronics to write and read data in ferromagnetic material so that the physical nature of the material in the multi-layered magnetic shift register is unchanged. A multi-layered shiftable multi-layered magnetic shift register comprises a data track formed of a fine wire or strip of material made of ferromagnetic material. The wire can be comprised of a physically uniform, magnetically homogeneous ferromagnetic material or layers of different ferromagnetic materials. Information is stored as direction of magnetic moment within the domains in the track. The wire can be magnetized in small sections in one direction or another.
An electric current is applied to the track to move the magnetic domains along the track in the direction of the electric current, past reading or writing elements or devices. In a magnetic material with domain walls, current passed across the domain wall moves the domain wall in the direction of the current flow. As the current passes through a domain, it becomes "spin polarized". When this spin-polarized current passes into the next domain across a domain wall, it develops a spin torque. This spin torque moves the domain wall. Domain wall velocities can be very high, on the order of one to several hundred m/sec. The actual direction in which the domain walls move will depend on the composition of the magnetic material of the track. The domain walls can move either in the same direction as that of the direction in which the electrons flow or in the opposite direction to the flow of the electrons. For a particular material, changing the direction of the current will also change the direction in which the domains and the domain walls move, allowing the domains and the domain walls to be moved in either direction along the track.
In summary, current passed through the track (having a series of magnetic domains with alternating directions) can move these domains past the reading and writing elements. The reading device can then read the direction of the magnetic moments. The writing device can change the direction of the magnetic moments, thus writing information to the track.
What is needed is an improved method for fabricating the magnetic data tracks needed to build a multi-layered magnetic shift register memory device.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of fabricating a magnetic shift register

International Busniess Machines Corporation


Disclosed is an electrochemical etching apparatus including a fixture for holding a workpiece; a nozzle, positioned opposite the fixture and facing the workpiece, for impinging an etchant onto the workpiece; and an electrode for applying a voltage between the electrode and the workpiece; wherein, in operation, one of the fixture and nozzle are rotated and the nozzle is moved radially outwardly so that the workpiece is spirally etched. Also disclosed is a method of spirally etching a workpiece.

The present invention is directed to electrochemically etching and, more particularly, is directed to electrochemically etching a workpiece from the center outwardly in a spiral pattern.
Electrochemical etching has many industrial applications wherein a conductive metal is etched from the surface of a workpiece. The present inventors have proposed a new apparatus and method for electrochemical etching which has wide industrial application. The present invention, however, has particular application to the electrochemical etching of semiconductor wafers and so the present invention will only be discussed in reference to semiconductor wafers, although it should be understood that the present invention has wider industrial application.
Electroetching involves metal removal from a workpiece which is made an anode in an electrolytic cell. The cell contains a counter electrode (cathode) at an appropriate position. In the microelectronics industry, electroetching is used for through-mask patterning and for removal of continuous thin film of conducting metals, such as seed layers from the surface of a semiconductor wafer. Different types of electroetching apparatus are described in the literature that use a variety of electrolyte flow systems ranging from non-agitated to impinging jets. For electroetching of large wafers, such as 200 mm, the electroetching systems pose problems of high power requirement and tremendous edge effects that lead to the loss of electrical connection to the metal film.
In order to alleviate the above problems, Datta et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,554, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,282, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein, proposed to treat only a small portion of the wafer at a given time by using a multinozzle cathode assembly of small width which delivers the electrolyte to a part of the wafer that faces the cathode assembly. During electroetching, the multinozzle assembly is slowly scanned from one end of the wafer to the other end. The nozzle movement is adjusted to match the etching rate of film so that the wafer etching is completed in one pass. Additional Patents reflecting further improvements to the above work include Dinan et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,536,388 and Datta et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,567,304, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein.
Notwithstanding the prior art solutions to the problem, there remains a need to improve electrochemical etching. The present inventors have proposed to change the way in which the electrolyte contacts the wafer surface. Rather than using a linear trough for the electrolyte and contacting the wafer across a chord with dependence on an ever-decreasing number of contact points, the present inventors have proposed an apparatus and method with an annular contact path so that this dependence on an ever-decreasing number of contact points is eliminated.
Thus, a purpose of the present invention is to have an apparatus and method for electrochemical etching which does not use a linear trough for the electrolyte.
It is another purpose of the present invention to have an apparatus and method for electrochemical etching which does not depend on an ever-decreasing number of contact points.
These and other purposes of the present invention will become more apparent after referring to the following description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Electrochemical etching apparatus and method for spirally etching a workpiece

International Business Machines Corporation


This application provides, in part, novel polypeptides and nucleic acids that affect induction of defensins, and methods of making and using same.

Skin and mucosa have always been regarded as physical barriers to the outside environment; protecting the host from noxious intruders. Recent findings have led to the realization that these barriers are not only physical; they generate potent antimicrobial peptides (APs). These ancient compounds, first described in drosophila, are now known to be important for the "innate" immune system of a eukaryotic host. Antimicrobial peptides act on a broad spectrum of pathogens. The innate immune system works in conjunction with the adaptive immune system in mammals, by permitting the host to curb, delay, or avoid microbial growth shortly after an infection. Innate responses occur in a matter of hours, well before the acquired immune system can be sufficiently mobilized.
The defensin peptides are a superfamily of peptide antibiotics with a characteristic beta-sheet structure stabilized by two to three intramolecular disulfide bonds. They are strongly cationic by virtue of their numerous arginine and lysine residues. The amphipathic and cationic characteristics are important for antibacterial activity. Defensin peptides have been isolated from a number of phagocytes from mammals including humans, and various tissue and fluid sources such as mammalian trachea, intestine, tongue, human oral gingiva, human organs, plasma and urine.
The human defensin AP family is roughly divided into two subfamilies; alpha-defensins, found in azurophilic granules of PMNs and in the granules of Paneth cells found in the base of the crypts of Lieberklühn in the small intestine, and the beta-defensins, expressed generally by epithelial cells. The alpha- and beta-defensins differ in primary sequence and in the placement of the three disulfide bonds. The signature motif for beta-defensin genes includes two exons surrounding a variably sized intron. Exon 1 encodes the signal sequence, while exon 2 encodes the propeptide and mature peptide. This motif differs from that found in alpha-defensin genes in that the latter are organized with three exons and two introns. Other differentiating features between alpha- and beta-defensins include the fact that while the former are cytotoxic to mammalian cells when released from protective granules, the latter are not.
In addition to demonstrating antibacterial and antifungal properties, beta-defensins engage the CCR6 receptor on selected immune effector cells, such as immature dendritic cells and T cells and evoke a chemokine response, thereby recruiting these cells to the site of interest.
The growing problem of resistance to conventional antibiotics and the need for new antibiotics has stimulated interest in the development of antimicrobial peptides (APs) as therapeutics for humans and other animals. Unlike conventional antibiotics, acquisition of resistance by a sensitive organism against APs is surprisingly rare and difficult to generate.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have compositions and methods for causing cells to increase production of beta-defensins.


A mixer circuit includes a first oscillator, a second oscillator, an up-conversion mixer, a down-conversion mixer, and a detect and control unit. The up-conversion mixer has a first input terminal coupled to the first oscillator and an output terminal. The down-conversion mixer has a first input terminal coupled to the output terminal of the up-conversion mixer and a second input terminal coupled to the second oscillator. The detect and control unit is coupled to the down-conversion mixer.

Radio transmitters usually use up-conversion mixers to produce radio transmit signals. Up-conversion mixers may exhibit a leakage from one of their input terminals to their output terminal. The spurious signals caused by the leakage need to be eliminated or at least reduced so that they do not significantly degrade the spectral purity of the transmitter output.

Mixer circuit and method for reducing an up-conversion mixer leakage


Modular active surface devices for microfluidic systems and methods of making same is disclosed. In one example, the modular active surface device includes an active surface layer mounted atop an active surface substrate, a mask mounted atop the active surface layer wherein the mask defines the area, height, and volume of the reaction chamber, and a substrate mounted atop the mask wherein the substrate provides the facing surface to the active surface layer. In other examples, both facing surfaces of the reaction chamber include active surface layers. Further, the modular active surface device can include other layers, such as, but not limited to, adhesive layers, stiffening layers for facilitating handling, and peel-off sealing layers. Further, a large-scale manufacturing method is provided of mass-producing the modular active surface devices. Further, a method is provided of using a plasma bonding process to bond the active surface layer to the active surface substrate.

Microfluidic systems can include an active surface, which can be, for example, any surface or area (typically inside a reaction or assay chamber) that is used for processing biological materials. However, there can be considerable cost and complexity associated with providing an active surface within microfluidic systems. Further, there can be certain barriers to testing the active surface performance within the microfluidic system. Therefore, new approaches are needed to simplify the process of providing an active surface in a microfluidic system.


Some demonstrative embodiments include apparatuses, systems and method of transferring data between a mobile device and one or more peripheral devices via a docking device including a wireless connector. For example, a docking device to transfer data between a mobile device and one or more peripheral devices may include a power plug to be connected to a power supply, one or more peripheral connectors to be connected to the one or more peripheral devices for communicating data with the peripheral devices, and a docking connector to connect the docking device to the mobile device. The docking connector may include, for example, a power connector to receive electrical power from the power supply via the power plug and to transfer the electrical power to the mobile device, and a wireless communication unit to communicate the data between the docking device and the mobile device over a wireless communication link.

Mobile platforms are becoming smaller and smaller, and typically have decreasingly smaller screens and less Input/Output (IO) ports from generation to generation.
Docking stations are commonly used nowadays to extend the IO port array of the mobile platforms, and provide a convenient means for a mobile platform to hook up to a static variety of peripheral devices ("peripherals"), such as displays, monitors, external storage devices, external Hard Disk Drives (HDD), a mouse, keyboards, webcams, communication devices, and the like.
A docking device (also referred to as "docking station") may typically be placed on a table, while being permanently connected to the peripherals, and the user may connect the mobile platform to the docking station ("dock") to utilize the peripherals.
When one evaluates the spectrum of existing connectivity options for connecting the docking station to the mobile platform, one can find several connectivity schemes.
One scheme includes connectorized docking based on a pass-through mechanical connector that carries a variety of signals, e.g., Universal Serial Bus (USB), Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), Audio, and the like.
Another scheme includes connectorized docking based on a single cable that carries a particular technology, e.g., USB or Thunderbolt.
Another scheme includes wireless docks, based on wireless technologies, e.g., wireless USB, Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi), Wireless Gigabit (WiGig), and the like.

Apparatus, system and method of docking a mobile device with wireless connector


The light emitting structure disclosed includes a light emitting device, a metal frame, and a repressing fastener. The light emitting device has a plurality of first coupling terminals, and the metal frame has a plurality of second coupling portions. The light emitting device is disposed in the metal frame, and the first coupling terminals touch the second coupling portions to electrically connect the light emitting device and the metal frame. The repressing fastener is disposed on the light emitting device and fastened to the metal frame to secure the light emitting device in the metal frame. An LED securing device is also disclosed.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting structure. More particularly, the present invention relates to a securing device for the light emitting structure.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor light emitting diodes (LED) have become a promising device for general-purpose illumination applications. An LED has excellent durability, a long operation life, low power consumption, contains no mercury and has potentially high efficiency. An LED is an illumination light source that is good for environmental protection and energy saving. The conventional illumination devices such as incandescent bulbs are cheap in price, but, unfortunately, they have drawbacks of low efficiency, high power consumption, short operation life and fragility. The fluorescent lamps are energy saving devices but still fragile, and contain mercury causing environmental pollution problems. Therefore, the LEDs are ideal light sources for general-purpose illumination applications for the new generation.
The conventional LED chips are directly soldered on the printed circuit board in the light emitting structure. However, the LED chip may be heated and damaged by the high temperature of the soldering process. The LED chip must be de-soldered when the LED chip is replaced, and the high temperature of the de-soldering process may damage the components disposed near the LED chip.
For the foregoing reasons, there Is a need to prevent the LED chip from heat damage.

Light emitting structure and securing device thereof


Various device attributes associated with a current event may be obtained. Similarity metrics may be determined that indicate a degree of similarity between the device attributes that are associated with the current event and stored device attributes that are associated with previous events and previously created fuzzy device identifiers. A fuzzy device identifier may be assigned to the current event based at least in part on a comparison of the similarity metrics with a threshold. If none of the similarity metrics compare favorably with the threshold, then a new fuzzy device identifier may be created for the current event. However, if at least one of the similarity metrics compares favorably with the threshold, then the previously created fuzzy device identifier whose stored device attributes are most similar to the device attributes that are associated with the current event may be assigned to the current event.

Device fingerprinting is a technique for identifying computing devices based on their unique configurations. Device fingerprinting services create fingerprints based on a combination of different types of information about a device, such as operating system type and version, web browser type and version, screen resolution, font size, language, time zone, etc.
Electronic commerce merchants and website owners often use device fingerprinting for marketing. By analyzing the browser history of an identified device, website owners can predict the user's preferences. These analytical results can be utilized to show more relevant content to improve user engagement and also to customize the display of advertisements. This can lead to increased revenue by attracting more clicks.
Device fingerprinting can also be used for fraud detection. Because devices are relatively expensive, fraudsters typically have a small number of devices and would like to use them for as many fraudulent transactions as possible. Consequently, they often disguise their devices to avoid being identified. A small set of devices (or even just a single device) may be used to make many transactions. Successfully determining that those transactions are from one device or a small set of devices can help electronic commerce merchants reject the transactions to prevent loss.
Unfortunately, fraudsters often try to manipulate or block device settings in order to disguise their device fingerprints. There are many malicious software products available today that can spoof a device's Internet Protocol (IP) address and overwrite any information that is stored on the device to make the transactions from a device look like they are coming from all over the world from devices of different configurations. The technologies that fraudsters use to disguise their true identities are becoming more advanced and difficult to detect every day.
Although there are various device fingerprinting algorithms in use today, there is no good way to evaluate the quality of a device fingerprinting algorithm. One of the problems is the lack of ground truth labels. In other words, when a device fingerprinting algorithm is used to assign device fingerprints to particular transactions, there is often no set of data to compare against to determine whether those assignments are correct. This makes it difficult to quantify the performance of a device fingerprinting algorithm.
Even if ground truth is sometimes known (e.g., if globally unique device identifiers are available in connection with some transactions), there are still many other technical challenges associated with device fingerprinting. For example, some devices might visit a website hundreds of times (or more) while other devices might only visit the website a few times. This highly skewed distribution makes it difficult to achieve accurate results. Also, device fingerprinting solutions need to be implemented in real time. With the volume of traffic that many websites experience, it can be extremely challenging to match one electronic commerce event with the existing thousands of millions of devices in a few milliseconds. Sophisticated device fingerprinting algorithms and fast computing devices are needed in order to achieve fast and accurate results.

Facilitating device fingerprinting through assignment of fuzzy device identifiers