Techniques are provided for performing OID-to-VMA translations during runtime. Vector registers are used to implement a “software TLB” to perform OID-to-VMA translations. Runtime dereferencing is performed using one or more vector registers to compare each OID that needs to be dereferenced against a set of cached OIDs. When a cached OID matches the OID being dereferenced, the VMA of the cached OID is retrieved from cache. Buffer cache items may be pinned during the period in which the software TLB stores entries for the items. The cache of OID translation information may be single or multi-leveled, and may be partially or completely stored in registers within a processor. When stored in registers, the translation information may be spilled out of the register, and reloaded into the register, as the register is needed for other purposes.

Many computer programs model problems as sets of inter-related objects. During execution, such programs perform operations on objects that are stored as data structures in the memory of the computer system. Objects may have numerous attributes, including attributes that represent relationships to other objects. When a first object has an attribute that represents a relationship to a second object, the first object is referred to as the source object and the second object is referred to as the target object.
The information used to represent an attribute that represents a relationship with a target object is referred to as a "reference". A reference to a target object is stored in the data structure that represents the source object. For many applications, the most common operation in processing objects is to locate the target object based on the reference to the target object contained in the source object. This operation is known as reference traversal.
Many programs use a data type called a "pointer" to reference a target object. A pointer indicates the memory location of the data structure that corresponds to the target object. To allow a program to access more objects than can fit in the available dynamic memory, pointers typically contain a virtual memory address (VMA) of the target object rather than the actual physical address of the dynamic memory location at which the target object resides. When a program uses the VMA as the representation of the reference, the program relies on the underlying virtual memory mechanism of the computer operating system and hardware for looking up the physical memory addresses of target objects.
When an object is in dynamic memory, the VMA of the object is generally used to represent a reference to the object because most computers have a built-in hardware lookup mechanism and high-speed memory for an address translation table that maps VMAs to physical memory addresses. In addition, operating systems typically provide efficient memory caching support based on virtual memory access. By employing the built-in address translation and memory caching mechanisms, the use of VMAs as references to target objects results in a highly efficient reference traversal.
Unfortunately, VMAs and physical memory addresses are dynamically allocated, and are thus only valid, within and during a particular program execution. Therefore, a VMA used for a target object during one execution of a program may not be the same for the same target object during a subsequent execution of the same program. Similarly, the VMA of any given target object may not be the same for two concurrently executing programs. Therefore, VMAs cannot be used as the sole representation of references to target objects in environments where objects are shared across different executions of the same program, or across different concurrently-executing programs.
In a database management system (DBMS), the information used for references must correctly identify objects across all program executions. Some unique way of permanently identifying the object must be provided, which shall be referred to herein as an "object identifier" (OID). OIDs must be based on the lowest-level physical storage address. Thus, an OID typically communicates where an object is located on disk, as opposed to the object's VMA or physical memory address. Consequently, OIDs are typically based on some form of data block ID. OIDs may, for example, include a multi-part key that indicates a file number (identifying the file where the information is stored on disk) or a proxy thereof, and a relative block number (which counts the number of fixed-size blocks into that file where the data is stored). (Other usages for OID in the literature sometimes describe a LOGICAL persistent unique ID, but this must eventually be mapped to a physical storage address via an index or similar structure).
Unlike VMAs, the OID of an object uniquely identifies the object across all program executions. However, if the OID is used as a reference to an object stored in dynamic memory, each traversal operation requires mapping the OID to the VMA of the target object, and then mapping the VMA to the physical memory address of the target object. The process of mapping an OID to a VMA consumes significantly more processing time than mapping a VMA to a physical address.
Various attempts have been made to achieve the efficiency of reference traversals with VMAs while still being able to share objects between multiple programs and multiple executions of the same program. One common approach uses OIDs as references to objects that are not currently loaded into dynamic memory, and VMAs as references to objects that have been loaded into dynamic memory. Therefore, references to an object must be converted from one form to another when the object is transferred between static memory and dynamic memory. The process of converting references between an external form and an internal form is referred to as reference swizzling.
According to one reference swizzling technique, when an object is loaded from disk into main memory, all of the references contained within the object are converted into VMAs. Since the target objects of those references may not be in main memory, VMAs must be pre-allocated for the target objects as if they were already in main memory.
When a reference to a target object that is not in main memory is traversed, the DBMS loads the target object into main memory. To detect such reference traversal operations, the DBMS may rely on the computer operating system by setting all pre-allocated VMAs in access-protected mode. When an access-protected VMA is accessed, the computer operating system detects a memory access protection violation and raises an exception. The DBMS handles the exception by loading the desired target object into main memory and changing the VMA to a mode that allows access.
While the use of protected mode allows for fast reference swizzling, it relies on special operating system supports, such as the memory access control, detection, and exception handling functions of the operating system. Unfortunately, these supports may deviate from platform to platform, and may even be unavailable in some platforms. Therefore, this approach is not practical for DBMS systems that are intended for use on multiple platforms. Further, because memory has been pre-allocated for all of the objects, the memory cannot be reused for other purposes. Therefore, applications that use a large number of objects may run out of memory.
According to an alternative approach, each reference is a data structure that contains a discriminant field and a variant field. The value in the discriminant field indicates whether the variant is an object identifier or the VMA of the target object. Each object in main memory has a "surrogate" that is a data structure containing a reference count, the object identifier of the target object, and the VMA of the target object. When the DBMS loads an object from disk into main memory, the value of the discriminant of each reference contained in the object is initially set to indicate that the corresponding variant is the object identifier of the target object.
When an application traverses the reference, the DBMS determines whether the discriminant of the reference indicates that the variant is an object identifier or a VMA. If the variant is a VMA, then the VMA is used to locate the surrogate. The VMA stored in the surrogate is then used to locate the target object.
If the variant is an object identifier, then the DBMS looks up the VMA of the surrogate. If the surrogate exists, then the variant of the reference is set to the VMA of the surrogate. The discriminant of the reference is set to indicate that the variant is the VMA of the surrogate. The reference count of the surrogate is then incremented by one.
If the surrogate does not exist, then the target object is loaded from disk into main memory, a surrogate is allocated for the target object, the object identifier and the VMA in the surrogate are set to those of the target object and the reference count of the surrogate is set to zero. Then, the DBMS performs the steps of setting the variant, setting the discriminant, and incrementing the reference count, as described above.
When an object is saved to disk, the DBMS decrements the reference count of all of the surrogates pointed to by the references in the object. Therefore, at any given time, the reference count of a surrogate indicates how many references are currently pointing to the surrogate. Only when the reference count of a surrogate is zero may the object pointed to by the surrogate be swapped to disk and the surrogate deallocated.
One disadvantage of the surrogate technique is that the DBMS cannot swap an object to disk to free up memory as long as an object that has a traversed reference to the object remains in memory. Consequently, the DBMS may become significantly limited with respect to how it may free up memory to load newly referenced objects. In addition, the process of decrementing surrogates adds overhead to the process of storing objects to disk.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,275 describes a technique for swizzling references that attempts to address these disadvantages. According to that technique, if a reference to an object has previously been used to locate a first object, then a data structure referred to as a "tombstone" that has been associated with the first object is located based on a first VMA that is stored in the reference.
Once the tombstone has been located, a first pseudo-timestamp that is stored in the reference is compared to a second pseudo-timestamp that is stored in the tombstone. If the first pseudo-timestamp matches the second pseudo-timestamp, then the first object is located based on a second VMA that is stored in the tombstone.
If the first pseudo-timestamp does not match the second pseudo-timestamp, then the first object is located based on an identifier stored in the reference. Similarly, if the reference has not been previously used to locate the first object, then the first object is located based on the identifier stored in the reference.
Unfortunately, even when such techniques are used to defer or otherwise reduce the overhead associated with converting OIDs to VMAs, such conversion operations often take a significant amount of CPU time, consume extra storage space, and/or add additional latency to separate the pointer data from the real data when swizzling.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Software translation lookaside buffer for persistent pointer management


A measurement recording unit causes the head to move across a predetermined amount, at least more than one track during one lap of track, with a predetermined radial position and a track position of the magnetic disk being taken as recording start points, thereby writing measurement data while drawing a spiral path. A measurement reading unit causes the measurement data recorded in a spiral manner to be read while gradually shifting a read-beginning point within a predetermined scanning range from an inner perimeter side including the recording start points to an outer perimeter side. A position-displacement detecting unit finds a distribution of amplitudes of a read-back signal within a read scanning range and detects, in a distribution of evaluation values, an amount of position displacement of a read head and a write head on the storage medium in a radial direction for storage.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage apparatus, storage control circuit, and head-position-displacement measuring method for detecting a head position displacement of a write head and a read head provided to a head and correcting an amount of position displacement of the read head at the time of reading a storage medium. In particular, the present invention relates to a storage apparatus, storage control circuit, and head-position-displacement measuring method for measuring a head position displacement targeted for a storage medium provided to a non-magnetic area between tracks.
2. Description of the Related Arts
In magnetic disk apparatus in recent years, a combined-type head structure has been adopted in which a highly-sensitive read head using, for example, tunnel magnetoresistance effect (TMR), is independent from a write head. In the head having such a configuration, a position displacement of the write head and the read head occurring in a head manufacturing process cannot be completely eliminated, and therefore paths through which the write head and the read head pass at the time of recording on a certain track will be different. Therefore, it is required that such a displacement amount be measured in advance in, for example, a manufacturing inspection process, for storage, and then a correction be made by that displacement amount from a radial position at the time of recording data on a target track to read-back the data on the target track. In recent years, a space between adjacent tracks has been on the order of 200 nm. If a position displacement of the write head and the read head is several μm, a position displacement correction corresponding to several tracks has to be required. This tendency becomes a more important problem as the space between tracks is narrowed more with the advance of high density. Also in recent years, in magnetic disk apparatus, the tide of downsizing is significant and, accordingly, a disk medium capable of high-density recording has been demanded. However, in improving the recording density of magnetic disk s, there is a problem of how to prevent interference from an adjacent recording bit. Under the recognition of such a problem, a technology called discrete-track recording has been conventionally suggested, in which, against interference of a magnetic disk medium in a radial direction, the magnetic disk medium is physically sectioned for each track to reduce interference from an adjacent track. Furthermore, under the recognition of the same problem in which interference from an adjacent recording bit is prevented to address an increase in recording density, a technology called patterned media has also been conventionally suggested in which a magnetic disk medium is physically sectioned also in a perimeter direction, that is, patterning in units of recording bits is performed, thereby reducing interference from an adjacent bit. Therefore, it has been demanded that, also for storage media using technologies, such as discrete tracks and patterned media, a position displacement correction of the write head and the read head be accurately performed to achieve high-density recording.
FIG. 1 linearly depicts one track length of a recording medium in a process of measuring a head position displacement, in which M number of servo sectors correspond to one cycle of track. To correct a position displacement of a write head 202 and a read head 204 provided to a combined-type head 200, first with the write head 202 being positioned at a track 204-N at a certain radial position by using a head position signal obtained through servo-sector reading by the read head 204, a measurement signal of one cycle of track is recorded on a measurement pattern 206 as shown. At this time, since a position displacement is present between the read head 204 and the write head 202, the read head 204 takes a path 208 that matches with a track 204-N, but the write head 202 takes a path 210 at a position shifted from the track 204-N, the position where the measurement pattern 206 is written. The amount of position displacement is detected by, after writing the measurement pattern 206, reading a read position in a radial direction at which the read head 204 is positioned while gradually shifting the read position of the read head 204 from the position where the measurement pattern 206 is written, and finding, for example, a profile (distribution) of amplitudes of a read-back signal, thereby obtaining FIG. 2A.
In FIG. 2A, a profile (signal distribution) can be obtained in which the amplitude of the read-back signal is low at a write position 212 of the measurement pattern, the amplitude of the read-back signal is increased when the measurement pattern is read while gradually shifting the read position and, after reaching its peak point 214, the amplitude is again decreased. An offset value 218 to the peak point 214 at which the amplitude of the read-back signal is maximum in the profile 216 of the read-back signal amplitude 216 is detected as an amount of position displacement of the read head and the write head. Here, the value of the amplitude of FIG. 2A represents an average value of amplitudes of the read-back signal read over one track. Amplitudes of the read-back signal of the peak 214 and a ½ peak point 220 are average values of the read-back signal amplitudes 222 and 224 read over one track as depicted in FIG. 2B. For example, a method has been suggested in which, by using this position displacement detection method, an area for measuring a track displacement is provided on the storage medium to measure changes with time in position displacement of the write head and the read head (JP 09-045025). However, in such a position displacement detection method, it is impossible to support discrete tracks and patterned media that may possibly be positioned at a place where no magnetic substance is placed. For example, as depicted in FIG. 3, in the case of discrete tracks, a non-magnetic area 228 is present on both sides of a track formed of a magnetic area 226. If a path 210 of the write head 202 when the read head 204 is positioned on the track 204-N is just on the magnetic area 226, a profile when the read head 204 is offset to position displacement detection to search the measurement pattern 206 is similar to that of FIG. 2A. However, as depicted in FIG. 4, when the path 210 of the write head 202 is on the non-magnetic area 228, the measurement pattern 206 is not accurately recorded, and a profile of amplitudes of the read-back signal when the measurement pattern 206 is read while gradually shifting the read position of the read head 204 is such as a profile 216-1 of FIG. 5A, thereby making it difficult to specify an offset value of a peak point 214-1 where the amplitude of the read-back signal is at maximum. Here, FIG. 5B represents amplitudes of the read-back signal at read positions of the peak point 214-1 and the ½ peak point 220-1 as read-back signal amplitudes 222-1 and 224-1 read over one track. To solve these problems, a storage medium and a magnetic storage apparatus have also been suggested in which an area in which magnetic substances are successively formed in a radial direction of the medium is provided between a servo sector and a data sector of a storage medium (JP 2005-166115 and JP 2005-166116).
However, when the area in which magnetic substances are successively formed in the radial direction of the medium is provided between the servo sector and the data sector as in JP 2005-166115 is used for a special area for position displacement correction measurement of the write head and the read head, user data cannot be written in that area, thereby decreasing the recording capacity by that amount. Moreover, in order to accurately measure the amount of position displacement correction, a measurement area that is long to some extent, for example, one cycle of track, is required so as to average read-back signals of the measurement pattern to remove noise, thereby causing user data format efficiency to deteriorate.

Storage apparatus, storage control circuit, and head-position-displacement measuring method


A surgical access apparatus includes an access member having a longitudinal passageway providing access to a tissue site. An elongated seal member mounted to the access member has an orifice with a variable inner dimension. The elongated seal member establishes a sealing relation about an instrument and is associated with a powered adjustment mechanism for adjusting the variable inner dimension of the orifice. The powered adjustment mechanism includes trailing and leading hubs longitudinally spaced and adapted for relative rotation about an axis defined by the access member. A plurality of spokes extends between the hubs and defines first and second minimum internal dimensions when in first and second conditions respectively upon relative rotation of the hubs. The spokes are arranged about the elongated seal member to adjust the variable inner dimension of the orifice upon relative rotation of the hubs. A powered motion generator effects relative rotation between the hubs.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a surgical access apparatus employing a system for maintaining a fluid-tight seal across a passageway for surgical instruments. In particular, the disclosure relates to a portal apparatus employing a variable diameter winepress seal in communication with a power source for accommodating instruments of various sizes.
2. Background of Related Art
Surgical procedures such as laparoscopic, arthroscopic, and endoscopic procedures in general are termed minimally invasive at least in part because the incision required is relatively small, perhaps one inch in length or less. Small incisions are preferred because they are inherently less traumatic to the surrounding body tissue. Also, small incisions subject internal organs to a limited exposure to the contaminants in the outside atmosphere. Thus, small incisions enable shorter hospital stays and faster recoveries with less pain and scarring than is common with the larger incisions required for conventional surgery.
Endoscopic surgery is possible due in part to the availability of instruments designed specifically for this purpose. A trocar assembly, for example, may include a sharp trocar or obturator for creating a small incision, and a cannula assembly for providing a conduit through the incision once the obturator has been removed. A cannula is an elongated tube, e.g., 2 mm to 15 mm in diameter, which may be configured to have a distal or leading end inserted into an internal body cavity adjacent an operative site. The body cavity is often inflated with an insufflation gas, carbon dioxide, for example, to separate the body wall from vital organs. This provides a space where a surgeon may introduce viewing equipment or maneuver tools into position without damaging surrounding tissue. Various other instruments may then be inserted and withdrawn through the cannula for access to the working space and operative site. In order to fit through a cannula and enable a surgeon to manipulate tissue far removed from the incision, instruments adapted for endoscopic surgery typically include a long and narrow cylindrical shaft. The exact size and shape of the instrument shaft may vary for the several instruments commonly required for a single procedure.
Endoscopic procedures generally require that any instrumentation inserted into the patient's body be sealed, e.g., provisions must be made to ensure insufflation gas does not escape the body through the cannula. Furthermore, a seal acts to prevent contamination of the body cavity by the outside environment. In the absence of such a fluid-tight seal, many of the attendant advantages of minimally invasive surgery are lost. In order to maintain a seal at all times, e.g., before, during and after the introduction of an instrument into the cannula, a dual seal system is commonly employed. A first seal is normally biased to a closed condition to seal the conduit in the absence of an instrument. Because the first seal may be defeated upon the introduction of an instrument, a second seal may be positioned to establish a sealing relation with the shaft of the instrument before the first seal is compromised.
The second seal is often configured with a variable diameter orifice to be adaptable to various sizes and geometries associated with the instrument shafts. A septum seal, for example is a generally flat, elastomeric member having an expandable orifice therethrough. The orifice may be sized such that the smallest instrument may not pass through the septum seal without engaging and forming a seal with the elastic material. The elasticity of the septum seal permits the orifice to expand to accommodate the largest instrument.
An aspect of concern in the use of such a septum seal is the contact pressure applied by the septum seal on the instrument shaft. If the contact pressure is insufficient, the insufflation pressure may not be maintained as the surgeon manipulates the instrument. If the contact pressure is too great, however, the surgeon may experience difficulty in advancing and properly controlling the instrument. Because lager instruments must expand the orifice to a greater degree, the contact pressure is consequently larger than for smaller instruments, and thus larger instruments may be more difficult to manipulate than smaller instruments. Accordingly, a need exists for an apparatus for forming a seal about an instrument inserted through a cannula that is capable of accommodating variously sized instruments while ensuring an appropriate contact pressure.

Powered variable seal diameter trocar employing a winepress mechanism


Controlled-environment facility resident behavioral and/or health monitoring may employ controlled-environment facility resident wearables each having a band configured to be affixed around a portion of a controlled-environment facility resident, irremovable by the resident and may include sensor(s) configured to measure biometric(s) of the controlled-environment facility resident and one or more physical parameter(s) experienced by the wearable, with a transmitter transmitting the biometric(s) and/or the physical parameter(s) to a controlled-environment facility management system. The controlled-environment facility management system may predetermine one or more normal input levels of the biometric(s) and/or physical parameter(s), receive the transmitted biometric(s) and/or physical parameter(s), determine whether received biometric(s) and/or physical parameter(s) rises above or falls below the predetermined normal input level(s), and alert controlled-environment facility personnel and/or law enforcement when received physical parameter(s) and/or received biometric(s) rise above or fall below the predetermined normal input level(s).

According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the United States has the highest prison population per capita in the world. In 2009, for example, 1 out of every 135 U.S. residents was incarcerated. Generally, inmates convicted of felony offenses serve long sentences in prison (e.g., federal or state prisons), whereas those convicted of misdemeanors receive shorter sentences to be served in jail (e.g., county jail). In either case, while awaiting trial, a suspect or accused may remain incarcerated.
Correctional officers are generally tasked with overseeing inmates' daily tasks and conduct. For example, correctional officers generally supervise activities of inmates and enforce rules to keep order within jails or prisons. Correctional officers also typically search inmates for contraband and report on inmate conduct. These tasks can be difficult for a correctional officer since each correctional officer may oversee many inmates.
Over the past several years, the above-mentioned sharp increase in the U.S. inmate population has not been followed by a proportional increase in the number of prison or jail staff. To the contrary, budget pressures in local, state, and federal governments have made it difficult for correctional facilities to maintain an adequate number of wardens, officers, and other administration personnel. Hence, many correctional facilities are often unable to perform investigations with respect to their own inmates and provide day-to-day medical care.
With each correctional officer overseeing many inmates, it may be difficult for the correctional officer to adequately supervise each inmate's conduct. Hence, inmates may be able to engage in detrimental or illicit conduct without the correctional officer's detection. Hence, prison fights can escalate into difficult to control magnitudes; illicit communications may occur; and the like. Further, without a correctional officer's detection, there may not be a reliable witness or evidentiary source for correcting or prosecuting detrimental or illicit activities that occur.
Fights, physical or verbal, are commonplace in controlled-environment facilities and may escalate to more serious problems, even full-blown riots. Traditionally, such situations have been dealt with through segregation of specific segments of the population of a controlled-environment facility or through similar action. For example, in a correctional institution environment, members of rival gangs may be housed in separate cellblocks, pods, or the like.
Overcrowding in controlled-environment facilities such as prisons or jails lead to an even greater number of confrontations. Typical responses to such situations are "after-the-fact." That is, oftentimes, facility and/or law enforcement personnel only become aware of the altercation after one or more parties have been injured or even killed.

Controlled-environment facility resident wearables and systems and methods for use


Devices, systems, and methods for treating cardiac arrhythmia are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, devices, systems, and methods disclosed herein deliver interrogating energy to tissue at a position on a wall of an anatomical structure of a patient. If the devices, systems, and methods disclosed herein detect a change in electrical activity of the anatomical structure in response to the interrogating energy, the devices, systems, and methods disclosed herein can apply irreversible therapy to the tissue. In some embodiments, the change in electrical activity corresponds to slowing or termination of a detected arrhythmia.

Cardiac arrhythmias are usually initiated and/or maintained by specific regions of cardiac tissue. For example, fibrotic or scarred tissue can sometimes cause conduction delay or exhibit automaticity and be responsible for arrhythmia. A minimally-invasive catheter can be used in a patient's heart to treat certain arrhythmias. For example, a minimally-invasive catheter can be used to deliver point-by-point therapy to the wall of the patient's heart. In this scenario, the catheter can be used to form one or more discrete points (e.g., discrete lesions) on the wall of the patient's heart by applying energy (e.g., electrical energy) to the wall. The applied energy damages tissue at the treatment site(s), terminating the tissue's electrical activity. In turn, abnormal electrical signals can be prevented from propagating through the treated tissue, thereby preventing arrhythmias.

Systems for cardiac ablation and associated methods


A demodulating system for estimating frequency offset and sampling time error by a Fast Fourier Transform operation, which receives a modulated signal sent from a GMSK (Gaussian Low-Pass Filtered Minimum Shift Keying) or a MSK (Minimum Shift Keying) transmitter and demodulates the signal. The demodulating system uses a Fast Fourier Transform converter to obtain frequency offset and sampling time error by applying to it an initial demodulated result generated from a discriminator or a phase differentiator.

In a radio communication system, problems of frequency offset and sampling time error between the transmitter and the receiver usually occur, which degrade the performance of the system. Not only the frequency discrepancy between the oscillators of the transmitter and the receiver but also the Doppler effect will result in frequency offset. To non-coherently demodulate the modulated signal sent from the transmitter and avoid degrading the performance of the communication system, one still needs to obtain the correct frequency offset and sampling time error from the signals and respectively let the frequency offset and the sampling time error be compensated and modified. And when the receiver samples the modulated signals, a preferred sampling time is prerequisite for obtaining correct demodulated signals.
Further, due to the fact that the radio data are often transmitted in a burst mode, one may try to find a fast and stable method to estimate the mentioned frequency offset and sampling time error and then modify or compensate the frequency offset of the system in order to maintain the system performance.
A paper of Ralf Mehlan et al. titled "A Fully Digital Feedforward MSK Demodulator with Joint Frequency Offset and Symbol Timing Estimation for Burst Mode Mobile Radio", IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. VT-42, No. 4, November 1993, pp. 434-443 discloses that a demodulating system for demodulating the signals sent from an MSK transmitter is to delay the received signal, multiply the delayed signal with the received signal, square the mentioned multiplication, and then obtain the sampling time error and the frequency offset by using several sets of filters. To achieve an optimal receiving performance, the system requires at least four sets of filters of length 64, which makes the implementation of the demodulating system uneconomical.
The Gaussian Low-Pass Filtered Minimum Shift Keying transmitter (also named GMSK) is now widely applied by many personal and mobile communicating system standards, which includes a Gaussian Low-Pass filter and a Frequency Modulator (FM modulator). If the GMSK transmitter is without the Gaussian Low-Pass filter, then it becomes a Minimum Shift Keying transmitter (MSK transmitter). But, a structure of the GMSK demodulating system using Fast Fourier Transform operation for estimating frequency offset and sampling error has heretofore not been used.

Demodulating system for MSK and GMSK signal using a fast fourier transform converter


A data input circuit for a semiconductor memory apparatus includes a write latency control unit configured to generate a buffer enable signal based on a low frequency operation mode signal, and a data input buffer configured to buffer input data in response to the buffer enable signal.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a data input circuit and method of inputting data, and in particular, to a data input circuit of a semiconductor memory apparatus and method of inputting the data that is capable of reducing power consumption.
2. Related Art
Generally, a semiconductor memory apparatus includes a write latency control unit to generate a buffer enable signal. The semiconductor memory apparatus further includes a data input buffer to perform a buffering operation on input data depending on whether the buffer enable signal is enabled or not.
When a write command is input, data is input after predetermined cycles of a clock. In this case, a write latency indicates the number of cycles of the clock when the data is input. Generally, the length of the write latency is 1 to 7. A write latency signal is allocated beforehand for each of the lengths of the write latency.
The write latency control unit enables a low enable signal when a row active command is input, and disables the low enable signal when a row precharge command is input. Further, the write latency control unit enables the write enable signal when the write command is input, and disables the write enable signal when a burst end signal is input. The row enable signal or the write enable signal is used as the buffer enable signal.
When the length of the write latency is short (for example, 1 to 3), if the write latency control unit enables the buffer enable signal according to input of the write command, an undesirable effect such as the delay of input of the data at the data input buffer occurs. Thus, erroneous operation such as a timing error between the buffer enable signal and the input data may occur. Therefore, when the length of the write latency is short, the row enable signal is output as the buffer enable signal, in order to increase a timing margin between the buffer enable signal and the input data because the row active command is enabled earlier than the write command.
In contrast, when the length of the write latency is long (for example, 4 to 7), the write enable signal is output as the buffer enable signal. Since an enable period of the row enable signal is longer than an enable period of the write enable signal, it may reduce the power consumption.
Such a data input circuit for a semiconductor memory apparatus is designed to accommodate the use of a high frequency clock. The semiconductor memory apparatus uses a DLL (Delay Locked Loop) off mode in order to reduce the power consumption. When the semiconductor memory apparatus enters the DLL off mode, a DLL circuit does not operate and an external clock having a low frequency is transmitted to internal individual regions.
When the semiconductor memory apparatus uses the low frequency clock, that is, the same as the DLL off mode, the enable period of the row enable signal becomes longer as the period of the clock is lengthened. In this case, if the write latency is short, the enable period of the buffer enable signal becomes longer, which increases the power consumption. However, currently, there is no technique for reducing the unnecessary power consumption, resulting in continuous current consumption.

Data input circuit of semiconductor memory apparatus and method of inputting the data


Methods, devices, and products are provided for targeting media. Descriptive information is received that describes media. The descriptive information is compared to a stored set of user-defined criteria. If the descriptive information contains any criterion, then the media is stored in memory, wherein the stored media is targeted to a user's communications device.

This application generally relates to interactive multimedia distribution systems and, more particularly, to targeting media (such as movies, music, and advertisements) to users.
Advertising is undergoing profound change. Recent technological advancements permit users to "skip" commercials and other targeted media. Video recorders, for example, include technologies to detect and skip commercials. Additionally, users habitually "surf" during commercials breaks, further eroding advertising effectiveness. The entertainment industry's traditional advertising-based model, then, is threatened by technological change. Targeted advertising has thus emerged to customize commercials to user interests, profiles, demographics, and location. These targeted advertisements seek to capture the user's interests and present relevant messages that appeal to the user.
Today's targeted advertisements, however, rely on personal or even private information. A profile is constructed for a user or household, and advertisements are targeted to that profile. The problem with such efforts, however, is that personal or even private information may be revealed or captured. Users often have no control over what information is gathered to build their profile. So, while many people are concerned about maintaining the privacy of personal information, today's current targeted advertising techniques strive to gather as much information as possible. What is needed, then, are methods, systems, and products that target advertising and other media without revealing personal or private information.

Methods, systems, and products for targeting media for storage to communications devices


A reciprocating hermetic compressor includes a cylinder block internal to a shell and carrying a cylinder and a radial bearing hub; a crankshaft vertically mounted in the radial bearing hub and carrying, inferiorly, a rotor of an electric motor and, superiorly, a support annular face and an eccentric portion. The radial bearing hub incorporates an upper tubular extension, bearing a corresponding extension of the crankshaft and around which is mounted an axial rolling bearing for supporting the weight of the crankshaft-rotor assembly, as well as the axial stresses produced during compression of the refrigerant gas.

Hermetic compressors of refrigeration present, mounted inside a hermetically sealed shell, a cylinder block sustaining a vertical crankshaft, to which is mounted the rotor of an electric motor. The weight of the crankshaft-rotor assembly is supported by an axial bearing generally in the form of a flat axial sliding bearing.
The crankshaft carries, at its lower end, a pump rotor that, during operation of the compressor, conducts lubricant oil from a reservoir defined in the lower portion of the shell to the parts with mutual relative movement, in order to guarantee oil supply for the adequate operation of said parts.
The position of the axial bearing may vary according to the arrangement of the compressor components and to design variations. The solutions consider mounting the rotor to the crankshaft below the cylinder block, such as illustrated in FIG. 1, or mounting the rotor to the crankshaft above the cylinder block, such as illustrated in FIG. 2. Depending on the mounting position of the rotor in relation to the cylinder block, the surfaces that define the axial bearing are altered.
In the situation in which the rotor is mounted below the cylinder block, the lower surface of an annular flange of the crankshaft is axially borne on an annular surface defined at the upper end of the radial bearing hub. On the other hand, when the rotor is mounted above the cylinder block, the lower face of the rotor is axially borne on an annular surface defined at the upper end of the radial bearing hub. However, when the rotor is mounted below the cylinder block, the lower surface of an annular flange of the crankshaft is axially borne on an annular surface defined at the upper end of the radial bearing hub.
In the compressors in which the rotor is mounted below the cylinder block, it is also known the arrangement in which a second bearing is provided radially actuating on the crankshaft, above the eccentric portion of the latter. In this construction, the crankshaft incorporates a second annular flange, whose lower face is axially borne on an upper annular surface of this second radial bearing.
In any of the above-mentioned embodiments, the perfect parallelism between the mutually confronting surfaces that define the axial bearing is not assured, due to the presence of position errors (axial strikes) and mainly to deformations of the components during the operation of the compressor.
The position errors of the surfaces that define the axial bearing can be minimized by using more precise manufacturing processes. However, the deformations of the components are inherent to the operation of the compressor and they are produced during the compression period of the refrigerant gases. These deformations are translated into loss of parallelism between the mutually confronting surfaces that define the axial bearing, resulting in a geometry that is unfavorable to the formation of an oil film, consequently reducing the capacity of sustaining the axial bearing, increasing the mechanical losses by friction and probably causing wear to the surfaces. In addition, the deformation of the components, more specifically the loss of perpendicularity that occurs between the connecting rod and the crankshaft, causes decomposition of the forces that compress the gases, giving origin to a component in the axial direction of the crankshaft, introducing an additional load to the force (weight) of the crankshaft-rotor assembly over the axial bearing.
The improvement in the energetic performance of these compressors can be obtained with the reduction of the mechanical friction losses, by using more efficient bearings. Within this concept, the use of an axial rolling bearing has been proposed, whose operation, in terms of dissipated mechanical loss, presents rates that are close to the ideal. A constructive solution of a bearing using this concept is described in the Brazilian patent PI 8503054 assigned to White Consolidated Industries, Inc. and regarding hermetic compressors in which the rotor of the electric motor is mounted above the cylinder block.
In this type of construction proposed in patent PI 8503054, the axial rolling bearing, which is composed by two annular flat races and by the ball cage, is provided between the rotor face and the annular surface defined at the upper end of the radial bearing hub, with the rolling bearing being guided, in the internal diameter thereof, directly by the external surface of the main body of the crankshaft.
The life of the axial rolling bearings is strongly influenced by the alignment of their races. Nevertheless, the existence of deviations, even of decimals of milliradians in the parallelism between the races, is sufficient to reduce their operational useful life in more than 20 times, as compared with the useful life of an axial rolling bearing with perfectly parallel races. This reduction in the useful life of the rolling bearings occurs due to the concentration of the axial load over one or two balls, instead of this load being distributed over all the balls of the rolling bearing.
In the hermetic compressors having the rotor of the electric motor mounted to the crankshaft below the cylinder block, the simple provision of an axial rolling bearing, such as suggested in patent PI 8503054, between the lower surface of an annular flange of the crankshaft and the annular surface defined at the upper end of the radial bearing hub, will increase the distance between the cylinder axis and said bearing annular surface that constitutes the adjacent end of the radial bearing block, as illustrated in FIG. 3. In this hypothetical mounting condition based on the prior art teachings considered herein, the increase of the distance between the cylinder axis and the adjacent end of the radial bearing hub will tend to cause a greater momentum on the radial bearing hub-crankshaft assembly, consequently increasing the bending and stresses that are applied to this assembly.
Another disadvantage of the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 3 refers to the high oil leakage that occurs throughout the axial rolling bearing, increasing the mechanical losses by viscous friction of the axial rolling bearing and reducing the amount of lubricant oil available in the crankshaft portion and in the components of the compressor mechanism located above the axial rolling bearing. The correct amount of lubricant oil available to the axial rolling bearing allows optimizing the mechanical losses and the useful life of this component.
The increase of the bending of the radial bearing hub-crankshaft assembly and the increase of the leakage throughout the axial rolling bearing increase the noise in the compressor, reduce the energetic efficiency of the bearings and reduce the mechanical reliability of the several compressor components, one of them being the axial rolling bearing.

Axial bearing arrangement for a hermetic compressor


Disclosed is a system and method of assessing the efficacy of and predicting response to treatment of neurological or psychological disorders. The preferred embodiment uses at least two surface electrodes to acquire EEG signals from the surface of a patient's body, a processor for computing from the EEG signals various features and indices that are representative of the patient's neurological or psychological state. Pretreatment indices represent a patient's neurological or psychological state and therefore may be used to predict the response to treatment. Changes in these parameters may be used to assess the efficacy of treatment and to modify the treatment to optimize the resultant patient state.

There are a wide range of neurological and psychological disorders for which treatment may be provided by various means. For many disorders, administration of pharmaceutical agents is the most common treatment modality. In cases in which the symptoms of the disorder are resistant to pharmacological treatment or for which no pharmacological treatment exists, other modalities may be used, including neurostimulation.
Neurostimulation is a method of disease treatment which uses an electrical stimulator to provide a current signal which is used to stimulate the central nervous system (CNS), generally either directly or by means of a nerve of the peripheral nervous system. Such neurostimulators and their corresponding electrodes are generally implanted in a patient's body. There are currently two primary methods of neurostimulation for central nervous system disorders; deep brain stimulation (DBS) and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). DBS uses an electrode implanted directly in a patient's brain, while VNS stimulates a patient's vagus nerve peripherally.
A commercially available DBS neurostimulator is manufactured and sold by Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn., USA, model 3386, having a stimulating lead with four cylindrical stimulating electrodes. The deep brain stimulator is a surgically implanted medical device, similar to a cardiac pacemaker, which delivers high-frequency, pulsatile electrical stimulation to precisely targeted areas within the brain. The device consists of a very small electrode array (electrodes 1.5 mm in length with 3 mm center to center separation) placed in a deep brain structure and connected through an extension wire to an electrical pulse generator surgically implanted under the skin near the collarbone. The Medtronic DBS has received marketing clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with an indication for treatment of Parkinson's Disease, Essential Tremor, and Dystonia. Current research is evaluating DBS as a treatment for epilepsy, psychiatric disorders, and chronic pain.
The DBS stimulator is surgically placed under the skin of the chest of the patient. The stimulating DBS electrode lead is connected to the DBS stimulator wires and is placed in a specific inter-cranial location which may vary depending on the region of the brain being treated. The DBS system is adjusted by several parameters: 1. location of the 4 electrode lead, 2. selection of the stimulating electrodes, 3. amplitude of the stimulator signal, 4. frequency (repetition rate) of the stimulator signal, 5. polarity of the stimulating signal, and 6. pulse width of the stimulating signal. Post-implantation, all of these parameters except electrode location can be non-invasively varied by a clinician to enhance therapeutic effectiveness and minimize side effects. Amplitude, measured in volts, is the intensity or strength of the stimulation. The typical range is 1.5 to 9 volts. Frequency is the repetition rate at which the stimulation pulse is delivered and is measured in pulses per second (Hz); it typically ranges from 100-185 Hz. The pulse width is the duration of the stimulation pulse, measured in microseconds. The typical pulse width ranges from 60-120 microseconds.
Another commercially available neurostimulator is designed for use on the peripheral nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve. An example of this type of system is designed and sold by Cyberonics Corporation of Houston, Tex., USA. The Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) Therapy device is implanted in a patient's chest under the skin immediately below the collarbone or close to the armpit. Two tiny wires from the device wrap around the vagus nerve on the left side of the neck. Through stimulation of this peripheral nerve, brain function is affected. VNS therapy has been granted marketing clearance by the FDA with an indication for treatment of epilepsy and is being investigated to treat a number of other central nervous system diseases and conditions, such as depression, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, etc.
An obstacle to the broader use of these devices is, in many indications, the lack of a measure of treatment efficacy and knowledge of which patients will respond to treatment. The efficacy of neurostimulation is a function of the settings of the various stimulator parameters (i.e., electrode selection, stimulus pulse amplitude, stimulus pulse frequency, stimulus polarity and stimulus pulse width, among others). However, with the exception of treatment for essential tremor or patients with very frequent epileptic seizures, it is difficult to assess the effect of the stimulus provided and thus difficult to adjust these parameters to achieve the maximum possible treatment efficacy. In addition, some patients will not respond at all to neurostimulation treatment, or the degree of the response may be of a lesser magnitude than desired. Since implantation of a neurostimulator is an invasive surgical procedure and involves significant cost, a priori (pre-implantation) knowledge of the degree to which a specific patient will respond to treatment will be valuable to the patient, his doctors, and third party payers.

System and method of prediction of response to neurological treatment using the electroencephalogram


A composite plate structure including a fiber composite sheet, a metal layer, and a resin layer is provided. The fiber composite sheet includes a first fiber layer, a core layer, and a second fiber layer. The core layer is disposed between the first fiber layer and the second fiber layer. The metal layer is disposed on the fiber composite sheet and has at least one opening. A portion of the second fiber layer is located in the opening. The resin layer is disposed on the metal layer. In addition, a manufacturing method of the composite plate structure is also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a composite plate structure and a manufacturing method thereof and particularly relates to a composite plate structure having a metal layer and a manufacturing method thereof
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, portable electronic devices have been developed to provide more functions and have smaller sizes. Wireless communication and wireless network make it convenient for people to acquire information from the Internet via portable electronic devices, and as a result, portable electronic devices become common. In order to increase portability, portable electronic devices are made to be thinner and lighter. Composite materials composed of materials, such as mylar, graphite, bamboo fiber, or carbon fiber, are lighter and thus are used to manufacture the housing of portable electronic devices.
Portable electronic devices usually store a lot of data and applications. It will be inconvenient to carry the portable electronic devices if they do not have sufficient structural strength against shake or pressure. Thus, how to increase the structural strength of composite materials is an important issue in designing the housing for portable electronic devices. In addition, electronic devices are developed to have more exquisite appearance. Composite materials not only need to be strong in structure and light in weight but also need to be visually attractive to the consumers.

Composite plate structure and manufacturing method thereof


An electrical connector (100) includes an insulative housing (1) defining a number of passageways (121) for receiving corresponding contacts (2), and a metal shield (3) enclosing the insulative housing (1). The metal shield has a top face (31), a bottom face (32) and a pair of side faces (33). The bottom face includes a pair of first board mounting legs (325) downwardly and a slot (326) between the first board mounting legs (325). The first board mounting legs (325) are disposed in communication of the slot (326) and mounted on a printed circuit board (4). The length of the slot (326) is equal to the total length of the first board mounting legs (325). With the addition of the first board mounting legs (325), the connector (100) can be more stably mounted on the printed circuit board.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector which can be stably mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB).
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,489, discloses a conventional electrical connector which includes an insulative housing, a plurality of contacts retained in the insulative housing and a metal shield enclosing the insulative housing. The metal shield defines a pair of side walls and a couple of board mounting legs respectively extending downwardly from the side walls. The electrical connector is mounted on a PCB solely by way of its two board mounting legs that are positioned at the end of the electrical connector. Such a mounting arrangement does not provide strong resistance to external forces that occur when a mating connector is inserted into or removed from the electrical connector. Because this electrical connector is mounted only at its rear portion, the open end of the electrical connector, is in effect, cantilevered out from the board mounting legs. After repeated insertion and removal of the mating connector into/from the hollow opening, the board mounting legs will be likely to loose or even separate from the PCB.
Hence, it is desired to have an electrical connector solving the problem above.

Electrical connector for reliably mounted on a printed circuit board


A multi-level power amplifier architecture using a multi-tap transformer implemented on a single CMOS integrated circuit wireless communications device is described. By providing a multi-tap transformer for coupling a plurality of power amplifiers to a shared output impedance, such as an antenna, power transmission may be made at different levels while maintaining efficiency. With a multi-tap transformer having “N” taps featuring “N” different impedance levels, each tap may be connected to an amplifier cell which delivers power into the transformer at the tap for coupling to the output load. Any one of the “N” amplifier cells can be turned on at once along with any combination of the “N” amplifier cells.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed in general to wireless communication technology. In one aspect, the present invention relates to transformers used with the radio communication transmitters and receivers.
2. Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire-lined communications between wireless and/or wire-lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth (BT), advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS) and/or variations thereof.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device (such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, home entertainment equipment, etc.) communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of the plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system) and communicate over the tuned channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via the public switched telephone network, via the Internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
Wireless communication devices typically communicate with one another using a radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) that includes a transmitter section, a receiver section, a transformer for the receiver section, a transformer for the transmitter section, an antenna switch, and an antenna, all or part of which may be incorporated in, or coupled to, the wireless communication device. The antenna receives RF signals that are then coupled to the receiver section by the antenna switch. The antenna also transmits amplified RF signals received from the transmitter section via the antenna switch.
The receiver and transmitter transformers may be implemented as a balun (balanced/unbalanced) transformer which is generally used to convert single ended signals into differential signals and conversely to convert differential signals into single ended signals. For example, RF signals received via the antenna are converted into differential signals, which are provided to a low noise amplifier of the receiver section. Conversely, differential signals from a power amplifier of the transmitter section are converted into single ended signals, which are provided to the antenna.
The transmitter section typically includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency stages and a power amplifier. The data modulation stage converts raw data into baseband signals in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard. The intermediate frequency stages mix the baseband signals with one or more local oscillations to produce RF signals. In direct conversion transmitters/receivers, conversion directly between baseband signals and RF signals is performed. The power amplifier amplifies the RF signals prior to transmission via an antenna.
The receiver section typically includes a low noise amplifier, one or more intermediate frequency stages, a filtering stage and a data recovery stage. The low noise amplifier receives inbound RF signals via the antenna and amplifies them. The intermediate frequency stages mix the amplified RF signals with one or more local oscillations to convert the amplified RF signal into baseband signals or intermediate frequency (IF) signals. The filtering stage filters the baseband signals or the IF signals to attenuate unwanted out of band signals to produce filtered signals. The data recovery stage recovers raw data from the filtered signals in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard.
In addition to the computational requirements and design complexity for wireless communication systems, such as described above, the ever-increasing need for higher speed communications systems imposes additional performance requirements and resulting costs for communications systems. In order to reduce costs, communications systems are increasingly implemented using Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) techniques. The level of integration of communications systems is constantly increasing to take advantage of advances in integrated circuit manufacturing technology and the resulting cost reductions. This means that communications systems of higher and higher complexity are being implemented in a smaller and smaller number of integrated circuits. For reasons of cost and density of integration, the preferred technology is CMOS.
Increasingly, the implementation of wireless communication devices as integrated circuit systems has posed design challenges for integrating the inductor components of such circuits. For example, inductors are included in the mixers in the IF stages of both the receiver and transmitter, the power amplifier, a voltage control oscillator of a local oscillation module, the low noise amplifier, and the filters each include one or more inductors. Many attempts have been made to integrate transformers and/or transformer baluns onto radio frequency integrated circuits; however, such integration has been limited due to flux leakage, capacitive coupling limits, and significant series resistance. While these limitations have been partially addressed with transformer IC designs (including coplanar interleaved transformers, toroidal and concentric transformers, overlay transformers and symmetric coplanar transformers), these designs have their own drawbacks. For example, coplanar interleaved transformers suffer from a low quality (Q) factor have small coupling coefficients. Another drawback of conventional power amplifier architecture solutions is that they do not efficiently provide power at all power levels required by differing applications. For example, conventional power amplifier solutions are designed to have maximum efficiency at the highest desired output level, so that when the power level is reduced from its maximum level, the power efficiency is also reduced. As a result, conventional power amplifier solutions do not allow for power output efficiency to be maintained across multiple power levels.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved power amplification method and system for use with radio transceiver circuits in wireless communication devices. In addition, a need exists for a multi-use on-chip transformer that may adjustably provide different inductance values with a small size, optimal shape, high quality factor, reduced resistance and a high coupling coefficient. There is also a need for an improved impedance matching system for use in power amplifier applications whereby power amplifier efficiency is maintained as the power level changes. There is also a need for a power amplification method and system that is capable of performing the above functions and overcoming these difficulties using circuitry implemented in integrated circuit form. Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional systems will become apparent to one of skill in the art after reviewing the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings and detailed description which follow.

Multilevel power amplifier architecture using multi-tap transformer


A power combiner/divider is disclosed that employs triaxial transmission line structures operatively coupled to provide a desired number of input/output ports. A balun is operatively coupled to the triaxial transmission line structures, and is adapted to couple out unbalanced currents flowing therebetween.

Power combiners/dividers can be implemented in numerous configurations, and are typically specified for parameters such as maximum power dissipation, operating frequency range, insertion loss, VSWR, degree of isolation between input and output ports, and amplitude and phase balance. For purposes of brevity, the phrase power combiner/divider will simply be referred to herein as power combiner, as it is known that a power combiner can also be used as a power divider, depending on the direction of current flow.
A commonly used power combiner is the Wilkinson power combiner. The Wilkinson power combiner combines N loads or sources, while simultaneously providing isolation between those loads or sources. In general, the Wilkinson power combiner offers matched impedance conditions at all ports, a low insertion loss, and high isolation between output/input ports. Quarter-wavelength transmission lines are uniformly arranged to obtain isolation between ports by having reflected signals combine 180 degrees out of phase. Discrete isolation resistors are arranged in a network, where each resistor has one end connected to a common point and the other end connected to a different one of the transmission lines one-quarter wavelength from a common junction of that transmission line with the other transmission lines. The Wilkinson power combiner has bandwidth limitations that can only be improved by cascading multiple sections of Wilkinson combiners.
Power combiners can also be implemented with variable impedance transmission line. Here, a plurality of quarter-wavelength transmission lines are interconnected, so as to provide the input and output ports of the combiner. Each transmission line has a center conductor of constant cross-section (e.g., copper conductor), an outer conductor surrounding and coaxial with the center conductor and spaced radially therefrom, and a variable dielectric constant material between the center conductor and the outer conductor. This variable dielectric constant material transforms the transmission line impedance continuously from one end to the other to give very broad bandwidth. The center conductors of the transmission lines are connected together so as to provide input and output ports. A like plurality of resistors, each having a preselected resistance, are connected between the center conductors. Example such configurations are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,796,317, titled "Variable Impedance Transmission Line and High-Power Broadband Reduced Size Power Divider/Combiner Employing Same", which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. The resistors, however, have a capacitance to ground, which can cause the balanced currents to flow through the resistors, which in turn causes signal loss.
What is needed, therefore, is a power combiner that has very broad bandwidth and low signal loss.

BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.


A system for converting instant messaging (IM) text to telephone speech and back. The system includes a first electronic device configured to transmit and receive IM text. A translation module is housed inside the first electronic device. The translation module is configured to perform (i) translate the outgoing IM text into speech, and (ii) translate incoming speech into IM text. The system further includes a second electronic device communicatively coupled by way of a network to the first electronic device such that the second electronic device may receive the IM text as translated speech from the first electronic device via a call.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to communications and, more particularly, to translating an instant message text to telephone speech.
2. Description of Background
Professionals are always on the move; they have busy schedules that are generally packed with numerous meetings. Quite often, a professional finds himself/herself sitting in a meeting that continues to drag on in time. Generally, as the length of the meeting continues to grow in duration the professional becomes less than fully engaged. Normally, at this time, the professional starts to engage in other business activities such as e-mailing and instant messaging colleagues, customers, etc.
For whatever reason, the professional determines that he/she needs to have a really short conversation with someone, for example, the professional is running late to a meeting with a customer and needs to negotiate a change of plans with the customer, or the professional views an announcement on the web that he/she feels should be addressed by himself/herself or a colleague, etc. As such, the professional attempts to contact the other person via instant messaging (IM) but is unsuccessful. E-mail is a viable option but is unlikely to work because of it's batch nature or the other person's intermittent use.
Thus, there is a need for using IM to phone the person and be able to engage in a short conversation with the person where the typed IM is translated to speech. Conversely, the other person's speech is translated to text when the person responds. Since talking in the meeting is rude and the professional does not want to prematurely leave the meeting this would allow the professional to communicate with others outside the meeting while still attending the meeting.

System for instant message to telephone speech and back


Methods, apparati, and computer-readable media for detecting the presence of malicious computer code in a plurality of e-mails. In a method embodiment of the present invention, the following steps are performed for each e-mail: calculating a feature vector (80), said feature vector (80) being representative of a presence of at least one preselected feature in the e-mail; calculating at least one score (S) based upon said feature vector (80), each said score (S) being representative of a frequency of occurrence of an instance of a feature; determining whether any score (S) exceeds a preselected malicious threshold representative of malicious computer code; and when a score (S) exceeds a preselected malicious threshold, blocking said e-mail.

As used herein, "malicious computer code" is any computer code that enters a computer without an authorized user's knowledge and/or without an authorized user's consent. The malicious code typically performs malicious actions after it arrives on the user's computer. Malicious computer code that propagates from one computer to another over a network, e.g., via e-mail, is often referred to as a "worm" or "spam". A worm is self-propagating, e.g., after it enters a user's computer, it may spread to other computers by attaching itself to e-mails that are sent to addresses found in the first computer's address book. Spam, on the other hand, is unwanted e-mail received by a computer that does not self-propagate.
Various techniques have been proposed to protect computers against e-mail worms or spam. For example, one such system alerts a network administrator when a certain number of identical e-mails are detected. However, this system does not afford any proactive protection. It is merely an alerting scheme, leaving it up to the administrator to take appropriate action upon receiving the alert. In many cases, by the time the administrator does take action, the e-mail worm has already entered into the computer network, and any actions the administrator could take are merely reactions, such as manually blocking suspicious e-mail traffic and cleaning up the worm infection.
The present invention advances the state of the art in providing proactive protection against e-mail worms and spam.

Proactive protection against e-mail worms and spam


A printhead is disclosed having a dielectric layer composition with a relatively small capacitance while also being substantially plasma erosion resistant. In accordance with one example embodiment of the present invention, the printhead has at least a first electrode layer and at least a second electrode layer. A dielectric composition constructed of at least two dielectric layers of different dielectric materials insulates the first and second electrode layers with respect to each other.

The invention relates to image forming systems, and more particularly relates to printheads having multiple dielectric layers.
Different printhead technologies in use today in image forming systems create and reproduce images in different ways. Some of these technologies include a process of charging a surface of an image-receiving member. The term image-receiving member includes any suitable structure capable of obtaining and retaining the charged latent image. The image-receiving member can be a drum, a flat or curved dielectric surface, or a flexible dielectric belt, which moves along a predetermined path. The image-receiving member can also comprise liquid crystal, phosphor screen, or similar display panel in which the latent charge image results in a visible image. The image-receiving member typically includes on an exterior surface a material such as a dielectric layer that lends itself to receiving the latent charge image. A number of organic and inorganic materials are suitable for the dielectric layer of the image-receiving member. The suitable materials include glass enamel, anodized and flame or plasma sprayed high-density aluminum oxide, and plastic, including polyamides, nylons, and other tough thermoplastic or thermoset resins, among other materials.
The image-receiving member moves past an image forming device, such as a printhead, which produces streams of accelerated electrons as primary charge carriers. The electrons reach the drum, landing in the form of a latent charge image. The latent charge image then receives a developer material, to develop the image, and the image is then transferred and fused to a medium, such as a sheet of paper, to form a printed document.
The printhead most often includes a film having a multi-electrode structure that defines an array of charge-generating sites. Each of the charge-generating sites, when the electrodes are actuated, generates and directs toward the drum a stream of charge carriers, e.g., electrons, to form a pointwise accumulation of charge on the drum that constitutes the latent image.
A representative printhead generally includes a first collection of drive electrodes, e.g., RF-line electrodes, oriented in a first direction across the direction of printing. A second collection of control electrodes, e.g., finger electrodes, oriented transversely to the drive electrodes, forms spatially separated cross points or intersections with the drive electrodes to form the charge-generating sites, at which charges originate. The electrodes themselves are actually separated and electrically insulated from each other by at least one dielectric layer or composition.
The printhead can also include a second insulating layer and a third electrode structure, often identified as a screen electrode. The second insulating layer couples to the finger electrodes and the screen electrodes. The screen electrodes have a plurality of passages in alignment with the charge-generating sites, to allow the streams of charge carriers to pass through. The screen electrode can be a single conductive sheet having an aperture aligned over each charge-generating site. The polarity of the charge carriers passing through the passages, or apertures, depends on the voltage difference applied to the finger and screen electrodes. The polarity of particles accumulated on the drum to create latent image is determined by the voltage difference between the screen electrode and the drum surface. The charged particles of appropriate polarity are inhibited from passing through the aperture, depending upon the sign of the charge, so that the printhead emits either positive or negative charge carriers, depending on its electrode operating potentials.
A disadvantage of conventional thin film printheads is a significant rate of dielectric erosion caused by reactive ion bombardment of the dielectric surface. The erosion rate of the dielectric is proportional to, among other factors, the sputtering yield, impinging ion fluency, and angle of ion incidence. A known solution for minimizing sputtering yield is to utilize a high density, hard and relatively defect-free, dielectric material. To decrease the impinging ion fluency, a reduction of the dielectric layer capacitance is required.
The particular dielectric material utilized has proven a significant factor in erosion resistance. The erosion rate of aluminum oxide, for example, is substantially less than that of silicon oxide. However, alumina permittivity is more than double the value of silicon dioxide. Therefore, a single aluminum oxide layer used for thin film printhead structures results in an increased capacitance. The high capacitance of the dielectric layer, in turn, leads to a rise of the ion bombardment density and to an increase in the dielectric erosion rate. Furthermore, a high printhead capacitance reduces the printing speed and/or the print resolution.
There exists in the art a need for a thin film printhead having a dielectric layer composition with a relatively small capacitance while also being substantially plasma erosion resistant. The present invention is directed toward further solutions in this art.
A printhead, in accordance with one example embodiment of the present invention, has at least a first electrode layer (e.g., RF-line electrodes) and at least a second electrode layer (e.g., finger electrodes). A dielectric composition constructed of at least two dielectric layers of different dielectric materials insulates the first and second electrode layers with respect to each other. Those of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that additional layers can combine to form the printhead. For sake of simplicity, we discuss in detail herein the foregoing three printhead components.
The printhead, according to a further aspect of the present invention, includes an RF-line electrode layer forming the first electrode layer, and a finger electrode layer forming the second electrode layer. The RF-line electrode layer and the finger electrode layer form intersections, defining charge-generating sites for emitting charge carriers. The dielectric composition electrically insulates the RF-line electrode layer from the finger electrode layer by the dielectric composition constructed of at least two dielectric layers of different materials.
The dielectric composition, in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, can have a plurality of dielectric layers utilizing different dielectric materials. These dielectric materials can be, for example, any one of silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, silicon nitride, magnesium oxide, and boron nitride, among other materials not specified herein. Each of the layers within an individual dielectric composition is comprised of multiple different layers of dielectric material separating the finger and RF-line electrodes.
There are at least two dielectric materials, according to another aspect of the present invention, forming multiple layers in the dielectric composition. The dielectric composition can be formed of any number of materials and layers while still fitting within structural limitations for a printhead within an image forming system. There can be an equal number of dielectric materials forming such layers, or alternatively a lesser number of dielectric materials. The dielectric materials can alternate in arrangement to form the plurality of dielectric layers when there are more dielectric layers than dielectric materials utilized.
At least one dielectric layer, according to still another aspect of the present invention, contains impurities. These impurities can be chosen, for example, from a group consisting of carbon, boron, tungsten, and thallium, among other impurities not specified herein.

Thin film printhead with layered dielectric


A storage apparatus has a redundant configuration equipped with a plurality of components and includes a first controller and second controller, wherein the first controller is provided with a first processor and a third processor for monitoring the first controller; wherein the second controller is provided with a second processor and a fourth processor for monitoring the second controller; wherein the first processor and the second processor are connected via a first path and the third processor and the fourth processor are connected via a second path; and wherein if a failure occurs at the first controller, the second processor blocks the first path, acquires failure information including a failure location of the first controller via the third processor, the fourth processor, and the second path, executes first failure location identifying processing, and notifies a management terminal of the failure location.

Conventionally, a storage apparatus is provided with a plurality of controllers and processing on accesses from a host computer is distributed among the plurality of controllers (for example, Patent Literature 1). If a failure occurs at one of the controllers in such a storage apparatus, the other controller where the failure has not occurred will process accesses from a host computer collectively. When this happens, the controller where the failure has occurred executes processing for identifying a failure location and notifies a user of the failure location.

Storage apparatus and failure location identifying method


An overflow control unit stores, in a FIFO buffer, data generated by a processor. The overflow control unit sets a predetermined flag, upon detecting that a FIFO buffer is full or nearly full. The overflow control unit stores, in a saving buffer, data sent from the processor, while the flag is set. Thereafter, the overflow control unit notifies the processor, by an interrupt, of an effect that an available capacity of the FIFO buffer rises above a predetermined threshold.. Upon receiving an interrupt, the processor transfers to the FIFO buffer data saved in the saving buffer. Upon a completion of transferring to the FIFO buffer all data saved in the saving buffer, the processor resets the flag. This allows the overflow control unit to again store in the FIFO buffer, data sent from the processor. The overflow control unit also monitors the volume of data stored in the saving buffer, and notifies the processor, by an interrupt, of an effect that the saving buffer is full. Upon receiving an interrupt, the processor expands an available capacity of the saving buffer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a queue control apparatus for use in exchanging data between a data generating side and a data using side.
2. Description of the Related Arts
A queue is used for absorbing a difference in a process timing between a data generating side (a data generating apparatus) and a data using side processing data (a data processing apparatus). The data may be a message, a packet, a job, a transaction and so forth. A queue is generally composed of, for example, a FIFO (First-In, First-Out) memory forming a FIFO buffer. A data generating device puts generated data into a queue, and a data processing device takes the data out of the queue for executing a predetermined process.
A queue has a storage capacity sufficient for storing a plurality of packets. This allows a data processing device to take out from a queue one data block at a time for a sequential data processing in accordance with its own processing capability. In addition, having a plurality of a data generating device share a single queue enables a single data processing device to receive a data processing request from the plurality of data generating devices. Further, always putting generated data immediately into a queue, as long as the queue has an available space, allows each of the plurality of data generating devices to start the next processing, promptly thus ensuring an efficient operation.
However, a conventional queue control apparatus has the following disadvantages:
1. Firstly, because a queue has a limit on its data capacity, when a queue becomes full, (i.e. when a queue does not have an available space), a side supplying a data block into the queue, (i.e. a data generating device), must stand by before supplying the next data set until the queue has an available space. The necessity for a data generating device to stand by idle for an available space in a queue lowers its processing efficiency.
2. Secondly, when a data processing device, (such as one processing a series of data columns as a packet), is connected to the output side of a queue, the queue cannot complete the processing of the packet until the data generating device supplies all data in a packet. That is, until a data generating device supplies all data in a packet to a queue, a data processing device must suspend its processing. Hence, in such a case, unless a packet is taken out of a queue after a data generating device has supplied all data in a packet, the packet processing device experiences an idle time, which lowers its processing efficiency.
3. Thirdly, a packet processing may occasionally require previously supplied data to be removed from a queue while a data generating device supplies packet data. However, when a data processing device has already started to process a packet by taking data already supplied to a queue, out from the queue, it is impossible to remove such already supplied data. Hence, in such a case, the data processing device has no choice but to discard the packet data. Such a situation occurs e.g. in a system where a data generating device comprises a processor for executing a plurality of programs (processes) and each of the processes individually generates a packet to be written into a shared queue. That is, the system experiences this situation when another process obtains an execution right, while a process writes packet data into the shared queue, and this newly scheduled process makes an attempt to write into the shared queue packet data it generates.

Queue control apparatus including memory to save data received when capacity of queue is less than a predetermined threshold