5526results about How to "Avoid distortion" patented technology

Ablation instruments and methods are disclosed for ablating diseased tissue such as cardiac tissue. The method includes introducing a flexible elongate member into a predetermined tissue site with a flexible elongate member having a proximal end, a distal end and a longitudinal lumen extending therebetween. A slidable conductor is positioned through the lumen proximate to the tissue site and energy is transmitted to the distal end of the elongate member through the conductor. The flexible elongate member is both longitudinally flexible and resists twisting during bending. The target tissue is ablated, coagulated or photochemically modulated without damaging surrounding tissue.

The present invention provides a branching endoluminal prosthesis for use in branching body lumen systems which includes a trunk lumen and first and second branch lumens. The prostheses comprises a radially expandable tubular trunk portion having a prosthetic trunk lumen, and radially expandable tubular first and second branch portions with first and second prosthetic branch lumens, respectively. A radially expandable tubular Y-connector portion provides fluid communication between the prosthetic trunk lumen and the first and second prosthetic branch lumens. Although it is often considered desirable to maximize the column strength of endoluminal prostheses, and although the trunk portion will generally have a larger cross-section than much of the remainder of a branching endoluminal prostheses, the expanded trunk portion is more axially flexible than the expanded Y-connector portion, as insufficient flexibility along the trunk portion may result in leakage between the prosthesis and the trunk lumen of the body lumen system. In contrast, the Y-connector portion benefits form a less axially flexible structure to avoid distortion of the flow balance between the luminal branches.

A gas inlet manifold for a plasma chamber having a perforated gas distribution plate suspended by flexible side walls. The flexible suspension minimizes mechanical stress due to thermal expansion of the gas distribution plate. In another aspect, the suspension provides thermal isolation between the gas distribution plate and other components of the chamber.

Floating electromagnetic field generator systems and methods are provided. The system comprises a surgical bed portion. The system also comprises a brace component disposed within the surgical bed portion. Additionally, the system comprises a first arm that is attached to the brace component. The first arm is positioned adjacent to the surgical bed portion. Additionally, the first arm has at least one field generator coil embedded therein. The system also comprises a second arm that is attached to the brace component. The second arm is positioned adjacent to the surgical bed portion. Additionally, the second arm has at least one field generator coil embedded therein. The second arm is positioned parallel to the first arm.

A media source, including a sending unit that sends out time-stamped media data packets to one or more receiving media sinks. A timestamp of one of the time-stamped media data packets indicates a time of creation of the one of the time-stamped media data packets. The media source also includes a determining unit that determines a play-out time offset. The media source additionally includes a transmission unit that sends out the play-out time offset to the one or more receiving media sinks once for all time-stamped media data packets of a session.

An apparatus and method for supporting a substantial center portion of a gas distribution plate is disclosed. At least one support member is capable of engaging and disengaging the diffuser with a mating connection without prohibiting flow of a gas or gasses through the diffuser and is designed to provide vertical suspension to a diffuser that is supported at its perimeter, or capable of supporting the diffuser without a perimeter support. In one aspect, the at least one support member is a portion of a gas delivery conduit and in another embodiment is a plurality of support members separated from the gas delivery conduit. The at least one support member is capable of translating vertical lift, or vertical compression to a center area of the diffuser. A method and apparatus for controlling gas flow from the gas delivery conduit to the gas distribution plate is also disclosed.

A fixation system for bones with a force support having holes and bone screws adapted to be inserted into the holes where at least one hole is oriented obliquely to the force support.

To facilitate the use of audio files for annotation purposes, an audio file format, which includes audio data for playback purposes, is augmented with a parallel data channel of line identifiers, or with a map associating time codes for the audio data with line numbers on the original document. The line number-time code information in the audio file is used to navigate within the audio file, and also to associate bookmark links and captured audio annotation files with line numbers of the original text document. An annotation device may provide an output document wherein links to audio and / or text annotation files are embedded at corresponding line numbers. Also, a navigation index may be generated, having links to annotation files and associated document line numbers, as well as bookmark links to selected document line numbers.

A method for producing shaped articles of ceramic composites provides a high degree of dimensional tolerance to these articles. A fiber preform is disposed on a surface of a stable formed support, a surface of which is formed with a plurality of indentations, such as grooves, slots, or channels. Precursors of ceramic matrix materials are provided to the fiber preform to infiltrate from both sides of the fiber preform. The infiltration is conducted under vacuum at a temperature not much greater than a melting point of the precursors. The melt-infiltrated composite article substantially retains its dimension and shape throughout the fabrication process.

Motion estimation is the science of predicting the current frame in a video sequence from the past frame (or frames), by slicing it into rectangular blocks of pixels, and matching these to past such blocks. The displacement in the spatial position of the block in the current frame with respect to the past frame is called the motion vector. This method of temporally decorrelating the video sequence by finding the best matching blocks from past reference frames—motion estimation—makes up about 80% or more of the computation in a video encoder. That is, it is enormously expensive, and methods do so that are efficient are in high demand. Thus the field of motion estimation within video coding is rich in the breadth and diversity of approaches that have been put forward. Yet it is often the simplest methods that are the most effective. So it is in this case. While it is well-known that a full search over all possible positions within a fixed window is an optimal method in terms of performance, it is generally prohibitive in computation. In this patent disclosure, we define an efficient, new method of searching only a very sparse subset of possible displacement positions (or motion vectors) among all possible ones, to see if we can get a good enough match, and terminate early. This set of sparse subset of motion vectors is preselected, using a priori knowledge and extensive testing on video sequences, so that these “predictors” for the motion vector are essentially magic. The art of this method is the preselection of excellent sparse subsets of vectors, the smart thresholds for acceptance or rejection, and even in the order of the testing prior to decision.

The present invention provides a branching endoluminal prosthesis for use in branching body lumen systems which includes a trunk lumen and first and second branch lumens. The prostheses comprises a radially expandable tubular trunk portion having a prosthetic trunk lumen, and radially expandable tubular first and second branch portions with first and second prosthetic branch lumens, respectively. A radially expandable tubular Y-connector portion provides fluid communication between the prosthetic trunk lumen and the first and second prosthetic branch lumens. Although it is often considered desirable to maximize the column strength of endoluminal prostheses, and although the trunk portion will generally have a larger cross-section than much of the remainder of a branching endoluminal prostheses, the expanded trunk portion is more axially flexible than the expanded Y-connector portion, as insufficient flexibility along the trunk portion may result in leakage between the prosthesis and the trunk lumen of the body lumen system. In contrast, the Y-connector portion benefits form a less axially flexible structure to avoid distortion of the flow balance between the luminal branches.

An imaging apparatus using a solid-state image sensor that reads out a signal of each pixel by an XY address method to capture an image includes a mechanical shutter configured to block light incident on a light receiving surface of the solid-state image sensor; and control means for simultaneously resetting the pixel signals for all rows in the solid-state image sensor to start exposure to the solid-state image sensor, closing the mechanical shutter after a predetermined exposure period is elapsed, and sequentially reading out the pixel signals for every row of the solid-state image sensor with the mechanical shutter being closed.

Ablation instruments and methods are disclosed for ablating diseased tissue such as cardiac tissue. The ablation device can remotely apply ablative energy to biological tissue and comprises a flexible elongate member having a proximal end, a distal end and a longitudinal lumen extending therebetween. An energy emitting element is disposed within the longitudinal lumen of the flexible elongate member. The energy emitting element has a proximal end and a distal end for emitting energy along at least a portion of its length. The device is configured to emit a variable amount of energy along a length of the flexible elongate member. The method includes introducing the flexible elongate member into a predetermined tissue site to ablate a target tissue. The target tissue is ablated, coagulated or photochemically modulated without damaging surrounding tissue.

An image generating system and information storage medium for generating an image preferable for a game in which a virtual camera follows a displayed object. The angle of view theta of the virtual camera is changed based on the coordinates of the player's game character and ball while causing the virtual camera to follow the player's game character. As the distance D between the player's game character and the ball decreases or increases, the angle of view theta is increased or decreased. Thus, the player can clearly grasp information about things around the ball. If the distance D becomes shorter than a threshold value Dth, the angle of view theta is set at a fixed value thetafix. This prevents an image from being distorted. The ball is always displayed on the screen in the central part thereof by directing the virtual camera in a direction from the player's game character toward the ball. The first and second displayed objects represent respectively a first and second game characters in a fighting game and a character and item in a role-playing game.

A system, process and software arrangement are provided to compensate for a dispersion in at least one portion of an image. In particular, information associated with the portion of the image is obtained. The portion of the image can be associated with an interference signal that includes a first electromagnetic radiation received from a sample and a second electromagnetic radiation received from a reference. The dispersion in the at least one portion of the image can be compensated by controlling a phase of at least one spectral component of the interference signal.

A variable speed wind turbine having a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG), includes an exciter machine mechanically coupled to the DFIG and a power converter placed between a rotor of the DFIG and the exciter machine. Thus, the power converter is not directly connected to the grid avoiding the introduction of undesired harmonic distortion and achieving a better power quality fed into the utility grid. Moreover, the variable speed wind turbine includes a power control and a pitch regulation.

A method of reducing noise by cascading a plurality of noise reduction algorithms is provided. A sequence of noise reduction algorithms are applied to the noisy signal. The noise reduction algorithms are cascaded together, with the final noise reduction algorithm in the sequence providing the system output signal. The sequence of noise reduction algorithms includes a plurality of noise reduction algorithms that are sufficiently different from each other such that resulting distortions and artifacts are sufficiently different to result in reduced human perception of the artifact and distortion levels in the system output signal.

In a radio communication system which uses pilot signals during transmission from a user terminal to a base station, the base station creates and stores a rank table on a peak to average power ratio of each pilot pattern, extracts a transmission power of the user terminal or a power difference between a maximum transmission power and the transmission power of the user terminal on the basis of a receive signal from the user terminal, and allocates a pilot pattern of which peak to average power ratio is good to a user terminal of which transmission power is great, or the power difference is small, with reference to the rank table.Or a pilot pattern in a rank according to the transmission status (e.g. transmission power, distance from the base station) of the user terminal is adaptively allocated to the user terminal.

A golf putter head having a toe and a heel. The putter head has a face defining a ball-striking portion and lateral portions extending from the ball-striking portion toward the toe and the heel. There is a rear section spaced from the face, and a connecting section extending from the ball-striking portion of the face to the rear section. A pair of elongated weights, one weight coupled at one end to each of the lateral portions of the face at locations equidistant from the ball-striking portion, and each weight also coupled at its other end to the rear section, accomplish balanced peripheral weighting. The weights are preferably replaceable.

An instrument system that includes an elongate instrument body and an optical fiber sensor is provided. The optical fiber sensor includes an elongate optical fiber that is coupled to the elongate instrument body, wherein a portion of the optical fiber is coupled to the elongate instrument body in a manner to provide slack in the fiber to allow for axial extension of the elongate instrument body relative to the optical fiber.