A torque or force calibration device is for a unit intended to measure or to apply a torque or a force respectively. The device includes a first part, a second part, and at least one flexible element linking the first part to the second part. The second part is mounted to be mobile in rotation or in translation relative to the fixed first part. The device includes an abutment which limits the displacement of the second part and thereby sets the maximum torque or the maximum force of the calibration device.

In the context of assembly processes (sector TO), there is a need to observe a torque, a force or even a force and a torque. These torque and force characteristics require specific measuring devices that have to be periodically calibrated.
The calibration can be done via sensors which have the disadvantage of being costly, or even via standard weights. In the latter case, the calibration of a torque measurement unit is performed using a standard weight of mass m creating a torque M through a lever arm whose length l is perfectly known (M=m*l). This calibration procedure requires the unit to leave its workshop and possibly be sent to the supplier. The unit is then out of service for 1 to 3 days, resulting in inconveniences in production control. Furthermore, between the off-site calibration and the return to the workshop, the measurement unit may have undergone an impact which affects its calibration. Moreover, the calibration of a measurement unit by a standard weight represents a static measurement condition and, consequently, does not involve all of the mechanical design of the unit. Now, the units measuring torque, and in particular friction torque, are supposed to measure dynamically, that is to say guarantee a torque at each given angle. In reality, as shown in FIG. 10, a certain drift on the measurement curve can be observed. A static calibration via a standard weight will not make it possible to observe or correct this error of linearity of the torque/angle function.

Dynamic torque and/or force calibration device


The multi-layered ballistics armor includes one or more containment layers covering at least a portion of an impact absorbing layer formed of a fragmenting material to minimize and contain fragmentation of the impact absorbing layer. The one or more containment layers may include one or more primary containment envelopes, and the fragmenting material may be a ceramic such as silicon carbide, carbon/carbon composites, carbon/carbon/silicon carbide composites, boron carbide, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide particulate/aluminum metal matrix composites, or combinations thereof. The multi-layered armor may include one or more adhesive layers over the impact absorbing layer, one or more composite backing layers, an energy absorbing layer, and a flame resistant layer. A secondary containment envelope can be provided over the one or more primary containment envelopes, composite backing layers, and energy absorbing layer.

The present invention is relates generally to ballistic armor, and more particularly relates to a composite multi-layered ballistic armor stabilized to protect against fragmentation of the armor to provide improved protection against armor-piercing projectiles.
Conventional composite ballistic armor typically includes layers of different materials, and are commonly useful as armor for military vehicles. One advantage of such composite ballistic armor over all metal armor is that composite ballistic armor typically weighs less than metal armor of equivalent effectiveness, but so that composite armor can be stronger, lighter and less voluminous than traditional armor, but composite ballistic armor can also be designed to provide protection against armor-piercing projectiles such as high explosive anti-tank rounds.
One common type of modern composite armor includes a layer of ceramic between steel armor plates, which has proved to be effective in protecting tanks. One advantage of the use of a ceramic layer with steel armor plates is that the ceramic material absorbs projectile penetration by fragmentation, diminishing the penetration. There is a currently a need to provide reduced weight composite armor with the capability of providing protection against multiple ballistic impacts for use on vehicles lighter than tanks, buildings, and even as personal body armor by individuals. However, it has been found that following an initial ballistic impact the effectiveness of conventional ceramic armor can quickly deteriorate significantly due to the inherent fragmentation of ceramic armor when subjected to shock waves or shear forces of a ballistic impact. A need therefore remains for a composite ballistic armor with the capability of providing protection against multiple ballistic impacts. The present invention meets this and other needs.

International Composites Technologies, Inc.


In a multi-computer system in which a plurality of computers connected to each other through a transmission medium share a process to be carried out under relationships among a method performed by these computers executing a control instruction, characterized as; while the plurality of computers each have specific control instruction storage means for storing instructions having influence on normal operations of the multi-computer system, when any of the plurality of computers defects an input instruction corresponding to one stored in the specific control instruction storage means, determines the status of the shared process being carried out by other computers in connections to the self-computer, and uses the result of the determination in the execution of the detected control instruction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for executing a control instruction in a multi-computer system, and is particularly concerned with a method for executing a computer control instruction in a manner suitable for preventing the system from executing a control instruction likely to cause a failure and thus for improving the reliability of the system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Today, computers are widely used, and their reliability is a serious matter.
Due to such causes such as operators' careless pressing of keys and/or switched and, an inappropriate control instruction mistakes in programming input to a process in the middle of execution can lead to a computer's malfunction.
For example, the pressing of the power switch by simple operational mistake cuts off the power, likely to cause such damage as the loss of data being processed during execution and the destruction of a program in the middle of its execution.
To prevent such cutoff of the power by a careless pressing of the power switch, some conventional methods for controlling power OFF control instructions in a computer system do not permit turning off of the power switch for a stand-alone computer when the computer is performing a process in its CPU, as found in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-263811.
As for master-slave computer systems, such a method is explained on pages 46 to 49 of "HITAC L-70 System Overview" by Hitachi, Ltd. In this one, a master computer manages the power for a plurality of slave computers, and the power for the master is never cut off before all the managed power supplies for the slaves are cut off.
Apart from the power switch, a control signal such as a reset signal also causes a computer to stop a process in the middle of execution. Therefore, some conventional methods attempt to prevent a careless pressing of the reset switch, which issues a reset signal, by giving an elaborate location to the switch. In other conventional methods, systems ignore a reset signal itself if by checking they find out that the reset switch is pressed at inappropriate time.
Today, as data handled by computers increases in amount and importance, computers need to speed up their processing and improve their reliability. To meet such requirements, a multicomputer system has been developed, which is a distributed processing system for data processing operation shared by a plurality of computers. In this system, the distribution of loads helps to maintain the performance of each computer and also to speed up the entire processing by the whole system and further to handle the occurrence of a failure to one of the computers by using another computer as a backup to carry out the processing in place of the failing computer, an improvement of the reliability of the system.
In such a multi-computer system, since processing efficiency is increased by distributing the processing operation to computers according to the amount of data to be processed and thereby dividing loads at busiest time, a sudden cutoff of the power for computers connected to the system is likely to stop the processing that they have been working on, having received an apportioned processing workload from other computers, leading to data loss or system failure.
For a system composed of computers connected to each other, prevention of the cutoff of the power due to a careless pressing of the power switch is presented by such a prior art attempt as shown on pages 46 to 49 of "HITAC L-70 System Overview" by Hitachi, Ltd.
In this attempt, however, the power for slave computers is permitted to be cut off regardless of their relationship to the master computer. Therefore, for instance, even when a slave computer is functioning as a workstation and running a program on the master, the power for the slave can be cut off by mistakenly setting the power switch on the slave to OFF. For this reason, this method for managing the power switch has had no use in multi-computer systems.
In other words, applying conventional methods to multi-computer systems has the disadvantage that there is no operation for checking the status of other related computers being performed before cutting off the power which leads to the interruption of communication between computers and the imposition of a harmful influence on the consistency of resources.
Moreover, this conventional application has the disadvantage that similar problems are caused by the inappropriate input and execution of control instructions such as a reset instruction.

Method for executing a control instruction in a multi-computer system


Provided are an augmented reality eyeglass communication device and a method for facilitating shopping using an augmented reality eyeglass communication device. The augmented reality eyeglass communication device may comprise a frame, and a right earpiece and a left earpiece connected to the frame. Furthermore, the eyeglass communication device may comprise a processor configured to receive one or more commands of a user, perform operations associated with the commands of the user, receive product information, and process the product information. The eyeglass communication device may comprise a display connected to the frame and configured to display data received from the processor. In addition to that, the eyeglass communication device may comprise a transceiver electrically connected to the processor and configured to receive and transmit data over a wireless network. The eyeglass communication device may comprise a Subscriber Identification Module card slot, a camera, an earphone, a microphone, and a charging unit.

Typically, a person who goes shopping attends several stores to compare assortment of goods, prices and availability of desired products. Handheld digital devices, e.g. smartphones, have become efficient assistants for performing shopping. The person may, for example, create a list of products to buy and may save this list on a smartphone. When being at the store, the smartphone may be used to scan product barcodes to retrieve product information or perform payment based on payment information encoded in the product barcodes. However, long-term constant holding of the smartphone in a hand may cause inconvenience to the person who performs shopping at the store. For example, when the person wants to take a big size product, the person firstly needs to empty his hands and, therefore, to put the smartphone into his pocket. After inspecting the desired product, the person will need to get the smartphone out of the pocket in order to scan a barcode of the desired product or to see what products left in the list of products to buy.
In addition to that, when using a smartphone in a store, a person needs to repeatedly look at a display of the smartphone, for example, to check a list of products stored on the smartphone or to read product information retrieved from a product barcode. Therefore, time spent on shopping may increase.

Wearable augmented reality eyeglass communication device including mobile phone and mobile computing via virtual touch screen gesture control and neuron command


A clinical trial management system and associated methods are provided to manage individual clinical trials running under multiple protocols at once. The disclosure allows clinical trials to be amended during the course of the study with reduced risk of loss of time or data. Patients may be started under one clinical trial protocol and be moved to another upon approval from the doctor or hospital managing their involvement in the study. In an embodiment, patient data is not moved or altered during a change in protocol to provide a more secure clinical trial system.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure generally relates to the computer storage and management of clinical trials. In particular, the present disclosure relates to upgrading or altering a particular protocol of a particular clinical trial.
2. Description of the Related Art
Before a new medical treatment (e.g., pharmaceuticals) or device (e.g., surgical instruments or implants) may be dispensed to the public, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that the manufacturers of the pharmaceuticals, devices, instruments, or implants conduct extensive clinical trial research in order to demonstrate the clinical effectiveness, safety, and medical advantage of their products. Extensive and often complex clinical trial protocols are developed that define, for example, targeted demographics, proposed medications, patient regimens, forms for collection, types of statistically relevant data, the timing or order of events within the study, often even the layout of the reporting data, or other suitable data. These protocols are often sufficiently complex that the protocols themselves receive FDA approval.
Once a protocol is developed and approved, companies design electronic data capture and data management solutions to manage the data gathered over the course of the clinical trial. This typically includes configuring a database to store the patient data as well as study metadata. The study metadata generally defines events (and scheduling thereof), Case Report Forms (CRFs), data points and their grouping, code lists, business rules, and derivatives (calculated fields). In general, such data capture and data management solutions capture data from geographically disparate clinicians or study participants, defining many points of data entry, potentially across many software and hardware platforms.
During the course of a clinical trial, one or more protocol amendments may occur, such as when new information becomes available or by request of a sponsor or regulatory agency (e.g. the FDA). Protocol amendments occur for a variety of reasons. Sometimes additional or more specific information is desired; other times a clinical trial is started as early as possible and details are fleshed out along the way. Still other times, protocol amendments merely involve clarification of forms that are used. A protocol amendment often requires a different version of a study, and each participating site (typically each physician's office or hospital) generally needs to receive Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval prior to the deployment of a new version of the study metadata. These approvals take varying amounts of time and it would generally be inefficient, if not impractical, to wait for all approvals before updating the trial protocol. Even when possible to wait for each participating location to approve a protocol change, valuable data may be lost by holding back the early adopters. As such, allowing different sites to utilize different versions of the trial protocol is advantageous.
Most systems that attempt versioning create new databases and import the data from a previous database to the new one. One drawback of this sort of versioning is the potential for data corruption or loss when moving the patient records from one protocol to another. Another drawback is that this sort of versioning may also cause a need for revalidation of the data or the system by the FDA. It is therefore desirable to provide a system and method of protocol versioning which reduces or eliminates the need to move data.

Managing protocol amendments in electronically recorded clinical trials


A control circuit of a DC fan motor for start with high voltage and high rotational speed with low voltage at least includes an input unit, an output unit, a control unit and a comparator. The input unit is connected to the comparison unit and the control unit for the power being inputted to operate the control circuit. The output unit has motor coil sets to be connected to the control unit such that the output unit can be driven by way of being controlled with the control unit. The comparison unit is connected to the control unit to control output current of the control unit. Hence, while the motor starts in a condition of being high voltage, the control element can prevent from being burned out due to excessively large current. Further, the motor fan can maintain a high constant rotational speed with low voltage output to enhance capability of heat dissipation and power saving.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a control circuit of a DC fan motor for start with high voltage and high rotational speed with low voltage and particularly to a control circuit preventing the control element of a motor from damage.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Due to highly developed information technology in our society, it is a required function of the electronic product that a great deal of electronic data can be transmitted and treated effectively. However, a side effect of occurring a phenomenon of generating high temperature always comes with the function. Hence, it is necessary for the electronic product to provide a heat dissipation apparatus with excellent performance and needing less power in order to solve the problem of heat dissipation.
Currently, the cooling fan and the radiator are heat dissipation apparatuses available on the market. The former helps to dissipate heat by way of convection and the latter helps to dissipate heat by way of conduction. Because forced heat dissipation created with the cooling fan provides better effect, the cooling fan is kept being developed by all suppliers unceasingly.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional circuit of a fan motor includes a motor 11 and a driving unit 12. The motor 11 includes at least a first coil set 111 and a second coil set 112. The driving unit 12 is connected to the motor 11 and at least includes a driving element 121 and a Hall element 122. The Hall element 122 senses magnetic pole changes of a rotor in the motor 11 to generate positive voltage H+ and negative voltage H− outputting to corresponding pins in the driving element 121. The driving element 121 has a first output pin 1211 connecting with the first coil set 111 and has a second output pin 1212 connecting with the second coil set 112 for actuating the motor 11 to run with a proper rotational speed.
However, the preceding conventional circuit has problems in practice. Once the conventional circuit has been made completely in accordance with the original design, performance of the motor 11 is unchangeable except redesign. That is, the input voltage has a proportional relation to the rotational speed of the motor as the T1 curve shown in FIG. 2. For instance, when the motor 11 starts with the input voltage of 12 volts, the rotational speed of the DC fan motor 11 is 4,000 rpm and when the motor 11 runs with the input voltage of 4 volts, the rotational speed of the DC fan motor is 1,000 rpm. Under this circumstance, the rotational speed with the low input voltage becomes a little too low and it is not possible to attain the required efficiency of heat dissipation.
In order to increase the rotational speed with the same low input voltage, the coil sets were redesigned to allow the DC fan motor 11 provides a rotational speed of 2,300 rpm with input voltage of 4 volts as T2 curve shown in FIG. 2. However, the high input voltage leads to increased rotational speed as well, i.e., the high input voltage of 12 volts results in higher rotational speed of 8,000 rpm as T2 curve shown in FIG. 2. Higher rotational speed means increasing current and the phenomenon of burned-out can occur easily if the increased current exceeds an acceptable range of current, which is capable of being endured with the driving element 121.

Control circuit of a DC fan motor for start with high voltage and high rotational speed with low voltage


A spherical body map having one hemisphere centered on any given point of the body and another hemisphere centered on its antipodal point is provided in the Azimuthal Equidistant Hemispheric projection. Both hemispheres are placed side by side so to show a great circle line passing through the center and antipodal points straight. This map can show correct directions and distances from the center point to any other points on the body with realistic and recognizable shapes, even for remote continents. It can also demonstrate three important properties of this projection: directions from points along a great circle to a center point do not show the exact opposite of directions from the center point to the points; distances between any two points, not only from the center point, along a great circle line are correct; and the map is convertible from flat to three-dimensional forms.

1. Prior Art
My above two patents disclose a method for transforming a globe represented in a spherical, three-dimensional round format into a flat disc representation using an Azimuthal Equidistant (AE) projection format.
The AE projection is an azimuthal map projection which preserves azimuths (angles or directions) and roundness in general. The projection shows places on the globe in an equidistant (at equal distances) manner, specifically it shows distances from a central point on the map to any other point in an equally spacing. Thus a great circle around Earth can be drawn as a straight line, contrary to wavy lines drawn in the Mercator or other projections. A great circle is a circle with the same diameter as the Earth where any given two points on the circle constitute the shortest distance between these points on the Earth's surface. As great circle lines are always straight on the real Earth when viewed from overhead, the wavy lines on most maps do not reflect reality.
An ordinary world map drawn in the AE projection has serious distortion problem at its periphery. This is because this map requires that all configurations be drawn within one large circle. To overcome this distortion problem, in my previous maps I divided this one large circle into two small circles with half the diameter of the large circle. One of the small circles with any given center point of interest is a main hemisphere, which represents inner half circle of the large AE projection map. Another small circle having the same-size is an opposing hemisphere centered on an antipodal point (a point directly or exactly opposite a given point on Earth), which represents an outer, doughnut-shaped area of the large AE projection map. To distinguish the latter projection with two hemispheres from the ordinary AE projection, I called it an Azimuthal Equidistant Hemispheric projection.
My above '790 patent shows the opposing hemisphere divided in half to provide two resulting semi-hemispheres attached to the right and left sides of the main hemisphere. This procedure enables the continental hemisphere to be featured prominently.
My '575 patent provides a world map projection in which any place in the world can be the center of interest. Also in this projection, the opposing hemisphere is also divided in half, using the same representation as in my '790 patent.
In addition to my own patents, U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,113 to Paul L. Pryor et al., May 11, 1999, entitled, "Map and Calculator Device" shows a map drawn in two hemispheres and in the AE projection. However it differs from the maps of my previous patents in one important aspect: All of my maps show the world in one view. On the other hand, Pryor et al. locate one half of the world on an obverse side of a sheet and the other half on the reverse side. In other words, the two hemispheres are back to back. A user of this map must flip again and again to view any relation of two points separated between obverse and reverse sides.
The Pryor et al. map has elements which can locate antipodal points of any given center point along a great circle line. If the one of elements is moved from the center point, the other of elements is moved from the antipodal point accordingly. Using the same hemispheric map with the same center point, one can still determine the antipodal point of any given point. If one can move the center point and its antipodal point freely, one need not limit the starting point of measurement to the center point. Rather the distance from any point to any other point can be measured correctly if they are located on a line along a great circle.
A poster entitled "Map Projections" by the US Geological Survey, states "Distances and directions to all places [are] true only from center point of projection. Distances [are] correct between points along straight lines through center. All other distances [are] incorrect". This statement is correct but is likely to mislead. The importance of a great circle is that distances between any two points are correct, not just where one point is the center point of projection.
The same thing, however, does not apply to directions. For example, Florida is located due east of San Francisco, but reversely, San Francisco is not located due west of Florida. Directions from all places along a great circle are not true, except from the center point and from its antipode. It is because the Earth is round and north-south lines that determine the bearings are not parallel. I will explain this in more detail under Detailed Description below.
In my '790 patent, FIG. 29 relates to another idea regarding the AE projection, namely the embodiment, "Two Bowl-Shaped Hemispheric Maps". This has merit since it is the only projection which is directly transferable to a globe.
However, its transferability has not been explored fully. Besides, my prior AE Hemispheric projection requires that the opposing hemisphere be divided and it requires means for moving it around the border of other hemisphere in a coordinated way using intermeshed gears.
2. Advantages
The present map integrates further ideas and developments to provide improved embodiments. Accordingly, several advantages of one or more aspects of the present embodiments are:                1. A world map can show how directions of a center point and its antipodal point differ from all other points along a great circle.        2. A world map in the AE projection can be used to measure distances between any two points along a great circle.        3. A world map in the AE Hemispheric projection can show how easily it can be transformed into a spherical form.        4. A hemispheric world map with any center point can be acquired instantly.
Still further advantages of various embodiments will become apparent from consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.

World map for demonstrating properties of azimuthal equidistant hemispheric projection


Tying tape-like materials formed by extrusion molding, comprising as a main component an aliphatic polyester having a melt viscosity of 1.0.times.10.sup.3 -4.0.times.10.sup.4 poises at a temperature of 190.degree. C. and a shear rate of 100 sec.sup.-1, and having a melting point of 70.degree.-190.degree. C. The present invention provides tying tape-like materials excellent in heat stability, mechanical strength and packing property as well as having biodegradability which can be used as packing materials.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tying tape-like materials having excellent heat stability and mechanical strength which are prepared by using aliphatic polyesters with biodegradability and sufficiently high molecular weights and specific melt properties for practical use. Particularly, the present invention relates to packing and tying band or flat tape, and ribbed tape prepared by using aliphatic polyesters having a sufficiently high molecular weight and having the above properties.
2. Discussion of the Background
In recent years, with the progress of the distribution system and the agriculture plastics have increasingly been used for containers, bags, packing materials and the like which are used for distribution and agricultural work. On the other hand, large amounts of plastics waste from such materials have the possibility of polluting rivers, oceans, soil and are becoming a great social problem. To prevent such pollution the development of biodegradable plastics has been desired; for example, poly(3-hydroxybutylate) produced by fermentation methods using microorganisms, blends of general-purpose plastics and starch, a naturally occurring polymer, and the like are already known. The former polymer has a drawback in that it is poor in molding properties because the polymer has a heat decomposition temperature close to its melting point and a raw material efficiency is very bad because it is produced by microorganisms. On the other hand, since the naturally occurring polymer of the latter does not by itself have thermoplasticity, the polymer has defects in molding properties, and is greatly limited in its range of application.
On the other hand, although it is known that aliphatic polyesters are biodegradable, they have hardly been used because polymeric material sufficient enough to obtain practical molded product cannot be obtained. Recently, it has been found that a ring-opening polymerization of .epsilon.-caprolactone produces a higher molecular weight polymer, and proposed to use the polymer as a biodegradable resin. However, the resulting polymer is limited to only special applications because of a low melting point of 62.degree. C. and a high cost thereof. Further, although glycolic acid, lactic acid and the like are polymerized by a ring-opening polymerization of glycolide and lactide thereof to obtain polymers with higher molecular weights so as to be sometimes used as medical fibers and the like, the polymers are not used in great amounts as industrial parts, automotive members, domestic articles and the like because their decomposition temperatures are close to their melting point and they have defects in their molding properties.
Tying materials, for example, extruded bands, flat tapes, ribbed tapes and the like (herein after referred to as "tape-like materials" generically) as one of packaging materials and agricultural materials required to have corrosion resistance, high strength and the like mainly consist of a high density polyethylene resin and polypropylene resin from among the polyolefins. The band is used for packaging heavy materials and the tying tape is often applied to strings for binding packages, binder tapes for automatic tying machines. Since polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene terephthalate and the like are used for high strength tape in specified applications, it goes without saying that polymeric polyesters (referring to polymeric polyesters having number-average molecular weights of at least 10,000) generally used for the plastics are limited to polyethylene terephthalete, a condensate of terephthalic acid (including dimethyl terephthalate) and ethylene glycol. Although there are cases of 2,6-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid being used instead of terephthalic acid, there are no reports of trials which resulted in providing the obtained polymers with biodegradability.
Therefore, it is safe to say that there has been no concept of trying to make the molding of tying tape-like materials using biodegradable aliphatic polyesters in which aliphatic dicarboxylic acid was used practical.
One of the reasons why this application concept has not been thought of is felt to be that in spite of the required special molding conditions and physical properties for the above tying tape-like materials, most of the above-mentioned aliphatic polyesters have melting points of 100.degree. C. or lower even if they are crystalline, and have poor heat stability when melted above that. Of further importance is that the properties, particularly mechanical properties such as tensile strength, of these aliphatic polyesters show markedly poor values even when they are the same level of number-average molecular weight as the above-mentioned polyethylene terephthalate, so just conceiving that the molded articles having required strength and the like would be obtained was difficult.
Another reason seems to be that studies for improving the physical properties of the aliphatic polyesters by increasing their number-average molecular weights were not make sufficiently advanced because of their poor heat stability.
The object of the present invention is to provide tying tape-like materials prepared by using the above-mentioned aliphatic polyesters as their components which have sufficient high molecular weights for practical use, have excellent mechanical properties represented by heat stability and tensile strength, and which may be decomposed by microorganisms and the like, i.e., are biodegradable as one means of waste disposal so that they may be easily disposed of after the use thereof.


A system, method, computer program product, and application program interface for indexing data relating to results of speech recognition in a database management system provides the capability to perform simple and efficient searches on audio speech data with reduced development effort. An application program interface for indexing data relating to results of speech recognition in a database management system comprises an indextype operable to support text queries on speech recognition results, an interface operable to provide interaction with an index of the indextype, and a format adapter interface a format adapter that the index creation activity will invoke to extract relevant information from a proprietary speech recognition format.

Speech recognition technology provides the capability to design computer systems that can recognize spoken words. Speech recognition systems accept audio speech data, which are digitized audio speech signals, and output textual information. A number of speech recognition systems are available on the market. The most powerful can recognize thousands of words. However, they generally require an extended training session during which the computer system becomes accustomed to a particular voice and accent. Such systems are said to be speaker dependent. More recently speech recognition systems have been developed that can recognize speech without being trained using a particular voice and accent. Such systems may recognize the speech of most or any speakers, and are said to be speaker independent.
Audio speech data may be treated like any other data and stored and organized in a database. In the case of textual or numeric data, searches may be readily performed on the data by a database management system for the database. However, unlike textual or numeric data, there is no simple and efficient way to search audio speech data. Prior systems required developers who wished to search audio speech data had to develop complex software procedures in order to perform the searching. For example, to perform a typical search, a user will want to know which audio or video assets satisfy given text query search criteria, the time offsets within each matched media asset where matches occurred, and the user may want to know the speech recognition confidence of each match. Conventionally, this required development of software to perform several iterations of extracting the relevant text, time offset, and confidence data from the speech recognition results, build appropriate B-tree indices on this extracted data, and associate time offsets and confidence values. with their corresponding text data. In addition, procedures would have to be developed that would use the index and search through the text data for matched rows, and then search through the matched rows for time offsets into the media asset where matches occurred.
What is needed is a technique by which simple and efficient searches may be performed on audio speech data and which provides reduced development effort.

SQL enhancements to support text queries on speech recognition results of audio data


To provide a display device capable of displaying a trajectory of a specific portion of a program controlled control target device regardless of whether the control program is a simple sequential execution type or a situation adaptive type. A PC (10), which is a display device, includes a command value acquiring section (1131) configured to acquire command values of a series of positions, which is an execution result of the control program; a position calculating section (1132) configured to obtain a series of positions of the specific portion for every control period or in a plurality of specified control periods corresponding to the acquired command values of the series of positions; a trajectory data creating section (1133) configured to create trajectory data showing a trajectory that passes each of the series of positions of the specific portion in order of elapse of time; an image data creating section (1134) configured to create image data for displaying a spatial mode of the trajectory on the screen as an image using the trajectory data; and a display control section (1011) configured to display the image on the screen using the image data.

A control program for operating the control target device is conventionally known.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-138934 (patent document 1) discloses a method using a processing program, which is the control program. Patent document 1 also describes a method of displaying an ideal tool path of a numerical value control device and displaying an actual tool path with an error between the ideal tool path and the actual tool path enlarged. With such method, the numerical value control device reads the processing program, and displays the tool path with a tool path display function incorporated in the numerical value control device.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-242054 (patent document 2) discloses a programming pendant (teaching device used by being carried around) used for the teaching of an industrial robot as the control program. The programming pendant stores an operation program in which target position data of a robot is described by a movement order. The programming pendant three-dimensionally displays graphically a trajectory of a distal end of a torch held by a robot arm that moves according to the operation program. The programming pendant may also display a surface model of the robot overlapping the trajectory.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-138934
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-242054

Display device, display control method, program, and computer readable recording medium


Voice commands and gesture recognition are two mechanisms by which an individual may interact with content such as that on a display. In an implementation, interactivity of a user with content on a device or display may be modified based on the distance between a user and the display. An attribute such as a user profile may be used to tailor the modification of the display to an individual user. In some configurations, the commands available to the user may also be modified based on the determined distance between the user and a device or display.

Digital screens are present in many environments such as gaming environments, malls, restaurants, businesses, and homes. In addition, many touch or input device autonomous systems exist. In a gaming environment a console may have a depth camera connected to it that communicates information about a user's body position to the console. The console may animate a character on a screen according to the user's gestures. For example, if the user gestures to throw a punch in a boxing game, a character on the screen may be displayed as throwing a punch with the same hand using a predefined animation sequence.

Adaptive screen interfaces based on viewing distance


A piston of an internal combustion engine includes a top part produced from steel and a bottom part, which are integrally bonded in the region of a contact geometry via joining webs by a friction weld to form a structural unit. At least one cooling duct permeated by a coolant is integrated in the piston, wherein a lubricating oil of the internal combustion engine passes as the coolant into an inlet opening via a free jet of an injection nozzle, flows through the cooling duct and leaves the cooling duct via an outlet opening. For the introduction of the coolant into the cooling duct, the inlet opening is assigned a flow pipe which is inserted in the bottom part and protrudes from a cooling duct base, the opening of the flow pipe being arranged above the weld beads of the friction weld.

The invention relates to a piston of an internal combustion engine which is produced from steel and has a top part and a bottom part, the joining webs of which are integrally bonded in the region of a contact geometry by means of a friction weld to form a structural unit. For cooling, at least one cooling duct permeated by a coolant is integrated in the piston.
Zones of pistons for internal combustion engines which are subjected to high thermal loading, for example the combustion chamber cavity in the piston head or the region of the first groove, require effective cooling. For this purpose, it is known to integrate a cooling duct in the piston. A coolant, preferably the lubricating oil of the internal combustion engine, circulates through the cooling duct, which is preferably in the form of a hollow space. The efficiency of the piston cooling is governed, in particular, by the exchanged volume of the coolant in the cooling duct.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,157 discloses a cooling duct piston comprising two components which can be produced separately from one another and are joined together integrally via a friction welding process. The cooling duct provided is a rotationally symmetrical annular duct which is spaced apart circumferentially from the annular field of the piston and is permeated by a coolant, in particular the lubricating oil of the internal combustion engine, via an immovably positioned injection nozzle.
DE 39 06 582 C1 discloses a multi-part piston, the individual parts of which are connected by means of a friction weld so as to obtain an integral bond and a structural unit. In this process, the components are rubbed against one another under compressive loading, preferably by a rotary movement, until the contact geometry or the joining zone has reached the temperature suitable for welding the two components. The heating by rubbing is followed by a compression operation, in which the soft or molten regions of the components are torn open, plastically deformed and pressed onto one another. A weld bead which emerges from the contact geometry is thereby formed on both sides of the joining web.
Furthermore, there are pistons with a small compression height in which relatively short joining webs are established between the top part and the bottom part of the piston owing to the overall height of the piston. Owing to the confined installation space associated with this in the region of the contact geometry, there is the risk that the inlet and outlet openings of the cooling duct, which are formed as a bore, will taper off owing to the weld bead from the friction welding process. As a result, the exchange of coolant is reduced, and this is associated with a direct disadvantageous influence on the cooling of the piston.
It would be desirable to provide a cooling duct piston with an improved cooling action, in which the residence time of the coolant in the cooling duct is extended.
In one aspect, for the introduction of the coolant into the cooling duct, the inlet opening includes a flow pipe which is inserted in the bottom part. Here, the opening of the flow pipe, which protrudes from a cooling duct base with an excess length, is positioned above a contact geometry and its associated weld bead of the friction welding process.
The flow pipe is arranged in the contact geometry arising between the top part and the bottom part in such a way that it protrudes from a cooling duct base with an excess length. The extent of the excess length is selected in such a way that an opening of the flow pipe is positioned above a weld bead which arises by means of a friction weld, from a friction welding process. The exchange of coolant, which is decisive for the efficiency of the piston cooling, is therefore retained in an unrestricted manner, since no cross-sectional tapering, which has a negative effect on the cooling action of the piston, can be established owing to a weld bead in the region of the inlet opening of the cooling duct.
During an upward stroke of the piston, the coolant located in the cooling duct is pressed onto the cooling duct base owing to the acceleration of the piston. In this case, the installed position of the flow pipe prevents the return flow or exit of the coolant via the inlet opening of the cooling duct and ensures optimum filling of the cooling duct extending over a crank angle of 360°. At the same time, a disadvantageous influence on the flow owing to coolant exiting at the inlet opening, which leads to the foaming of oil, is prevented.
The reversal of the piston movement, which takes place rapidly in the top dead center of the piston, means that the coolant or lubricant located on the cooling duct base is hurled owing to the inertia action over a large area against the outer surface of the cooling duct which is formed, in particular, by a bottom side of the piston head. In combination with the alternating movements of the piston, the coolant acting on the entire cooling duct brings about optimization of the flow of coolant and also improved exploitation of the shaker action.
An increased residence time of the coolant (cooling oil) in the cooling duct and a reinforced shaker effect bring about an improved and desired dissipation of heat from the piston regions which are subjected to high thermal loading and are to be cooled.
The coolant which moves over the entire cooling duct ensures that the piston zones subjected to high thermal loading are effectively cooled without there being the risk of combustion of the coolant.
According to one aspect of the invention, a clearance "x" between the opening of the flow pipe and the cooling duct base exceeds a dimension "y", which defines a fill level of the coolant in an upward movement of the piston in the cooling duct. The differential dimension or clearance which is established ensures that disadvantageous return flow and an associated influence on the jet of the coolant in the region of the inlet opening is prevented irrespective of the direction in which the piston moves. Before the friction welding, the dimensionally stable flow pipe is arranged in a receiving bore of the bottom part of the piston in such a way that the clearance "x" is established after the latter is joined together with the top part of the piston.
Long-term fixing of the flow pipe takes place via a weld bead which is formed during the friction welding, by means of which the top part of the piston and the bottom part of the piston are integrally bonded to one another. A positively locking fastening can take place between the weld beads and the flow pipe in order to improve the fixing. For this purpose, the outer contour of the flow pipe has a recess intended for receiving the weld seam. An annular groove or a partially concave outer contour is preferably provided in order to constitute a recess which can be implemented at low cost.
In order to achieve optimum adaptation and positional fixing of the separate flow pipe in the piston, use is made of a pipe produced from steel. A material which is similar to the piston material in particular with respect to the coefficient of thermal expansion is selected for the flow pipe, and therefore reliable, play-free fastening is also ensured in the operating state of the internal combustion engine.
The flow pipe, which forms the inlet opening, is inserted in the bottom part of the piston and fixed via at least one weld bead and extends in the direction of the ends of the piston skirt. It is thereby possible to advantageously reduce the distance between the injection nozzle and the flow pipe, as a result of which it is possible to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the application of coolant via the injection nozzle into the flow pipe.
A further advantageous refinement provides for the flow pipe to be provided with a curved outlet opening on the cooling duct side. The flow pipe has two outlets, which point in opposite directions and are arranged in a Y-shape with respect to one another. This measure takes into account the rapid reversal of the piston movement at the bottom and top dead center and the associated transfer of the coolant between the cooling duct base and the outer surface of the cooling duct, which, if the flow pipe is arranged perpendicularly or parallel to a lateral surface of the piston, can have the effect that a sub-quantity of the coolant acts upon the flow pipe during the shaker movement. The flow pipe arched at the end with an outlet which is oriented preferably at an angle to the direction in which the piston moves or to a longitudinal axis of the piston prevents a disadvantageous inlet of coolant irrespective of the direction in which the piston moves. Furthermore, a flow pipe with two openings pointing in opposite directions adopts the function of a flow divider, which splits the flow of coolant in a targeted manner into two directions so that the latter acts uniformly on the annularly extending cooling duct.
In addition, the inlet opening can be transferred to a piston with a split cooling duct. For this purpose, each cooling duct half or each cooling duct segment is assigned an inlet opening and an outlet opening, each inlet opening preferably being assigned a separate injection nozzle. This design makes it possible for a relatively large flow of coolant to act on the cooling duct. Depending on the position of these openings, the coolant can flow through the cooling duct segments in cocurrent or in countercurrent.
A process for producing the piston, includes the following steps: firstly, a flow pipe is inserted into a receiving bore of the bottom part of the piston, where attention is paid to an installed position which ensures that the opening or the outlets of the flow pipe is or are arranged above a contact geometry. The top part and the bottom part of the piston are then assembled, before these components are joined together integrally by means of a friction weld. The weld beads that form in this process in the region of the contact geometry at least locally bring about nonpositive and/or positive fixing of the flow pipe.

Friction welded steel piston having optimized cooling channel


An amplification system, circuit, and method of performing offset cancellation are described. The disclosed amplification system is described as including a main amplifier circuit that receives an input signal and produces an output signal, a two-phase output sampler, and an offset correction circuit. The two-phase output sample samples the output signal of the main amplifier circuit in two different clock domains and determines a delta between the samples. The delta is used to assist the offset correction circuit in generating an offset correction feedback for the main amplifier circuit.

Input offsets of amplifiers in circuits such as Analog-to-Digital (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog (DAC), voltage amplifiers, sample-and-holds, etc., often limit the minimum resolutions of these circuits. It is, therefore, critical to cancel out these amplifiers' offset, when circuit accuracy is impacted by the magnitude of these input offsets (e.g., usual amplifier input offsets are in the order of 1˜10 mV). At the same time, 1/f noise which is dominant at low frequencies will be concurrently reduced with input offset cancellation. This further improves circuit accuracy.
Two general categories of offset cancellation are already in use: (1) Chopper Stabilization and (2) Autozeroing. In chopper stabilization, a low pass filter is usually required at the output of these amplifiers to reduce the magnitude of the output swing caused by chopping.
In single-ended output sample and hold DAC configuration, the DAC output is often not offset-free in both sample and hold modes, as illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B. FIG. 1A shows a single-ended output sample and hold DAC 104 in a hold mode of operation. During the hold mode of operation the offset of the amplifier 108 is stored on both the intermediate capacitor Cint and supply capacitor Cs. As shown in FIG. 1B, when the circuit 104 is in a sample mode of operation, the offset of the amplifier 108 is now cancelled out at output voltage Vout. The offset of the amplifier 108 is effectively null out in the output voltage Vout during the sample mode, but not in the hold mode. From FIG. 1B, it can be seen that the holding capacitor Ch stores the offset-nulled output voltage Vout with respect to the common voltage Vcom. Hence, the holding capacitor Ch does not contain the offset content of the amplifier 108. In the hold mode, the offset of the amplifier is not removed. This creates a pedestal in the output voltage Vout, as shown in FIG. 1C.
Additional errors due to charge injection upon switch turn off of the holding capacitor Ch adds to the pedestal in the output voltage Vout. In this structure of FIGS. 1A-C, offset present in the common voltage Vcom reference is doubled at the output voltage Vout. Furthermore, continuous chopper stabilization is not feasible for the depicted DAC structure because the chopper has to be disabled during the sample mode or else larger output offsets will be created. If chopper stabilization is also used on the common voltage Vcom reference, the total energy of the offset swing at the output voltage Vout could easily be on the order of +/−20 mV, which at a low output voltage Vout level (e.g., 50 mV) is approximately +/−40% of the output voltage Vout level. This offset is significantly large and could easily result in the output voltage Vout inaccuracies due to imperfections such as uneven up/down slew profiles of offset swings.

Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.


The disclosure has described a sub-miniature arc lamp and a method to make a sub-miniature arc lamp. An embodiment of the sub-miniature arc lamp includes a sapphire body having a first end and a second end, the first end being coupled to a first cap and the second end being coupled to a second cap to define a sealed envelope, wherein a first electrode being mounted in the first cap and a second electrode being mounted in the second cap are enclosed within the envelope. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

In optical systems involving the generation and controlled radiation of long or continuous pulses of light, such as spectroscopy, or solar simulation, where high intensity, color correct illumination of sensitive working areas is required, such as in fiber optics illumination devices, it is advantageous to have a light source capable of producing the highest possible light flux density. Products utilized in such applications include short arc inert gas lamps. An existing short arc lamp includes a sealed quartz chamber containing a gas pressurized to several atmospheres, and an opposed anode and cathode defining an arc gap. A window provides for the transmission of the generated light, and a reflector may be positioned surrounding the arc gap.
Various applications require small short arc lamps, such as in video projectors and medical and dental equipments. Sub-miniature arc lamps are produced to meet the needs of these applications. In an existing design of a sub-miniature arc lamp, an anode and a cathode are mounted inside a quartz tube with a top and a base. The anode and the cathode are separated by a short arc gap. The joint between the quartz tube and the top and the joint between the tube and the base are sealed. The quartz tube is filled with inert gas. During operation, the breakdown voltage is exceeded across the short arc gap between the anode and the cathode, an illuminating flow of electrons is discharged from the cathode to the anode.
Generally speaking, there are four major reasons for lamp failure, including electrode erosion, contamination of the fill gas, cracked glass to metal seals, and explosion caused by devitrification or cracking of the quartz tube. Erosion of the electrodes causes a reduction in light output and, potentially, failure of the quartz tube. Devitrification of the quartz tube, caused by the high temperature inside the quartz tube during operation, is the removal or destruction of the glassy quality of the quartz tube. In addition to devitrification, the high temperature inside the quartz tube can also lead to the cracking of the quartz tube. Eventually, the devitrification and cracking of the quartz tube will lead to breakage of the quartz tube. Besides damaging the lamp, breakage of the quartz tube can cause user injuries as well.
Moreover, high peak currents discharged through the lamp during operation generate instantaneous high temperature on the inner wall of the quartz tube. The high temperature on the inner wall of the quartz tube causes the silicon oxide in the quartz tube to reduce to silicon and oxygen, which causes contamination of the fill gas. In addition to high temperature, devitrification will also lead to oxygen generation from the quartz tube. The electronegative nature of the oxygen inhibits the electron flow and effectively raises the breakdown voltage of the lamp. An increased breakdown voltage impedes ignition and triggers reliability problems with the lamp.
A prior solution to reduce the contamination inside the quartz tube is to use gas additives to reduce tungsten wall coverage inside the quartz tube. However, the gas additives also make processing the sub-miniature arc lamps at high temperature difficult.
Another prior solution is to operate the lamp in a vertical position to minimize devitrification of the quartz tube. Horizontal operation in high pressure quartz lamps tends to cause early failures due to tube devitrification problems. However, having to operate the arc lamp in vertical orientation complicates the design of the optical equipment using the arc lamp.


The disclosure includes controlling a pressure ratio for a compressing system, comprising introducing a quantity of liquid into an input stream to create a multiphase input stream, compressing the multiphase input stream with a centrifugal compressor to create a discharge stream, measuring a parameter of the discharge stream, wherein the discharge parameter corresponds to a pressure ratio for the centrifugal compressor, when the parameter exceeds a first predetermined point, increasing a pressure ratio of the centrifugal compressor by increasing the quantity of liquid introduced, and when the parameter exceeds a second predetermined point, decreasing the pressure ratio by decreasing the quantity of liquid introduced.

This section is intended to introduce various aspects of the art, which may be associated with exemplary embodiments of the present invention. This discussion is believed to assist in providing a framework to facilitate a better understanding of particular aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that this section should be read in this light, and not necessarily as admissions of prior art.
Traditionally, it is understood that centrifugal compressors or gas expanders do not handle liquid slugs and thus it is assumed that they can only handle a fraction of one percent liquid by volume. Thus in many applications expensive liquid separators, dehydration processes and/or unit scrubbers are utilized to try and remove or separate the liquids prior to using centrifugal compressors or expanders. These devices are often designed for specific operating conditions and are then limited in the range of Gas Volume Fraction (GVF) that can be handled with a given process flow rate. Even with this expensive and complex processing equipment, if there is a sudden high level of liquids they can quickly saturate, fill and overflow the liquid separators once their capacity for liquid is exceeded resulting in slugging the compressor or expander equipment.
In general, multiphase pumps can be used if it is known that the fluid will generally be below 90% GVF. Centrifugal compressors are often restricted to applications with GVFs of 99.7 or higher and even this can cause problems within the machine for stability and affecting the reliability of the seals and bearings. Therefore, for processes outside this small range, the current practice is to separate the fluids prior to utilizing a centrifugal compressor even with the design limitation with the associated process and equipment. The same is true for gas expanders, which are functionally a centrifugal compressor running in reverse to extract energy in one form or another through a process pressure drop across the expander. The separators, scrubbers and dehydration units are not only expensive and limited in liquid capacity and volume flow range but they also tend to be very bulky, taking up expensive real estate in locations such as offshore platforms, subsea processing or onshore facilities. This coupled with complex control systems and additional auxiliary equipment like pumps, regulators, level controllers, transmitters and filters adds to the complexity and likelihood of failure of these systems. An example of a typical oil or gas well stream service process may use a separator to separate liquids from the gas in order to prevent or mitigate damage caused by slugs. A centrifugal compressor and pump may subsequently be used to boost the gas and liquid separately, with downstream recombination of the gas and liquid in order to transport both through a pipeline to a processing facility.
Problems with compressing liquids include reduced machine stability, erosion of impellers and diffusers, and fouling and resulting in imbalance if the liquids flash or vaporize while being compressed in the machine.
The foregoing discussion of need in the art is intended to be representative rather than exhaustive. Technology that would improve the ability of compressors or expanders to handle the multiphase flow of fluid with a higher liquid content compared to the current state of the art would be of great value.

Controlling a wet gas compression system


Systems and techniques for determining data assessment scores indicative of potential security vulnerabilities and enacting measures to protect sensitive information by controlling permissions and access to sensitive information and systems are provided herein. A data assessment model receives inputs of user access data, user role type, baseline permissions for the user role type, and produces a score. The score is useful for identifying potential security vulnerabilities and enacting proactive security measures to lock down potential vulnerabilities by blocking or changing permissions to reduce risk scores.

Network and data security is of paramount concern for enterprise computing environments and systems handling customer or other data. Security vulnerabilities in software are continually discovered, and software updates to correct the vulnerabilities are regularly distributed. Further, harmful software such as viruses, malware, adware, and so on may be inadvertently installed by users. Users may have varying levels of access and power to enact change and preform actions within the network, and the varied levels of access may result in vulnerabilities. Some users may have access to all systems and therefore create potential vulnerabilities if their credentials are compromised. Vulnerabilities within the network security can be difficult to detect when associated with individuals having legitimate (or compromised) permissions or access to systems on the network.


An article of footwear including a sole system, including an upper and the sole system. The sole system includes a knitted component incorporating a one-piece knit outsole. The knit outsole has a ground-facing side, a top side, an inlaid tensile element, and a ground-engaging cleat member protruding from the ground-facing side of the knit outsole. The tensile element may be adjacent a cleat member. The upper is connected at its bottom to the top side of the knit outsole.

The present disclosure relates generally to a sole system for an article of footwear incorporating a knitted component with a one-piece knit outsole and a tensile element. The present disclosure also relates to an article of footwear comprising the knitted component. The present disclosure further is related generally to a method of knitting the knitted component, and to a method of making an article of footwear comprising the knitted component.
Conventional articles of footwear generally include two primary elements, an upper and a sole structure. The upper is secured to the sole structure and forms a void on the interior of the footwear for comfortably and securely receiving a foot. The sole structure is secured to a lower area of the upper, thereby being positioned between the upper and the ground. In athletic footwear, for example, the sole structure may include a midsole and an outsole. The midsole often includes a polymer foam material that attenuates ground reaction forces to lessen stresses upon the foot and leg during walking, running, and other ambulatory activities. Additionally, the midsole may include fluid-filled chambers, plates, moderators, or other elements that further attenuate forces, enhance stability, or influence the motions of the foot. The outsole is secured to a lower surface of the midsole and provides a ground-engaging portion of the sole system formed from a durable and wear-resistant material, such as rubber. The sole system may also include a sockliner positioned within the void and proximal a lower surface of the foot to enhance footwear comfort.
The upper generally extends over the instep and toe areas of the foot, along the medial and lateral sides of the foot, under the foot, and around the heel area of the foot. In some articles of footwear, such as basketball footwear and boots, the upper may extend upward and around the ankle to provide support or protection for the ankle. Access to the void on the interior of the upper is generally provided by an ankle opening in a heel region of the footwear. A lacing system is often incorporated into the upper to adjust the fit of the upper, thereby permitting entry and removal of the foot from the void within the upper. The lacing system also permits the wearer to modify certain dimensions of the upper, particularly girth, to accommodate feet with varying dimensions. In addition, the upper may include a tongue that extends under the lacing system to enhance adjustability of the footwear, and the upper may incorporate a heel counter to limit movement of the heel.
Articles of footwear often are constructed of many components. For example, an article of footwear may include many components, such as an upper, a sockliner, a strobel, a midsole, and an outsole. An outsole may have spikes, cleats, or other protrusions to provide additional traction under selected circumstances. Each of these components is attached to at least one, typically two, and maybe three or more of the other components. Some components thus are stitched to, adhered to, or otherwise attached to other components.
Construction of an article of footwear comprising many components may require that components having significantly different properties and characteristics must be attached to each other. For example, an upper may be formed from cloth, a midsole from soft foam, and an outsole from wear-resistant rubber. These components often can be adhered with adhesives. Adhesive may fail, causing delamination of the components. Further, wear may occur at joints between harder and softer materials, or between dissimilar materials. Therefore, such joints may cause premature failure of the article of footwear. Such joints also may provide uncomfortable sudden transitions between areas of softer or more compliant materials and areas of harder or more rigid materials.
Further, assembly of multiple components may be time-consuming and may lead to errors. For example, components from one style of an article of footwear may incorrectly be used on a different style of footwear. The number of potential errors and premature failures may be significant.
A variety of material elements (e.g., textiles, polymer foam, polymer sheets, leather, synthetic leather) are conventionally utilized in manufacturing an article of footwear. In athletic footwear, for example, the upper may have multiple layers that each include a variety of joined material elements. As examples, the material elements may be selected to impart stretch-resistance, wear-resistance, flexibility, air-permeability, compressibility, comfort, and moisture-wicking to different areas of the upper. Similarly, the sole structure may utilize a number of components to provide selected properties and characteristics. To impart the different properties to different areas of the article of footwear, material elements are often cut to desired shapes and then joined together, usually with stitching or adhesive bonding. Moreover, the material elements often are joined in a layered configuration to impart multiple properties to the same areas. As the number and type of material elements incorporated into the article of footwear increases, the time and expense associated with transporting, stocking, cutting, and joining the material elements also may increase. Waste material from cutting and stitching processes also accumulates to a greater degree as the number and type of material elements incorporated into the article of footwear increases. Moreover, articles of footwear with a greater number of material elements may be more difficult to recycle than articles of footwear formed from fewer types and numbers of material elements. By decreasing the number of material elements utilized in the article of footwear, therefore, waste may be decreased while increasing the manufacturing efficiency and recyclability of the upper.
Reducing the number of material elements may require that one material element provide multiple and additional properties and characteristics sought by users. Thus, there exists a need in the art for articles of footwear comprising a minimum number of material elements while providing a number of properties and characteristics sought by users.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Sole system for an article of footwear incorporating a knitted component with a one-piece knit outsole and a tensile element


Cell phone calls are automatically call forwarded to an in-vehicle telematics system when a driver using the cell phone is in their vehicle. Presence of the driver may be detected, e.g., by detection of a key in the ignition and presumption that the driver is in the vehicle while the key is in the ignition. The in-vehicle telematics unit signals that its driver is present. A phone number lookup is performed, e.g., by a third party database service associating cell phone number and wireless carrier with a telematics phone number of the drivers vehicle. A call forwarding request is then made between the telematics network to the relevant wireless carrier providing service to the driver's cell phone. The correct wireless carrier network is contacted, and a call forward is established to the telematics system of the driver's vehicle. When the driver leaves the vehicle, the call forwarding is terminated.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wireless telecommunications. In particular, it relates to automobile telematics systems with wireless telecommunications.
2. Background of the Related Art
The word "telematics", in its broadest sense, relates to the combination of computers and wireless telecommunications technologies. More recently, the term "telematics" has evolved to refer to automobile systems that combine global positioning satellite (GPS) tracking and other wireless communications for automatic roadside assistance and remote diagnostics. General Motors Corp. first popularized automotive telematics with its OnStar™ system. The use of the word "telematics" throughout the current specification is intended to refer to the later definition of more recent recognition, i.e., to mean automotive telematics.
Many new vehicles are equipped with wireless-based telematics units providing services controlled by voice commands. One successful telematics system is available from OnStar Corp. (www.onstar.com), another from Mercedes-Benz called TeleAid™. According to OnStar, OnStar brings together emergency service providers, wireless telephone, and satellite technologies to help protect a driver, and keep them connected on the road.
As part of the telematics system, a telematics unit including a cellular circuit is located within the vehicle, and powered by the vehicle's battery. Telematics units were originally analog-only, but have migrated to analog/digital-ready, and finally to dual-mode analog/digital. Dual-mode analog/digital telematics units operate on both the analog and digital wireless networks.
With a suitable subscription to use of a telematics operations center such as OnStar™, TeleAid™, etc., a driver or passenger in a vehicle including a telematics unit has access to a calling feature in their vehicle (sometimes voice-activated), just in case their hand-held cell phone is lost, forgotten, has a low battery, has difficulty with its antenna inside the vehicle, etc. The driver can pre-purchase OnStar Hands-Free Calling minutes to use on the road. Such packages are typically billed to a credit card they keep on file with OnStar. They can order minutes packages by pushing the phone or white-dot button at any time. (TeleAid systems use an 'information' pushbutton.)
Conventional telematics units are also capable of providing location information to a requesting wireless network, using a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) mounted in the vehicle, or using other location technology within the wireless network. When a vehicle occupant pushes a given button in the vehicle, essentially calling the telematics operations center, the telematics operations center identifies the vehicle's location via information provided over the wireless data modem of the telematics system. In the event of an emergency, e.g., as indicated by deployment of an air bag, the telematics system can initiate a call to the telematics network to report such deployment, as well as the location of the vehicle. So it's only when the button is pushed to contact the telematics operations center, or when the telematics operations center is responding to an emergency signal, that the telematics operations center is provided with a location of the vehicle.
A cell phone is not required by a 3-button telematics unit such as the system available from OnStar, as vehicles so-equipped include their own wireless network circuitry. Nevertheless, most people now have a hand-held cell phone with them at all times. However, as statistics are confirming, cell phone use in vehicles can cause distractions to certain drivers, and as a result many states are requiring hands-free use of any cell phone by a driver.
Telematics systems offer hands-free calling, thus muting safety concerns with respect to cellular use by the driver of a vehicle. For instance, OnStar offers hands-free calling with a required hands-free calling-enabled vehicle, existing OnStar service contract, PrePaid minute package or enrollment in OnStar Shared Minutes Plan. OnStar voice recognition is provided to further enhance the hands-free experience. Moreover, most telematics systems have the ability to enhance the telephone call experience by automatically muting the radio, CD, navigation system or other audio source when a call is active.
To receive a call to a cell phone while driving, in many states the driver must by law have a hands-free option to their cell phone. While many cell phones include hands-free options, such options have not fully been adopted by the general population. For instance, while many cell phones include a speakerphone option with voice recognition commands that provides capabilities to operate the cell phone without handling it, many users nevertheless hold the phone while speaking into it, albeit from a distance from the microphone in speakerphone mode. Moreover, even with hands-free use, separate cell phones don't automatically mute audio sources within the vehicle during an active call. Rather, the driver must manually turn down the volume of audio sources such as a radio, CD player, iPod, etc. after the call is made, providing even more distraction to the driver.
Bluetooth technology is one new technology that is being installed in cellular phones and in wireless handsets, and provides one possible method for a hand-held cell phone to utilize hands-free calling features. FIG. 3 shows a technique of providing hands-free operation of a cell phone either using a BLUETOOTH™ piconet connection between a cell phone and a wireless headset, or using an in-vehicle telematics unit.
In particular, FIG. 3 shows a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone 402 communicating over an established piconet with a hands-free headset 402a worn by a user. Typically, in vehicle installations, the cell phone 402 is mounted into a cradle that integrates operation of the cell phone into the radio system of the car 420. Alternatively, instead of a headset 402a, a second microphone may be mounted in the car (aside from one used by the telematics unit 404), and audio may be integrated into the radio of the car for use as a speakerphone.
Another conventional way of having hands-free wireless phone operation in a vehicle is to use the in-vehicle telematics unit 404 integrated within a vehicle 420. The in-vehicle telematics unit 404 has a telematics cellular front end 406 to enable cellular communications with a relevant telematics network 410 servicing the telematics cellular front end 406.
Thus, for outgoing calls, drivers are given a choice of whether to use their cell phone 402, either via a Bluetooth headset 402a or by speakerphone; or to use their telematics system. For incoming calls, drivers have fewer options as they must answer the incoming call on the system over which the call arrives, telematics 404 or cell phone 402.
There is a need to improve vehicle safety and convenience with respect to a driver's use of their hand-held cell phone when operating a vehicle, particularly with respect to calls to their hand-held cell phone while they are driving.

Automatic call forwarding to in-vehicle telematics system


A protocol is provided in which a sending host stores a physical address of a target host as part of the resolution of the physical address from a network address; the sending host keeps track of the elapsed time after physical address storage; upon a subsequent usage of the stored physical address, the sending host tests for the validity of the stored physical address; if the stored physical address is still valid, the sending host can use it to transmit data to the target host; if the stored physical address is no longer valid, then the sending host transmits a broadcast packet onto the network to resolve the physical address of the target host.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to protocols for communication among hosts in a shared network and more particularly to a protocol for resolving the physical address of a host on a shared network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In large networks which include a multiplicity of hosts that communicate with one another on the network, it frequently is necessary to employ an address resolution protocol to ascertain the address of a target host to which a sending host intends to send information. More specifically, each host in the network ordinarily is assigned a network address which uniquely identifies the host on the network. The network address is assigned by the communication protocol according to a network addressing scheme. In order for a sending host to actually send information to the target host, however, the sending host must ascertain the physical address of the target host. The physical address identifies the target host hardware. Typically, it is represented by the contents of a register on a communication controller of the target host.
One earlier address resolution protocol, for example, uses broadcast packets to resolve the physical address of a host from the network address. Unfortunately, broadcast packets often disturb virtually every host on the network even though information is to be sent only to a single target host. A broadcast packet transmitted onto the network ordinarily is evaluated by every host on the network. Upon receipt of such a broadcast packet, a receiving host responds by interrupting its current activity to determine whether or not the network address included within the broadcast packet matches the respective network address of such receiving host. If there is no match, such receiving host resumes its activity. If there is a match, however, then the receiving host sends out an acknowledge packet to the sending host. The acknowledge packet includes the target host physical address. A disadvantage with the use of broadcast packets is that they often can unnecessarily disturb numerous hosts in an effort to identify a single target host.
One earlier solution to the problem of disruption caused by the use of broadcast packets has been the use of an algorithm which involves storage of the physical address of a target host as part of the communication protocol between a sending host and a target host. By storing the physical address of the target host, that physical address then is available to the sending host at a later time when additional information is to be communicated to the target host. Thus, at such later time the sending host can send the data directly to the target host using the stored physical address without the need to once again transmit broadcast packets onto the network to inquire as to the physical address of the target host.
A shortcoming with such earlier protocols which involve storage of physical addresses has been that the physical address of a target host may change. For example, the target host hardware might be replaced, or the contents of the physical address register might be altered. Thus, the stored physical address may become invalid. A prior solution to this problem was to delete from the memory of the sending host the stored physical address of the target host after a predetermined time interval.
While this earlier solution to the problem of invalid stored physical addresses generally has been acceptable, there have been problems with its use. In particular, this prior practice of deleting the stored physical address after a predetermined time interval can lead to the deletion of physical addresses which are still valid.
Thus, there has been a need for an address resolution protocol which can store the physical address of a target host and which can substantially avoid problems attendant with the storage of an invalid physical address. The present invention meets this need.

Reduced broadcast algorithm for address resolution protocol


A method includes detecting, through a processor communicatively coupled to a memory, coupling of an external display to a data processing device including an internal display, and cloning, through the processor, display data of the internal display on the external display following the detection of the coupling. The method also includes triggering, through a driver component, the processor to turn off a backlight of the internal display of the data processing device, power gate circuitry associated with rendering the display data on the internal display and/or power gate a processing pipeline associated with the rendering of the display data following the cloning. Further, the method includes maintaining, through the driver component, a touchscreen capability of the internal display even when the backlight is turned off, the circuitry associated with the rendering of the display data is power gated and/or the processing pipeline associated therewith is power gated.

A display of a data processing device (e.g., a mobile phone, a tablet) may be limited by a size/display attribute capability thereof to display data (e.g., image, video) to a user. The user may, therefore, desire to utilize an enhanced capability of an external display through coupling thereof to the data processing device. Utilization of both the displays may consume a lot of power even though only one display, viz. the external display, is effectively utilized by the user. The user may opt to switch off the display of the data processing device. Then, the user may communicatively couple an input device such as a keyboard/keypad to the data processing device to interact therewith by way of the external display. The aforementioned requirement of coupling of the input device may be an inconvenience to the user.

Power gating a display of a data processing device during cloning thereof across an external display while retaining touch-sensibility thereof