An apparatus for enabling transmission of signals and data via means of infrared (IR) light for a wind turbine includes a plurality of IR data communication elements configured to provide unidirectional and bidirectional IR data exchange between non-rotating portions of the wind turbine and the rotatable wind turbine hub.

This invention relates generally to wind turbines, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for enabling transmission of data and signals between non-rotating portions of a wind turbine nacelle and a rotating hub.
A conventional slipring is generally used to transmit discrete low voltage signals and to accommodate communication bus protocols between the stationary and rotational parts of a wind turbine. Sliprings are also used to transfer AC or DC power. Sliprings are based on a physical connection between the stationary and rotary structures, accomplished through electrically conductive sliding elements that are subject to wear-out, limiting the design life and reliability of the sliprings.
Other techniques for enabling transmission of data between non-rotating portions of a wind turbine nacelle and a rotating hub may include use of fiber optic rotary joints, or use of wireless transmission, GSM mobile transmission, inductive coupling(s), or capacitive coupling(s).
It would be advantageous to provide methods and apparatus for enabling transmission of data and signals between non-rotating portions of a wind turbine nacelle and the rotating hub that are less expensive to manufacture or otherwise employ while achieving equal or greater reliability than methods and apparatus that require the use of fiber optic rotary joints, wireless transmission, GSM mobile transmission, inductive coupling(s), or capacitive coupling(s).

Contactless infrared data transmission for wind turbines


Disclosed is a one-step permanent cosmetic composition that comprises 1.0 to 5.5 wt. % of a reducing agent; 0.1 to 9.5 wt. % of an alkaline agent; 0.1 to 7.0 wt. % of a catalyst; 1.0 to 15.0 wt. % of an alcohol; and distilled water or ion exchange water for the residual percentage by weight, using a solvent having an alkalinity (representing a consumption of 0.01 N HCl for 1 mL of a test sample) of 1.0 to 4.6 and having a pH value of less than 9.6; and also a one-step permanent cosmetic composition that comprises 1.0 to 5.5 wt. % of a reducing agent; 0.1 to 9.5 wt. % of an alkaline agent; 0.1 to 7.0 wt. % of a catalyst; 1.0 to 15.0 wt. % of an alcohol and additionally 1.0 to 4.5 wt. % of a viscosity enhancing agent; and distilled water or ion exchange water for the residual percentage by weight, using a solvent having an alkalinity (representing a consumption of 0.01 N HCl for 1 mL of a test sample) of 1.0 to 4.6 and having a pH value of less than 9.6.

The present invention relates to the one-step permanent wave solution, which contains no neutralizing agent. Conventional permanent wave solutions were used in a two-step process. Such two-step permanent wave solutions mainly consist of a reducing solution as a first solution comprising ammonium thioglycolate and an alkaline agent such as ammonia water; and an oxidizing solution as a second solution (so-called "neutralizing agent") comprising peroxide or sodium bromide.
These two-step permanent wave solutions have the following several problems. First, repeated use of a reducing agent with high alkalinity and a strong oxidizing agent results in de-coloration or damage to the hair as well as irritations to the skin when they are in contact with the skin. Second, ammonium thioglycolate and ammonia water emit repulsive odors, which remain for a long period, even after hair washing, thereby causing discomfort. Third, treatment with a neutralizing agent causes the inconvenience of having to undergo a two-step process, and the solution drips during the permanent waving, causing irritations to skin and damage to clothing.
The reaction mechanism of the conventional two-step permanent wave solution will now be described briefly. Korean Patent No. 134,755 discloses the two-step permanent wave solution. As disclosed in this patent, the R—S—S—R bond of cystine contained in keratin, a constituent of hair, is first broken into R—S—H and H—S—R by a hydrogenation reduction reaction, and then re-bonded by means of an oxidizing agent as illustrated in the following reaction equation in a state where the hair was deformed into curls. Thus, the hair curls are stabilized.

Furthermore, the conventional permanent wave solution is composed of a first solution containing an excess of an alkali compound (e.g., alkali carbonate, caustic alkali, or ammonia water) that has an alkalinity of more than 3.5 as measured in the amount of 0.1N HCl (mL) required for neutralizing 1 mL of the associated alkali. So, applying the first solution onto hair immediately forms a cyanide compound (e.g., potassium cyanide). This cyanide compound functions to break the —S—S— bond of cystine. More specifically, the reaction between cystine (R—S—S—R where R represents keratin) and potassium cyanide (KCN) occurs in two steps as shown in the following reaction equations (i) and (ii):R—S—S—R+KCNR—S—CN+K—S—R  (i)R—S—CN+K—S—RR—S—R·K—S—CN  (ii)
As described above, this reaction produces lanthionine R—S—R and potassium thiocyanide (see C. R. Robbins, "Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair," Fragrance Journal, p. 56, 1982). Subsequently, as can be seen in the following chemical equation (iii), when using the second solution, thiocyanide (—SCN) is oxidized by alkali bromide, which is an oxidizing agent principally contained in the second solution. Even when the second solution is not used, cyanide (ferric cyanide), which is a byproduct in the waste solution of the permanent wave solution, is oxidized to yield a cyanide compound.—SCN+O2→—CN+SO2  (iii)
As is well known in the art, the cyanide compound reacts with iron contained in hair to form a ferrous hexacyano compound (blue cyanide) or a ferric hexacyano compound (red cyanide).
Besides the above problems, the one-step permanent wave solution, which was recently developed but rarely used, has problems in that the formation of hair curl during the permanent waving is very slow and the curls after the permanent waving readily gets loose by hair washing, thereby deteriorating the product quality.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to solve the problems with the prior art and to provide a one-step permanent wave solution that eliminates the need for using a neutralizing agent during a permanent waving operation, simplifies the permanent wave operation into one step, reduces potential discomfort from contact with the skin, prevents hair damage, makes hair glossy and elastic without odor and provides a pleasant operation condition for the permanent waving.

Permanent cosmetic composition for one-step permanent operation


A system and method is disclosed for providing a robust ultra low power serial interface with a digital clock and data recovery circuit for power management systems. In one advantageous embodiment a digital clock and data recovery circuit of the invention comprises a quadruple phase clock generator circuit that generates four shifted clock signals, a decision logic circuit, a state detector circuit, and an edge detector circuit. The detected edges of data signals are used to latch the state of the four shifted clock signals. The state detector circuit selects a stable clock signal among the four shifted clock signals for use as a recovered clock signal and synchronizes the recovered clock signal at a center of the data signal. The selected recovered clock signal remains available until another data signal transition is detected.

The trend in electronics is to move more and more computing resources into portable and wireless applications. As a result, portable power handheld products and computers now account for nearly ten percent of total power usage. A significant portion of this ten percent is represented by battery charging efficiencies and the cost of manufacturing power delivery systems. Manufacturers have begun to realize that the size and run time demands of the newer types of portable equipment cannot be met by increasing the energy density in batteries.
To increase the functionality and run time of wireless devices manufacturers are turning to high efficiency management of system functions. When the amount of energy that is needed to complete a function is decreased the battery has more energy left to perform other processes. This approach to energy management has been applied to several common wireless functional blocks such as the digital signal processing (DSP) block and the microprocessor.
The shrinking of the size of integrated circuit process technology to the deep submicron range (less than thirteen hundredths of a micron (0.13 μm)) has caused the amount of leakage to equal or exceed the portion of dynamic power dissipation. Unless the leakage is reduced, the power delivery in the deep submicron era will ultimately restrict the ability of handheld wireless devices to meet the customer demand for improved capabilities.
The 2.5 GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution) standard for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) that presently dominates the cellular market presently uses relatively low efficiency linear power amplifiers to achieve the required data rate as well as to meet multimode and multiband requirements. Power amplifiers play a critical role in determining the efficiency of a radio frequency (RF) system because of their high output power levels, which can reach three watts (3.0 W) for some cellular systems. As a result, the design of highly efficient power amplifiers is of great importance in order to extend battery life.
A. Adaptive Voltage Scaling
As semiconductor process technology utilizes lower voltages and reaches deep submicron levels, the number of transistors that may be placed on an integrated circuit chip has increased according to Moore's Law. This development has presented two critical circuit design issues. The first issue is the non-uniformity of process parameters within a single integrated circuit die. The second issue is the increment of power consumption per integrated circuit die.
In deep submicron circuit design, variations due to the non-uniformity of process parameters within a single integrated circuit die cause differences in transistor and interconnect characteristics within a single integrated circuit die. These differences in turn impact the performance of the circuit because they generate deviations in MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) drive current, resulting in propagation delay distributions of the critical path across the integrated circuit chip. Furthermore, the distribution of process parameters expands from die to die within a wafer as well as within a lot.
After fabrication, operating variations such as power supply voltage, chip temperature and across-chip temperature also affect the propagation delay. By combining both operational and process induced variations, the propagation delay fluctuates from approximately eighteen percent (18%) to approximately thirty two percent (32%). The yield of CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) logic circuits satisfying a specific performance requirement is significantly influenced by the magnitude of critical path delay deviations due to both operational and intrinsic parameter fluctuations.
To compensate for the impact of these parameter fluctuations and to achieve a desired yield, there are two possible approaches. The first approach is to reduce the performance by operating at a lower clock frequency. The second approach is to increase the supply voltage.
While the operating frequency limits allowable propagation delay, this delay strongly depends on intrinsic process parameters, supply voltage and junction temperature (abbreviated With the letters PVT for parameters, voltage, and temperature). The propagation delay in a MOSFET is proportional to the product of the active resistance of the MOSFET and load capacitance in accordance with the following expressions:
                              R          ON                =                              V            DD                                              β                                            (                                                      V                    DD                                    -                                      V                    T                                                  )                                      α                                              (        1        )            CL=CD+CG+CW  (2)
The term RON is the active resistance of the MOSFET. The term CL is the load capacitance. The term α is a velocity saturation term. The term β is the process transconductance parameter. The term VDD is the supply voltage. The term VT is the threshold voltage. The term CD is the drain capacitance. The term CG is the gate capacitance. The term CW is the interconnect capacitance.
If a design is fabricated as the best process corner, and is operating at low temperature, in the worst case it needs less than three fourths (¾) of the minimum supply voltage. K. A. Bowman, Xinghai Tang, J. C. Eble, and J. D. Meindl, "Impact of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Parameter Fluctuations on CMOS Circuit Performance," IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, Volume 35, No. 8, pp. 1186-1193, August 2000. Process parameters and operating junction temperature are not controllable, but the supply voltage is controllable. This results in opportunities to reduce power consumption by adjusting supply voltage with regard to process and temperature.
In many portable computing devices (e.g., MP3 players and digital cameras) the full processing power of a processor is not required all the time. There are certain times when an operating frequency can be reduced, and a lower frequency means a longer allowable delay. This longer time margin also allows a supply voltage level to be lowered whereas the applied lower voltage increases the propagation delay. Power consumption is quadratic with the supply voltage and is proportional to the operating frequency. Because of these relationships, reducing both the operating frequency and the supply voltage provides an excellent energy-efficient operation.
This technique is referred to as adaptive voltage scaling (AVS). Adaptive voltage scaling decreases power consumption without sacrificing performance provided that the tasks to be performed are finished within the allowed time. From the trade off between performance and energy consumption, supplying just enough voltage to a system at a given frequency represents its optimum power consumption.
For additional information on adaptive voltage scaling, refer to the following papers. T. D. Burd and R. W. Brodersenl, "Design Issues for Dynamic Voltage Scaling," in 2000 Proceedings of the ISLPED Conference, pp. 9-14. G.-Y. Wei and Mark Horowitz, "A Fully Digital, Energy-Efficient Adaptive Power-Supply Regulator," IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, Volume 34, No. 4, pp. 520-528, April 1999. D. W. Kang, "Low Power Digital Adaptive Voltage Controller Design Based on Hybrid Control and Reverse Phase Mode," Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elec. and Comp. Eng., Northeastern University, Boston, Mass., 2003. J. Kim and Mark Horowitz, "An Efficient Digital Sliding Controller for Adaptive Power Supply Regulation," in 2001 Proceedings of the VLSI Circuits Dig. Tech. Papers Conf., pp. 133-136.
Adaptive voltage scaling (AVS) in the general sense refers to a power supply rail that adjusts its voltage corresponding to the demands of its load. Its load could be any compliant electronic device. The enormous benefit of adaptive voltage scaling (AVS) is that for completing the same function, an AVS compliant processor will use thirty percent (30%) to sixty percent (60%) less energy than a fixed voltage processor. The way to reduce energy consumption in a processor, then, is not only to reduce the clock frequency as low as possible, but, more importantly, to reduce the core supply voltage to the minimum amount for a given clock frequency.
B. Low Voltage Differential Signaling
Serial data streaming techniques have become important in the field of interface microelectronics as manufacturers continue to adopt the technology for intra-system connections. As electronic technology has developed in sophistication, the inability of parallel transmission to accommodate higher speeds and wider words has become more apparent. Designing systems with wide parallel word paths has proved to be too cumbersome and has presented serious technical challenges in the areas of noise, power, speed and cost. Alternatively, low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) combines extremely low power consumption and exceptionally low electrical and radiated noise, with data transmission speeds that are hundreds of times faster—up to tens of GigaHertz—versus parallel single-ended signaling.
Differential signaling operates at the receiver by comparing the difference between two signals. The constant current used in most forms of differential signaling reduces the amount of noise induced into the electrical system. The opposing currents of the two signals that comprise the differential signal cancel out a large portion of the magnetic field of the other signal, thus reducing irradiated emissions. In this way, noise induced into one signal is conversely induced into the other signal, so that the difference between the two signals is not affected. This phenomenon allows the differential signal to operate at reduced signaling levels compared to single-ended signals, thus reducing emissions even further.
The greatest drawback to using parallel single-ended techniques, however, proved not to be the issue of speed, but the substantial increase in radiated noise from the greater number of parallel signals needed to provide the additional bits. A more attractive alternative is serialization via differential signaling techniques. Serialization not only reduces emissions to meet stringent government mandates but also limits the number of wires running through the small-diameter hinge connecting the base unit to the display. This further increases the mechanical integrity and reliability of the connection.
After crosspoint switching became available at the silicon level, serialization of the communications transmission network moved from the inter-system to the intra-system level. Transmitting the serialized data through the system in the same form it was sent over the network was the natural choice. The input signals must be synthesized to operate at faster speeds to meet the high-speed requirements of modern communication in the world today. Both optical and high-speed differential signaling are being investigated and used to achieve these goals.
Improved serialization techniques have opened the door to new applications, particularly in the ultra-portable realm of cell phones and battery powered devices. Cell phones, for example, are encountering many challenges such as high-resolution displays with more colors. Cameras and other convergent functions that are now appearing in cell phones add complexity to the challenge of sending signals across the hinge in clamshell designs (also called flip designs). The bi-directional microcontroller interface occasionally used to lower power between the base and the display poses a new challenge of how to efficiently provide serialization in opposite directions.
Bi-directional serialization provided the solution, but the microcontroller interface posed its own challenge for the serializer. In the past, all serializers were provided with a constant clock at the parallel data rate that was used to develop the high-speed serial clock used for the serial transmission of the data. This parallel clock was not something that was normally available with a microcontroller interface. With the latest serializers and deserializers, it is still necessary to provide a constant clock, but not necessarily at the same frequency as the interface.
Three additional considerations—power, size and cost—grew in importance with the use of serializers in ultra-portable consumer applications. Battery life, an important consideration in all mobile applications, becomes even more critical when the application itself limits the size of the battery, and the primary location of the device is in a pocket of the user rather than on a desktop.
For the last ten years at least, the industry has struggled with how to best integrate serialization. Some of these key integration issues center around the twofold need for high-speed clocking and highly tailored input/output (I/O). The integration of high-speed signaling has proved an extremely difficult challenge due to signaling power requirements and the noise that is generated by the rest of the device. A significant breakthrough for VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) techniques, low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) is a fairly noise-free and immune technology that offers the double advantage of very low power consumption and excellent noise rejection characteristics. The power and electromagnetic interference (EMI) requirement of mobile applications provides another challenge in this area.
For the reasons described above single-ended parallel techniques have inherent drawbacks. The advantages of differential serial data streaming and advances in the manufacture of serializer/deserializer systems will likely accelerate the proliferation of serialized intra-system data interfaces in all application areas.
Data transmission between different digital signal processing integrated circuits (ICs) influences the power consumption and the system cost. Improvements in the performance of the input/output (I/O) bottleneck to communicate digitally between the integrated circuits (ICs) have been made at the expense of the increased on-chip power dissipation. Output switching times in the subnanosecond range result in the fact that the di/dt noise coupled into the power distribution network becomes unacceptable, especially when many output pads switch simultaneously.
Digital CMOS devices typically drive their output pads with a simple CMOS inverter which swings the output pad from ground to the supply voltage VDD, and the output inverter driven by a chain of scaled inverters is larger, in order to drive its huge capacitance output load quickly. This, in turn, contributes considerably to the total power dissipation of applications.
In submicron CMOS circuits, the dynamic factor accounts for eighty five percent (85%) to ninety percent (90%) of the total power consumption because the threshold voltage is commonly on the order of thirty five hundredths of a volt (0.35 V) to seven tenths of a volt (0.70 V) so that the leakage current is negligible. See, for example, M. Pedram, "Design Technologies for Low Power VLSI," in Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology, Volume 36, Marcel Dekker, Inc., pp. 73-96, 1997.
Therefore, power dissipation in digital CMOS circuits is approximately:PCMOS≈Rdynamic=αfC(VDD)2  (3)
From Equation (3) the supply voltage reduction appears to be the most promising method to reduce dynamic power dissipation because of its quadratic dependency to power. Therefore, the power dissipation problem in transmission lines can be solved by reducing the signal swing on the output driver. The problem with this method is that the lower supply voltages will cause a reduction in performance as indicated in Equations (1) and (2). As the value of the supply voltage approaches the threshold voltage, the circuit delays abruptly become large because the output capacitance is charged and discharged very slowly.
The simple approach of sizing the final output driver stage sufficiently large to allow driving a terminated transmission line is problematic on the aspect of power dissipation. For example, with one and two tenth volt (1.2 V) logic swings, even the technique of terminating a fifty ohm (50Ω) line with a Thevenin equivalent fifty ohm (50Ω) resistor to six tenths of a volt (0.6 V) demands a current drive of twelve and one half milliamps (12.5 mA). A shape factor of several thousand is thus required to lower the resistance of the output driver to a level where the voltage drop across the output transistors is several percent of the swing.
On the other hand, low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) is an alternative for a low power and high performance interface. The terminator power dissipation is reduced by the square of the voltage swing, and the rise/fall times are also decreased due to its small rail-to-rail supply range. Because the di/dt effect is reduced due to the decrease in absolute current, the noise, as a fraction of the signal voltage swing, remains constant. The effective impedance of the device should still be a small fraction of the line impedance, in order to achieve acceptable noise margins. The output driver transistors operate in either the cutoff or linear regions. By controlling the gate-to-source voltage, this linear resistance can be forced to match the resistance of the external line.
It is not desirable to have a high power digital interface driving low power analog circuits for a total overall power reduction. A power saving alternative may be found in using low swing high speed serial data transmission. H. Ahzng, V. George, and J. M. Rabaey, "Low Swing On-Chip Signaling Techniques: Effectiveness and Robustness," IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, Volume 8, No. 3, pp. 264-272, 2000.
This kind of high speed data transmission has to be asynchronous. To find an economic solution, clock recovery from the NRZ (Non-Return to Zero) data stream is required because in an asynchronous serial data link, there is no common clock connection between the data sender and receiver. Typically, a phase lock loop (PLL) is employed to phase lock to the data and control the frequency of a new, local clock. See, for example, B. Lai and R. C. Walker, "A Monolithic 622 Mb/s Clock Extraction Data Retiming Circuit," Int. Solid State Circuits Conf., pp. 144-145, San Francisco, Calif., 1991. See also A. Pottbaecker, U. Langmann, and H.-U. Schreiber, "A Si Bipolar Phase and Frequency Detector IC for Clock Extraction up to 8 Gb/s," IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, Vol. 27, No. 12, pp. 1747-1751, 1992. It would be desirable to have a low power high swing serial interface circuit with a digital clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit that does not employ a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method that is capable of providing an improved low power high swing serial interface with a digital clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit. In particular, there is a need in the art for a system and method that is capable of providing a robust ultra low power high swing serial interface circuit with a digital clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit that does not employ a phase locked loop (PLL) circuit.

System and method for providing a robust ultra low power serial interface with digital clock and data recovery circuit for power management systems


An access control system securely transfers identification and transaction information between an access reader and a contactless smart card over a contactless radio frequency link via an RF modem. The access reader contains a programmable microcontroller, DC/DC converter, regulator, Opto-Isolators and LEDS, and an RF modem. The smart cards contain identification or transaction data as well as reader programming and de-programming software, which is protected by appropriate security keys. An access reader having the appropriate security keys performs a one to one verification of data stored in the smart card to data from an identification device coupled to the access reader. Upon verification of the validity of the smart card, the access reader transfers identification and transaction information over a data link to any external processor or controller which controls access to a secured area. Both the data format/protocol and operating state out of the access reader is programmable and configurable at any time. The access reader and access cards are compatible with any existing Wiegand, magnetic stripe, and serial based access control systems, and are configurable to emerging Biometric system designs.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to access systems for accessing restricted areas, and more specifically to a one to one comparison access card reader utilizing security keys for true authenticated verification of the identity of an access card holder attempting to gain access to a restricted area.
2. Background
Access readers typically are small boxes located proximate to the entrances to restricted, or secured, areas. To gain access to an area, an access card holder must present an access card to the access reader, which in turn verifies the information on the card with a central computer. Commonly used access cards include both contact and contactless smart cards. In the prior art systems, the central computer stores data files associated with each access card holder, including information regarding employee identification, card validity, and access rules. The verification process of the prior art requires an initial communication between the access card and the access card reader, communication between the access reader and the central computer, verification of card holder data and access card data at the central computer, communication of the results from the central computer to the access reader, and communication of the results to the access card holder by allowing or denying access to the restricted area.
The verification process of the prior art is sufficient for low traffic entrances, such as a gated entrances for a small office building, wherein the additional time required for the verification process does not cause long queues of employees waiting to pass through the gate. However, even a slight delay required to swipe a contact card and to verify card holder data at the central computer may be inconvenient for "high traffic" entrance ways. Further, complex comparisons such as biometric identification, requires a complex decision process and associated software that must be performed by the central computer as the currently available access readers and access cards have limited storage capacity and processing capability. In addition, the central computer must have updated information for each person, including infrequent visitors, who have clearance to enter a secured area. The data bases stored at the central computer for these entrance ways have the potential to be unmanageable, particularly for multi-story, multi-company office buildings. Security necessarily is augmented through use of security personnel stationed at the gates to check and/or verify identification of employees as they enter the gates.
Installations of the prior art access control systems are costly. Each new access gate or entrance way requires installation of communication lines to the central computer. For multi-story or expansive buildings, the wiring and/or re-wiring process is both time-consuming and expensive. These factors often present cost-prohibitive blocks to converting rooms, labs, or designated areas into secured access areas. In addition, because each door or gate may have different access rights, the central computer also must keep track of personnel access rights for every door or gate. Installation of a new gated entrance requires update of the central computer data bases. In addition, each change in personnel or a change in personnel access to restricted areas requires an update to the data bases, and for large companies, the changes may be required daily.
The prior art also presents security issues. For example, an access card holder user can enter a secured area with an unreported stolen card if the verification process is for validity of the card, only. Thus, for security purposes, entrance ways are often manned to verify the identity of a person holding the card with a picture identification on the access card. One way to eliminate the requirement of security personnel at each entrance way, is through the use of automatic identification systems connected to the central computer. Biometric systems such as fingerprint identification systems are becoming increasingly popular as the biometric technology develops to further identify an access card holder as he or she passes through the secured entrance way. Although the biometric systems may add security of verification and eliminate additional security personnel, the central computer is further burdened with storage of the biometric information. Biometric systems typically employ the concept of a "one to many" comparison, that is, an access card holder presents his fingertip for fingerprint imaging, and this one image is transmitted to a central computer for comparison to many fingerprints to find a matching print. The comparison and search time further slows down the identification process to add delays to the time required to pass through a secure entrance way.
Therefore, a need remains for an access control system that does not require connection to a central computer, but which provides verification of the validity of the access card as well as identification of the access card holder. A further need remains for access readers and access cards that have expanded storage and processing capability for performing complex decision processes and comparisons, such as biometric identification. Yet a further need remains for an access control system which minimizes installation time and cost, which is compatible with existing access control systems, and which may be updated to accommodate changes in secure area entrance rules and locations.


A distribution valve assembly, particularly to a compact valve which can distribute the air from a single air inlet to a plurality of air outlets, comprises a valve housing and a binding air-duct housing. The valve housing further comprises a plurality of electromagnetic valves to form several independent air-flow devices with corresponding air passages to the air-duct housing. Each independent air-flow device further comprises a first air passage and a second air passage, and a penetrating passage is constructed to connect all second air passages. The penetrating passage has an air inlet connecting a pump at one end and a drain valve at another end. Air flow inside the penetrating valve can then be directed to any air-flow device.

(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a distribution valve assembly, and more particularly to a compact valve which can distribute the air from a single air inlet to a plurality of air outlets.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, distribution valves in the art are widely utilized to distribute the air flow. However, previous work is quite complicated and big in structure so that the application scope is limited to some extent. Especially, while cooperating with small-size facility, the clumsy distribution valve in the art likely causes disadvantages in the production, packing, and sales of a whole package; due to the volume, the weigh, and the cost of the conventional distribution valve.
Therefore, an invention devoting to resolving aforesaid disadvantages of the conventional distribution valve is necessary, definitely.

5F, No. 6, Lane 110, Kang-Lo St., Nei-Hu


A method of treating a subterranean well can include positioning a flow restrictor in a wellbore that penetrates an interval of an earth formation, displacing the flow restrictor along the wellbore away from a surface of the well, preventing longitudinal displacement of the flow restrictor in the wellbore, introducing flow into a first section of the interval from a section of the wellbore between the flow restrictor and the surface, blocking the flow from the wellbore section into the first interval section, permitting longitudinal displacement of the flow restrictor in the wellbore, and displacing the flow restrictor along the wellbore away from the surface of the well, thereby permitting unrestricted flow from the wellbore section into a second section of the interval. The second interval section is farther along the wellbore from the surface than the first interval section.

This disclosure relates generally to equipment utilized and operations performed in conjunction with a subterranean well and, in examples described below, more particularly provides for controlling fluid flow during well treatment operations.
In well treatment operations, fluids, gels, slurries, proppant, etc., may be flowed from a wellbore into an earth formation. The treatment of the earth formation is typically most effective if the treatment is performed uniformly across a desired interval along the wellbore.
Therefore, it will be appreciated that improvements are continually needed in the art of treating earth formations. These improvements can result in enhanced uniformity of treatment or control over the treatment (in some circumstances it may be desired to treat one section of an interval more extensively than another section of the interval).

Fluid flow control during well treatment


A generally L-shaped mounting arm has one end for coupling to a bowling scoring unit and an opposite end for extending under a table top and including a mounting flange for securing the opposite end of the arm to the undersurface of the table. In one embodiment, an adapter bracket is provided and is coupled to the pedestal mount of a table itself with an extension to receive the opposite end of the mounting arm. Preferably, the scoring unit is mounted to the one end of the arm to allow its rotation for viewing at different angles and convenient access by players sitting adjacent the edge of the table from which the scoring unit extends.

The present invention relates to a bowling scoring unit and a mounting system for attaching the scoring unit to the undersurface of a table.
Modern bowling lane establishments include scoring systems which provide a variety of information and interactive communications between each of the players, a central station and facilities within the bowling establishment, such as restaurants, lounges and the like. There are several types of bowling scoring units in use including pedestal-mounted scoring units which operate in connection with overhead monitors for the entry of names, scores, and providing an interface between the player and the central station or other facilities within the bowling establishment. Such pedestal-mounted units may include a variety of features and are typically located immediately adjacent the ball return for each pair of lanes. Other scoring systems employ a free-standing monitor and control which eliminates the need for overhead monitors. Such systems display scores and other information and, like the pedestal-mounted scoring units, are mounted in a housing which includes a keyboard, monitor, intercom system and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,548 is representative of such a system which provides individual game information and may or may not be used with additional overhead displays.
Although these systems provide the owner of the bowling establishment with a variety of scoring and monitoring devices for the convenience of the bowlers and a variety of different priced systems, they occupy valuable space at the end of each lane which typically includes a seating area with a table for the convenience of the players while relaxing, eating and socializing. Typically, the table and seating areas behind the bowling lanes are compact, providing tables which will accommodate up to four players in the immediate vicinity of the lanes, although additional seating and table spaces are frequently available behind this area. Thus, the tables in the immediate vicinity of the bowling lanes and which are employed by the bowlers are relatively small to accommodate only their immediate needs. The free-standing and pedestal-mounted scoring units and displays, however, must be navigated around when moving from the seating area to the bowling lanes and, thus, not only occupy valuable floor space but also provide somewhat of an obstacle to the players.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Brunswick Bowling & Billiards Corporation


Disclosed are various embodiments for a smart hub for a smart garment including a mate-able top housing and a bottom housing, the top housing configured for engagement with a controller, the controller comprising automated computing machinery for information processing functions for the smart garment; an engagement for mating the top housing and the bottom housing; wherein the top housing and the bottom housing form an interior cavity to house a baseboard and a PCB when mated; a baseboard within the interior cavity including a pattern of lead paths conforming at least to a portion of the pinout of the PCB; a plurality of electrical leads within the one or more of the lead paths providing electrical connectivity from a plurality of terminals of the PCB through the baseboard to the controller when installed and providing structural support to maintain the PCB to the baseboard.

Wearable computers, also known as body computers or wearables, are often implemented as miniature electronic devices that are worn by a user and provide computer functionality in response to one or more user conditions. Such wearable technology has been developed for general or special purpose information technologies and media development. Wearable computers are especially useful for applications that require more complex computational support than just hardware coded logics. Examples of wearable computers include smart watches, smart eyeglasses, and many others.
Another example of such wearable technology is wearable smart garments. Smart garments are often made with sensors, actuators, information processing components and other components that provide some form of interaction with a user wearing the garment, or some form of data, information processing, or data communications.


A full body dryer. The dryer includes a semi-circular base with a plurality of air tubes extending arcuately upward therefrom. The air tubes are extendable and retractable to adjust a height of the air tubes for use or for compact storage or transport. An upper end of each air tube of the plurality of air tubes includes an air vent to direct forced air toward a portion of an individual's body to dry the individual's body.

The present invention relates to a full body dryer for drying an individual's body.
Many individuals may have difficulty drying themselves after a bathing session, such as a bath or a shower. These individuals may be disabled or may be in a wheelchair, and may have trouble applying a towel or a hair dryer to become dry. In addition, existing larger dryers may not be able to be configured to be compact, which would allow for easier storage or transport.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved full body dryer for drying an individual's body. The present invention addresses this unmet need.
Devices have been disclosed in the art that relate to body dryers. These include devices that have been patented and published in patent application publications. These devices are often either small and ineffective or large and difficult to store or transport. In view of the devices disclosed in the art, it is submitted that there is a need in the art for an improvement to existing full body dryers. In view of the present disclosure, it is submitted that the present invention substantially diverges in structural and functional elements from devices in the art, and substantially fulfills an unmet need.


A valve is provided and includes a valve body defining a pathway, a diaphragm and a wire. The diaphragm is configured to assume first or second conditions in which the diaphragm blocks or permits fluid flow through the pathway, respectively. The diaphragm is biased toward assumption of the first condition. The wire is coupled to the diaphragm. The wire has an uncontracted length in an unheated state whereby the wire permits assumption of the first condition by the diaphragm due to the bias and a contracted length in a heated state whereby the wire pulls the diaphragm toward assumption of the second condition in opposition to the bias.

The following description relates to valves and, more particularly, to a variable flow control diaphragm valve that is operated based on a response of a shape memory alloy.
Variable flow valves are commonly used in multiple technologies and applications. They are often reliant upon the operation of a solenoid element, which is activated or deactivated in order to move a diaphragm between open and closed positions.
It has been found, however, that variable flow valves that rely upon solenoid elements exhibit operational drawbacks. These include, but are not limited to, the fact that solenoids require complex electronics and can be negatively affected by electro-magnetic fields or interference and are also susceptible to dust and moisture infiltration that can degrade performance.

Variable flow controlled diaphragm valve based on shape memory alloy


An example method may include receiving a wireless packet from a sender node at a receiver node that includes a PHY and a MAC. The wireless packet may include multiple codewords. The method may include error checking the codewords at the PHY of the receiver node for codeword-level errors. The method may include generating multiple MPDUs from the codewords. The method may include error checking the MPDUs at the MAC of the receiver node for MPDU-level errors. The method may include generating two-tier feedback based on the error checking at the PHY and the MAC of the receiver node. The method may include sending the two-tier feedback to the sender node.

Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described herein are not prior art to the claims in the present application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Home, office, stadium, and outdoor networks, a.k.a. wireless local area networks (WLAN) are established using a device called a Wireless Access Point (WAP). The WAP may include a router. The WAP wirelessly couples all the devices of the local network, e.g. wireless stations such as: computers, printers, televisions, digital video (DVD) players, security cameras and smoke detectors to one another and to the Cable or Subscriber Line through which Internet, video, and television is delivered to the local network. Most WAPs implement the IEEE 802.11 standard which is a contention-based standard for handling communications among multiple competing devices for a shared wireless communication medium on a selected one of a plurality of communication channels. The frequency range of each communication channel is specified in the corresponding one of the IEEE 802.11 protocols being implemented, e.g. "a", "b", "g", "n", "ac", "ad", "ax". Communications follow a hub and spoke model with a WAP at the hub and the spokes corresponding to the wireless links to each 'client' device.
In digital communication, transmission of information produces errors. Techniques of reducing and monitoring error, such as hamming codes, introduce redundancy in data by adding information to existing data to identify and correct errors following transmission of the data. For example, appending an error correction code to a unit of data and transmitting the resulting codeword can allow for higher tolerance to noise and error.
Typically, a transmitter encodes a data unit to produce a "codeword". Before sending, data is encoded into a codeword from a limited number of possible codewords including error correction data. The transmitter then sends the codeword to a receiver. Once a codeword has been properly received, an algorithm, such as the Viterbi algorithm or the Bahl, Cocke, Jelinek, Raviv (BCJR) algorithm, can be used to decode the codeword.
Every frame transmitted by an 802.11 device requires a significant amount of overhead, including radio level headers, Media Access Control (MAC) frame fields, interframe spacing, and acknowledgment of transmitted frames, etc. Overhead can consume more bandwidth at high data rates than the payload data frame. To address this issue, the 802.11n standard introduced types of frame aggregation that group several data frames into one large frame: Media Access Control (MAC) Service Data Unit (MSDU) aggregation and MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) aggregation. An MPDU is a message that is exchanged between MAC entities.
HARQ is a well-studied and widely used mechanism in wireless, especially cellular communications, to improve link quality. HARQ is a combination of high-rate forward error-correcting coding and ARQ like error-control. In standard ARQ, redundant bits are added to data to be transmitted using an error-detecting (ED) code such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). HARQ traditionally performs better than ordinary ARQ in poor signal conditions, but in its simplest form this comes at the expense of significantly lower throughput in good signal conditions. There is typically a signal quality cross-over point below which simple HARQ is better, and above which basic ARQ is better.
Wi-Fi fails to include HARQ in any of its releases until and including IEEE 802.11ax. Conventional HARQ approaches have been unsuitable with Wi-fi due to high complexity in terms of transceiver design and inefficiency of MAC level protocol to support the re-transmissions.
The subject matter described herein is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one example technology area where some implementations described herein may be practiced.

HARQ framing and retransmission with two-tier feedback

SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC


A method of producing a speaker which is manufactured by bonding a plurality of speaker components, including steps of humidifying a joint portion which bonds at least two speaker components among the plurality of speaker components; and bonding the speaker components by humidifying the joint portion and thereafter painting a moisture-curable adhesive on the joint portion, to thereby reduce a time for bonding the speaker components by easily and quickly drying regardless of materials of the speaker components.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technical field of producing a speaker used by various audio equipments.
2. Related Art
One type of speaker disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-39405 is typically constructed to include a magnetic circuit, formed by laminating and connecting a lower plate having a center pole, a ring-like magnet, and a ring-like upper plate. A frame is connected to this magnetic circuit. Further, a voice coil is connected so that the voice coil is placed inside a magnetic gap of the magnetic circuit. Further, a damper is connected to the frame. Thus the damper, the voice coil and the corn are connected. Further, an edge is connected to the frame. As described above, when these speaker components are connected, a bond is ordinarily used. Specifically, the bond is an organic solvent containing bond or a moisture-curable adhesive. However, since the organic solvent containing bond contains an organic solvent, it is necessary to spend a long time for sufficiently drying the bond and adhering each of the speaker components. Further, it is necessary to spend a long time for sufficiently dry the bond and adhere the speaker components when the moisture-curable adhesive is used without sufficiently supplying humidity or moisture. Therefore, when such the speaker is manufactured on a production line, each of the speaker components is adhered, the speaker component thus adhered is dropped once from the production line and is subjected to drying at a location other than the production line. Then the speaker is again carried in the production line to thereby bring over to a succeeding process. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent flow of the production line. Further, it is necessary to additionally prepare a place for drying the speaker components. Thus a cumbersome work occurs.
Accordingly, in order to solve the above problem, when the moisture-curable adhesive is used. There has been developed a method of painting a water-based paint on a joint portion of bonding the speaker components, painting the moisture-curable adhesive thereon, and then adhering the speaker components each other. In use of this method, it is possible to faster dry the bond and reduce a time for drying the speaker components thereby reducing a time necessary for adhering the speaker components each other.
However, in a case where the speaker component is a hard-to-bond material, it is necessary to provide a pre pretreatment like plasma jet for spreading the water-based paint while maintaining a wet condition of the paint.


Systems and methods are provided that facilitate retrieval of a hash index in an electronic device. The system contains an addressing component that generates a hash index as a function of an exclusive-or identity. The addressing component can retrieve the hash index as a function of a tag value. Accordingly, required storage area can be reduced and electronic devices can be more efficient.

Cache memory is based on a premise that programs reuse the same instructions and data. Cache memory comprises one or more levels of dedicated high-speed memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up subsequent access to the same data.
A cache transparently stores data as entries so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The cache monitors requests for data to see if requested data has already been stored in the cache. If the data had indeed been stored in the cache, the data is delivered with to the processor from the cache. Each cache entry is typically accessed by an address tag and index.
A cache can perform functions requiring two different types of memory, data memory and tag memory. Data memory actually stores data representing data in main memory. Tag memory, or tag RAM, stores data that determines which memory locations are actually stored in the cache. In general, the tag memory contains a plurality of entries corresponding to the entries of the data cache. Each entry is indexed by some number of least significant bits of the address, with the tag entry itself containing the most significant bits of the memory location which is stored in the corresponding data cache entry, typically the address of the main memory location associated with a cache entry.
A cache address can be specified simply by index. A tag is kept to allow the cache to translate from a cache address (tag, index) to a unique system address. A cache hit means that a system tried to access an address, and a matching cache block (index, and matching tag) was available in cache. In a cache miss, the system tries to access an address, and there is no matching cache block.
Caches are typical classified as direct mapped cache of associative cache. In a direct mapped cache each main memory address maps to a unique cache location. In fully associative cache, any main memory address can be associated in any cache location. In set associative cache each address tag corresponds to a set of cache locations.
The number of address tags required in a cache is proportional to the size of the cache. Larger physical memory spaces require more address bits and correspondingly wider memory to store each address tag.
A memory address can be split into a tag, a index and a block offset. The index describes the cache row where data is stored. The block offset specifies the desired data within the cache row. The tag contains part of the address of the actual data fetched from the main memory.


A sample rate conversion system converts from an input sample rate stream having a predetermined input sample rate to an output sample stream having a predetermined output sample rate by interpolating output samples from the input samples using first and second approximate sample rate ratios. The system includes circuitry which selects a sequence of interpolation filters from among a set of filters, the sequences being defined by one of these approximate ratios, and circuitry which monitors the magnitude of the accumulated error introduced by the approximation. When this accumulated error becomes greater than a threshold, the system changes to use a further sequence of interpolation filters based on the other approximate ratio. The accumulated error changes in a positive sense with each successive sample while one of the two approximate ratios is used. The accumulated error changes in a negative sense with each successive sample while the other of the two approximate ratios is used. The system switches between these sample rate ratios to maintain the magnitude of the position error of the interpolated samples below a predetermined threshold value. A sample rate conversion system which converts a television signal in CCIR (601) format into a Phase Alternate Line (PAL) video signal is disclosed.

The present invention concerns a system for resampling one sampled data signal to generate another sampled data signal where the two sampled data signals have different sample rates, and in particular, to such a system which resamples signals having respective sampling rates that may be represented as a ratio of two large relatively prime integers.
Sample rate conversion systems are well known for converting information bearing signals from one format to another code. Such systems are commonly used for data telemetry, audio signal processing, and video signals standards conversion.
An exemplary video signal standards conversion system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,911 entitled, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONVERSION OF DIGITAL VIDEO SIGNALS, which is hereby incorporated by reference for its teachings on digital resampling techniques.
The system described in the above-referenced patent converts video signals having a nominal sample rate of 13.5 MHz into a digital signal having a sample rate of 14.31818 MHz, (hereinafter 14.3 MHz) which is compatible with the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) Standard. The ratio of these two sample frequencies is exactly equal to the ratio of 33 to 35.
Accordingly, the standards conversion system described in the referenced patent generates 35 output samples for every 33 input samples that it receives. This is accomplished using 35 interpolation filters which generate interpolated samples at 35 respective positions between any two of the input samples. The filter, X.sub.i+1, which is selected to generate the i+1.sup.th output sample is defined by equation (1). EQU X.sub.i+1 =(X.sub.i 33) MOD 35 (1)
This technique of sample rate conversion works well when the input and output sample rates can be represented as a ratio of two relatively small numbers. When, however, the ratio of these rates cannot be represented to a high degree of precision by a manageable ratio, this conversion process may be inaccurate or unduly expensive to implement.
For example, consider a resampling circuit which converts from the CCIR (601) standard having a nominal sample rate of 13.5 MHz to the Phase Alternate Line (PAL) standard which has a sample rate of 17.734475 (hereinafter 17.7) MHz. The smallest exact ratio between these two sampling frequencies is 540,000 over 709,379. Thus, if the scheme described above were used to resample the CCIR (601) signal into a PAL digital signal, 709,379 digital filters would be required. At the current state of the art, it is impractical to implement a video standards conversion system having 709,379 filters.
An alternative sampling scheme may be to use a ratio which approximates the desired ratio and to periodically reset the resampling system, for example, once per horizontal line in order to prevent errors from propagating. This scheme, however, is relatively complex since the starting sample interpolation filter changes from line to line. In addition, this scheme may result in an excessively distorted image causing the individual lines of the image to be either shorter or longer than they would be if the proper sequence of interpolation filters were used.

Approximating sample rate conversion system


A packet switching system arbitrates between Virtual Output Queues (VoQ) in plural input buffers, so as to grant the right of transmitting data to a crossbar switch to some of the VoQs by taking both an output data interval of a VoQ and the queue length of a VoQ as parameters. The system suppresses the delay time of the segment of a VoQ having a high load, thereby preventing buffers from overflowing; and, also, the system permits a VoQ having a low load to transmit segments under no influence of the VoQ that has a high load and is just reading out the segment.

The present invention relates to a packet switching system having an input buffer and an output buffer (referred to as an input/output buffer packet switching system, hereinafter), particularly to a packet switching system adopting an arbiter system.
A conventional input/output buffer packet switching system, which has a First-In First-Out (FIFO) memory for each input line, has a disadvantage in that, if plural packets inputted from plural input lines converge at a predetermined output path, "Head Of Line (HOL) blocking" is caused, in which there is only 58.6% throughput of data transfer. To avoid HOL blocking, there is provided a well known method in which a Virtual output Queue (VoQ) is provided for each output path at an input buffer.
The input/output buffer packet switching system associated with a crossbar switch, because a crossbar switch has no buffer, adopts a way to arbitrate between the VoQs of input buffers, so as to prevent data on the crossbar switch from being converged. The arbitration is performed for the purpose of selecting a combination of an input port and an output port to which the right of transmitting data (grant) to some of the VoQs is given. Accordingly, higher throughput of data transfer of the switching system depends on efficient arbitration.
There are two ways to effect arbitration for selecting a combination of an input port and an output port: one, where arbitration is performed using the unit of a fixed-length internal packet into which variable length packets inputted to the switch have been divided; and another, where, as indicated in USP Ser. No. 09/362,134, arbitration is performed using the unit of a fixed-length container into which plural variable length packets are packed. In this way, two units are used in the switching processing: one unit in the form of an internal packet having a small fixed length and another unit in the form of a container having a large fixed length.
As regards a unit used in the processing carried out in the switching system of the invention, the volume of data per arbitration is defined as one segment. Note that hereafter the term "segment" is also used as a generic term to indicate data to be treated inside the switch, data such as an internal packet, a packet, and a cell.
As conventional arbitration, the following three methods have been proposed:                First, there is a method of selecting a sending queue on a Round Robin basis by taking into consideration whether a segment of the VoQ exists as a parameter, as disclosed in "A Study of structuring a Large Capacity Packet Switching Systems," Koji WAKAYAMA, et al., SHINGAKUGIHOU SSE98-160, and also disclosed in JP-A-2000-78148;        Second, there is a method of selecting sending queues by taking the waiting time of the segment in the VoQ as a parameter, as disclosed in "A Study of Scheduling an Input Buffer Switch and Trial manufacture thereof," Toshiyuki SUDO, et al., SHINGAKUGIHOU SSE99-118; and        Third, there is a method of selecting an output data queue by taking the length of the VoQ as a parameter, as disclosed in "A Proposal of Balanced Packet Scheduling Algorithm and Performance Evaluation," SHINGAKUGIHOU SSE96-56.
Each of the three methods has a problem that is caused when an unbalanced load is applied to the switch. Referring to FIG. 16, which is a conceptual view of an input port 30 of a 4×4 switch, an example of the problems will be explained. In the figure, reference numbers 31-1, 31-2, 31-3, and 31-4 denote VoQs, each being directed along its output path; a quadrangle in each VoQ represents a segment. The VoQ 31-1 has traffic which represents a higher load than the other queues; and the VoQ 31-4 has traffic H which represents a lower load than other queues.
In the first method of selecting a sending queue on a Round Robin basis by taking into consideration whether segment of a VoQ exists as a parameter, if unbalanced loads are applied to the switch, the Round Robin approach that equitably reads out segments from all VoQs permits the VoQ having a low load to transmit segments without regard to the VoQ that has a high load and is just reading out a segment. However, the queue of a VoQ having a high load is liable to be long, causing its delay time in segment transmission inside the switch to be longer than those of the other VoQs. As shown in FIG. 16, this brings about an overflow of segments at VoQ 31-1 having a high load, and might result in a segment 32A being abandoned.
In the second method of selecting sending queues by taking the waiting time of a segment in the VoQ as a parameter, in the same way as the first method, the queue of a VoQ having a high load is liable to be long This also causes the waiting time of the segment in a VoQ having a low load to be long, since the method that takes the waiting time of the segment in VoQ as a parameter transmits a segment having a long waiting time in a priority manner. In addition, management of the waiting time of all segments needs a lot of counters, so the method is not practicable.
Therefore, in most cases, the second method counts the waiting time from when the segment has arrived at the top of the queue. Specifically, it adds 1 to the counter of the VoQ when the segment in the VoQ is not transmitted during one arbitration, while it resets the counter when the segment is transmitted during one arbitration. This treats both a VoQ having a high load and a VoQ having a low load in the same way, because the counter resets once the segments of the VoQ which even has a high load are transmitted. Thus, the delay time of the VoQ to which a high load is given under the unbalanced load condition finally becomes large, and thus this might eliminate the overflow segments of the buffer.
In the third method of selecting sending queues by taking the length of the queue as a parameter, the segment can be effectively read out from a VoQ having a high load under above-said condition where an unbalanced load is applied to the switch. Thus, the delay time of the segment of a VoQ having a high load becomes small, also preventing a buffer from overflowing The method, however, suffers from a phenomenon called starvation, in which the grant of a transmission right is not given to a segment 32B of VoQ 31-4 that has a low load.
Accordingly, the method might result in a deterioration of the quality of data in the packets, especially in both packets of voice data, which are required never to be late in data transfer, and packets of important data, which are required never to be abandoned in data transfer, both for keeping good quality in data.


An apparatus includes a rotation body, a motor, a drive controller, a rotating speed detector, a rotation error determination circuit, and a filter. The rotation body is provided on an outer peripheral surface of an elongated insertion section and configured to be rotatable around a longitudinal axis. The motor rotates the rotation body. The drive controller controls driving of the motor. The rotating speed detector detects a rotating speed of the motor based on an encoder signal output from an encoder. The rotation error determination circuit determines an error in rotation of the rotation body based on the detected rotating speed. The filter passes, as the encoder signal, only a signal having a frequency, outside a frequency band of a high-frequency signal of a high-frequency treatment instrument, of signals input to the rotating speed detector.

A self-propelled endoscope apparatus is known as an endoscope apparatus to be inserted into a lumen. In the self-propelled endoscope apparatus, for example, an insertion section is moved forward and backward by a propulsive force generated by rotating a rotation body provided around the insertion section by a motor. Such an endoscope apparatus assists an insertion or removal operation of the insertion section by the user.
Here, the motor of the self-propelled endoscope apparatus is feedback-controlled. In this feedback control, the drive of the motor is controlled in accordance with the deviation between the target value corresponding to a foot switch depressed by the user and the measured value of the rotating speed of a motor measured by the encoder provided in the motor. The insertion device proposed in International Publication No. 2016/009711 improves the accuracy of feedback control by removing, by a low-pass filter (LPF), high-frequency noise in an instruction value input from an input unit such as a foot switch.
The self-propelled endoscope apparatus is provided with an error determination unit that determines an error of rotation of the rotation body. This error determination unit determines an error in rotation of the rotation body based on the rotating speed of the motor, when, for example, the rotating speed of the rotation body is more than necessary, or the rotation body is not rotating when necessary.

Apparatus and control apparatus for the same


Heat-shrinkable tubes are fitted on a dress hanger or its clips and are then shrunk by heating them until the tubes are tightly secured to the hanger or its clips. The tubes are flocked or are otherwise provided with a constituent exhibiting a non-slip property at locations where the tubes will come into contact with clothes hung on the hanger. The clothes are thus prevented from slipping on the hanger.

This invention relates to a dress hanger with non-slip means and a method of manufacturing the same.
As shown in FIG. 16, a conventional hanger generally comprises a hook 1, arms 2 extending in opposite directions from the hook 1, and a hanger bar 3. The arms 2 are used for hanging a suit, a blouse, etc. and the hanger bar 3 is used for hanging pants and a skirt.
Various means have been proposed to prevent the clothes hung on the arms 2 and the bar 3 from slipping thereon and becoming wrinkled. One of such means is to attach flocked cloth patches S to the arms 2 and the bar 3. However, it is difficult to attach such patches to the arms 2 so that they will fit perfectly on the surface thereof. Thus, they can peel off easily while in use. Further, such patches will give the hanger a less attractive appearance.
Some of the conventional hangers have clamp (11 in FIG. 9) attached to the arms 2 or the bar 3 to clip a skirt or the like. Conventional non-slip means used for such clips include synthetic resin coatings provided on the clip surfaces and resilient members C such as sponge bonded to the clip surfaces as shown in FIG. 17.
Such coatings are usually formed by dipping and thus their workability and working environment are not good. Further, since their thickness tends to be uneven, such clips tend to leave clipping marks on clothes. The resilient members C peel off easily.

47, Koaza Kitahata, Oaza Ichisaka, Kizu-cho


A system for controlling executable size of video development kits comprises an SDK. The SDK comprises a framework, an SDK library function, and a pointing function to deliver a pointer. The framework calls a pointing function. The SDK library function comprises a video processing function. The framework and the SDK library function are compiled into a video processing application. The pointing function points to the SDK library function. The pointing function includes a preprocessor conditional to remove a code section that refers to the SDK library function.

When providing a software developer kit (SDK) for video processing applications, it is desirable to include a large number of functionalities stored in libraries accessible to the software developer. The software developer may want to access all, some, or none of the functionalities. The SDK can additionally include a video processing application framework for executing basic video processing application functionality that can be expanded on by the developer. The libraries included in the SDK can be loaded by the video processing application either statically or dynamically.
Dynamic loading is a mechanism by which a computer program can, at run time, load a library into memory, retrieve the addresses of functions and variables contained in the library via names, execute those functions or access those variables, and unload the library from memory once the operations are done. This mechanism allows a computer program to startup in absence of these libraries, to discover available libraries, and to potentially gain additional functionalities. This makes it easy to control whether to use an additional functionality based on the results of dynamic loading. However, dynamic loading results in a slower application, due to the library load times, and the loss of optimizations possible by compiling the libraries together with the application. Dynamic loading can also cause problems if the version of the library loaded is not the version expected by the developer or if the library is not present, etc.
Static libraries avoid the problems of dynamic libraries, however, the advantages are lost as well. On the other hand, static libraries have a problem in that including a set of static libraries called by the framework requires all of the libraries to be linked to the final executable, increasing the executable size.

System for video development kits with control of executable size


A method for searching for a partially specified Uniform Resource Locator (URL) addresses includes receiving a user request, from a user, including a partially specified URL address. A URL search request handler is invoked to search for the partially specified URL address within an inverted index of web site URLs. A web search request handler is invoked to rank the search results of the search for the partially specified URL address based on one or more keywords specified in the user request, a list of recently accessed URLs, and a user profile. Search results are returned to the user comprising a list of URL addresses based on the search for the partially specified URL and ranked based on the user search data.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a system and method for searching on the World Wide Web; specifically, a system and method for locating URLs based on incomplete or partially specified URL entries.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the amount of information available on the World Wide Web (WWW) and usage of the Internet continue to grow, search engines become an important tool to find relevant information. Many Web sites provide services for searching information on the Web, e.g. altavista.com, yahoo.com, lycos.com, excite.com, etc.
Typically, users enter keywords as search terms to find sites having information or content relating to the search terms. Search engines such as those mentioned above build site databases by crawling pages of the Internet, extracting keywords, and building an index of Web pages based on the keywords appearing on the Web pages. A site is found when the keywords entered match keywords in the index. Some search sites include the URL of a Web page as part of the text description of the Web page. Thus, there is no real differentiation between searching the URL and the body of the text. For example, if one specifies "apple" as a search term, sites having the word "apple" in the URL such as www.apple.com or www.appledaily.com would be returned as well as sites which contain "apple" somewhere in the text.
One problem with such a search and match method occurs when a user enters an incomplete or misspelled keyword. The index would yield no match or a wrong match, and the intended website(s) would not be returned. The same occurs when a website address or URL is entered incompletely. In such cases, unless there is a complete match, the user will not be routed to the intended website. For forgetful people, this problem is frequently encountered. For instance, as companies advertise their products over the media (radio, TV, newspaper), they often refer the audience to their websites. However, many people often cannot remember the entire URL heard on the radio or seen on television or in newspapers, thus frustrating the intentions of the advertisers.
As an aside, searching in computers by the use of wildcards designated by symbols (e.g., *, #, ?) is effective in locating words or terms in a document or locating files in memory. Wildcards are commonly used in directory searches in operating systems like UNIX and in text editor searches in editors such as Emacs. For example, when a file search using "*.exe" as a search term is entered, all execution files having the ".exe" extension will be shown as found by the computer, with "*" being a wildcard representing any length of characters.
The application of the above wildcard searching technique would simplify and enhance search and locating capabilities for searching URL addresses. Such search techniques have not heretofore been used but would allows users to locate URL's with entry of a partially specified URL address with wild card characters, such as "*" and "?", where the asterisk represents any string of any length of characters, and the question mark represents any single character.
Accordingly, there is a need for an efficient and effective system and method that allows a partially specified URL entry to be searched on the World Wide Web yielding search results that partially match the partially specified URL entry, wherein the partially specified URL entry can contain wildcard characters, or may be incomplete or misspelled.

System and method for providing service for searching web site addresses

International Business Machines Corporation


Ultrasonic echographic imaging body organs using gas or air filled microballoons having a mean size in the range of 0.5 to 1000 microns bounded by a 50 to 500 nm thick biodegradable, interfacially deposited, synthetic polymer membrane which is both deformable and resilient are described.

It is well known that microbodies or microglobules of air or a gas, e.g. microspheres like microbubbles or microballoons, suspended in a liquid are exceptionally efficient ultrasound reflectors for echography. In this disclosure the term of "microbubble" specifically designates air or gas microspheres in suspension in a carrier liquid which generally result from the introduction therein of air or a gas in divided form, the liquid preferably also containing surfactants or tensides to control the surface properties and the stability of the bubbles. In the microbubbles, the gas to liquid interface essentially comprises loosely bound molecules of the carrier liquid. The term of "microcapsule" or "microballoon" designates preferably air or gas bodies with a material boundary or envelope of molecules other than that of the carrier liquid, i.e. a polymer membrane wall. Both microbubbles and microballoons are useful as ultrasonic contrast agents. For instance injecting into the bloodstream of living bodies suspensions of gas microbubbles or microballoons (in the range of 0.5 to 10 .mu.m) in a carrier liquid will strongly reinforce ultrasonic echography imaging, thus aiding in the visualization of internal organs. Imaging of vessels and internal organs can strongly help in medical diagnosis, for instance for the detection of cardiovascular and other diseases.
The formation of suspensions of microbubbles in an injectable liquid carrier suitable for echography can be produced by the release of a gas dissolved under pressure in this liquid, or by a chemical reaction generating gaseous products, or by admixing with the liquid soluble or insoluble solids containing air or gas trapped or adsorbed therein.
For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,442 (Schering), there are disclosed a series of different techniques for producing suspensions of gas microbubbles in a sterilized injectable liquid carrier using (a) a solution of a tenside (surfactant) in a carrier liquid (aqueous) and (b) a solution of a viscosity enhancer as stabilizer. For generating the bubbles, the techniques disclosed there include forcing at high velocity a mixture of (a), (b) and air through a small aperture; or injecting (a) into (b) shortly before use together with a physiologically acceptable gas; or adding an acid to (a) and a carbonate to (b), both components being mixed together just before use and the acid reacting with the carbonate to generate CO.sub.2 bubbles; or adding an over-pressurized gas to a mixture of (a) and (b) under storage, said gas being released into microbubbles at the time when the mixture is used for injection One problem with microbubbles is that they are generally short-lived even in the presence of stabilizers. Thus, in EP-A131.540 (Schering), there is disclosed the preparation of microbubble suspensions in which a stabilized injectable carrier liquid, e.g. a physiological aqueous solution of salt, or a solution of a sugar like maltose, dextrose, lactose or galactose, is mixed with solid microparticles (in the 0.1 to 1 .mu.m range) of the same sugars containing entrapped air. In order to develop the suspension of bubbles in the liquid carrier, both liquid and solid components are agitated together under sterile conditions for a few seconds and, once made, the suspension must then be used immediately, i.e. it should be injected within 5-10 minutes for echographic measurements; indeed, because the bubbles are evanescent, the concentration thereof becomes too low for being practical after that period.
Another problem with microbubbles for echography after injection is size. As commonly admitted, microbubbles of useful size for allowing easy transfer through small blood vessels range from about 0.5 to 10 .mu.m; with larger bubbles, there are risks of clots and consecutive emboly. For instance, in the bubble suspensions disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,442 (Schering) in which aqueous solutions of surfactants such as lecithin, esters and ethers of fatty acids and fatty alcohols with polyoxyethylene and polyoxyethylated polyols like sorbitol, glycols and glycerol, cholesterol, or polyoxy-ethylene-polyoxypropylene polymers, are vigorously shaken with solutions of viscosity raising and stabilizing compounds such as mono- and polysaccharides (glucose, lactose, sucrose, dextran, sorbitol); polyols, e.g. glycerol, polyglycols; and polypeptides like proteins, gelatin, oxypolygelatin and plasma protein, only about 50% of the microbubbles are below 40-50 .mu.m which makes such suspensions unsuitable in many echographic application.
In contrast, microcapsules or microballoons have been developed In an attempt to cure some or the foregoing deficiencies. As said before, while the microbubbles only have an immaterial or evanescent envelope, i.e. they are only surrounded by a wall of liquid whose surface tension is being modified by the presence of a surfactant, the microballoons or microcapsules have a tangible envelope made of substantive material other than the carrier itself, e.g. a polymeric membrane with definite mechanical strength. In other terns, they are microspheres of solid material in which the air or gas is more or less tightly encapsulated.
For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,276,885 (Tickner et al.) discloses using surface membrane microcapsules containing a gas for enhancing ultrasonic images, the membrane including a multiplicity of non-toxic and non-antigenic organic molecules. In a disclosed embodiment, these microbubbles have a gelatin membrane which resists coalescence and their preferred size is 5-10 .mu.m. The membrane of these microbubbles is said to be sufficiently stable for making echographic measurements; however it is also said that after a period of time the gas entrapped therein will dissolve in the blood-stream and the bubbles will gradually disappear, this being probably due to slow dissolution of the gelatin. Before use, the microcapsules are kept in gelatin solutions in which they are storage stable, but the gelatin needs to be heated and melted to become liquid at the time the suspension is used for making injection.
Microspheres of improved storage stability although without gelatin are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,433 (Feinstein). These microspheres are made by sonication (5 to 30 KHz) of viscous protein solutions like 5% serum albumin and have diameters in the 2-20 .mu.m range, mainly 2-4 .mu.m. The microspheres are stabilized by denaturation of the membrane forming protein after sonication, for instance by using heat or by chemical means, e.g. by reaction with formaldehyde or glutaraldehyde. The concentration of stable microspheres obtained by this technique is said to be about 8.times.10.sup.6 /ml in the 2-4 .mu.m range, about 10.sup.6 /ml in the 4-5 .mu.m range and less than 5.times.10.sup.5 in the 5-6 .mu.m range. The stability time of these microspheres is said to be 48 hrs or longer and they permit convenient left heart imaging after intravenous injection. For instance, the sonicated albumin microbubbles when injected into a peripheral vein are capable of transpulmonary passage. This results in echocardiographic opacification of the left ventricle cavity as well as myocardial tissues.
Recently still further improved microballoons for injection ultrasonic echography have been reported in EP-A-324.938 (Widder). In this document there are disclosed high concentrations (more than 10.sup.8) or air-filled protein-bounded microspheres of less than 10 .mu.m which have life-times of several months or more. Aqueous suspensions of these microballoons are produced by ultrasonic cavitation of solutions of denaturable proteins, e.g. human serum albumin, which operation also leads to a degree of foaming of the membrane-forming protein and its subsequent hardening by heat. Other proteins such as hemoglobin and collagen are said to be convenient also.
Still more recently M. A. Wheatley et al., Biomaterials 11 (1990), 713-717, have reported the preparation of polymer-coated microspheres by ionotropic gelation of alginate. The reference mentions several techniques to generate the microcapsules; in one case an alginate solution was forced through a needle in an air jet which produced a spray of nascent air filled capsules which were hardened in a bath of 1.2% aqueous CaCl.sub.2. In a second case involving co-extrusion of gas and liquid, gas bubbles were introduced into nascent capsules by means of a triple-barelled head, i.e. air was injected into a central capillary tube while an alginate solution was forced through a larger tube arranged coaxially with the capillary tube, and sterile air was flown around it through a mantle surrounding the second tube. Also in a third case, gas was trapped in the alginate solution before spraying either by using a homogeneizer or by sonication. The microballoons thus obtained had diameters in the range 30-100 .mu.m, however still oversized for easily passing through lung capillaries.
The high storage stability of the suspensions of microballoons disclosed in EP-A-324.938 enables them to be marketed as such, i.e. with the liquid-carrier phase, which is a strong commercial asset since preparation before use is no longer necessary. However, the protein material used in this document may cause allergenic reactions with sensitive patients and, moreover, the extreme strength and stability of the membrane material has some drawbacks: for instance, because of their rigidity, the membranes cannot sustain sudden pressure variations to which the microspheres can be subjected, for instance during travel through the blood-stream, these variations of pressure being due to heart pulsations. Thus, under practical ultrasonic tests, a proportion of the microspheres will be ruptured which makes imaging reproducibility awkward; also, these microballoons are not suitable for oral application as they will not resist the digestive enzymes present in the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, it is known that microspheres with flexible walls are more echogenic than corresponding microspheres with rigid walls.
Furthermore, in the case of injections, excessive stability of the material forming the walls of the microspheres will slow down its biodegradation by the organism under test and may result into metabolization problems. Hence it is such preferable to develop pressure sustaining microballoons bounded by a soft and elastic membrane which can temporarily deform under variations of pressure and endowed with enhanced echogenicity; also it might be visualized that micro-balloons with controllable biodegradability, for instance made of semi-permeable biodegradable polymers with controlled micro-porosity for allowing slow penetration of biological liquids, would be highly advantageous.

Method of echographic imaging using polymeric gas or air filled microballoons