534results about How to "More robust" patented technology

The present invention relates generally to a non-invasive method and apparatus for measuring a fluid analyte, particularly relating to glucose or alcohol contained in blood or tissue, utilizing spectroscopic methods. More particularly, the method and apparatus incorporate means for detecting and quantifying changes in the concentration of specific analytes in tissue fluid. Also, the method and apparatus can be used to predict future levels of analyte concentration either in the tissue fluid or in blood in an adjacent vascular system.

A process for fabricating a leadless plastic chip carrier includes selectively etching at least a first surface of a leadframe strip to partially define at least a plurality of contact pads and a die attach pad; selectively plating at least one layer of metal on a second surface of the leadframe strip, on an undersurface of at least the plurality of contact pads and the die attach pad; mounting a semiconductor die on the first surface, on the partially defined die attach pad; wire bonding the semiconductor die to ones of the contact pads; encapsulating the wire bonds and the semiconductor die in a molding material such that the molding material covers a first portion of the die attach pad and first portions of the contact pads; selectively etching a second surface of the leadframe strip to define a second portion of the contact pads and a second portion of the die attach pad by etching the second surface with the at least one layer of metal resisting etching; and singulating the leadless plastic chip carrier from the leadframe strip.

A showerhead that injects two process gases into the processing chamber via separate sets of holes. The showerhead is constructed of upper plate and lower plate. Upper plate has a first set of holes. The lower plate has two sets of holes: one set is aligned with the holes in the upper plate, while the second set has no corresponding holes in the upper plate. Both sets of holes in the lower plate are made to have two different diameters: a larger diameter extending from the top surface of the lower plate, while a smaller diameter extends from the bottom surface and meets with the larger diameter. A set of pipes are inserted through the holes in the upper plate and the corresponding holes in the lower plate, and are sealingly brazed to both plates. Cooling channels may be provided in the lower plate.

A method and apparatus are provided for reducing the number of pilot symbols within a MIMO-OFDM communication system, and for improving channel estimation within such a system. For each transmitting antenna in an OFDM transmitter, pilot symbols are encoded so as to be unique to the transmitting antenna. The encoded pilot symbols are then inserted into an OFDM frame to form a diamond lattice, the diamond lattices for the different transmitting antennae using the same frequencies but being offset from each other by a single symbol in the time domain. At the OFDM receiver, a channel response is estimated for a symbol central to each diamond of the diamond lattice using a two-dimensional interpolation. The estimated channel responses are smoothed in the frequency domain. The channel responses of remaining symbols are then estimated by interpolation in the frequency domain.

A system for measuring distance between a first locus and a second locus includes: (a) at least one beacon device; a respective beacon device of the at least one beacon device being situated at the first locus and transmitting a respective electromagnetic signal; and (b) at least one locator device; a respective locator device of the at least one locator device being situated at the second locus and receiving the respective electromagnetic signal. The respective locator device is situated at a distance from the respective beacon device within near-field range of the respective electromagnetic signal. The respective locator device distinguishes at least two characteristics of the respective electromagnetic signal. The respective locator device employs the at least two characteristics to effect the measuring.

The present invention relates to transceiver systems and methods which employ shunt switches during transmit and receive operating modes. The shunt switches may be configured with various reactive networks to achieve high or low impedance states at power amplifiers or low noise amplifiers in order to reflect or transmit power along a given path. The shunt switches are designed for protection against excessive voltage swings that would otherwise damage components in the transceiver switching circuit. The switching circuits may be implemented in a single chip architecture, which results in manufacturing efficiencies, lower cost and higher reliability circuits. Single or multi band devices may also be employed.

Pointer positioning device based on infrared light sources and detectors that is compact, rugged and ergonomically easy to use such as can be used in laptop computers and similar devices. The pointer positioning device fits in the same area as a conventional touch-pad device in a portable computing device. It detects movement in a movement area by scanning for shadow information with infrared (IR) light sources. To increase the resolution of scanning and to avoid non-uniform beam widths, the scanning of the touchpad area may be carried out by using low power IR laser beams produced by a single IR laser source each for x and y directions and a plurality of optical fibers to transmit the laser beams in the x and y directions. Optionally, this divergency is minimized by positioning IR light sources and light detectors in an alternating pattern around the periphery of a movement area. A mouse device with an opaque plunger depressed with a finger is used as an object to create a well defined shadow in the x and y directions of a movement area.

The present invention relates to a telephony device comprising a near-mouth microphone (M1) for picking up an input acoustic signal including the speaker's voice signal (S1) and an unwanted noise signal (N1,D1), a far-mouth microphone (M2) for picking up an unwanted noise signal (N2,D2) in addition to the near-end speaker's voice signal (S2), said speaker's voice signal being at a lower level than the near-mouth microphone, and an orientation sensor for measuring an orientation indication of said mobile device. The telephony device further comprises an audio processing unit comprising an adaptive beamformer (BF) coupled to the near-mouth and far-mouth microphones, including spatial filters for spatially filtering the input signals (z1,z2) delivered by the two microphones, and a spectral post-processor (SPP) for post-processing the signal delivered by the beam-former so as to separate the desired voice signal from the unwanted noise signal so as to deliver the output signal (y).

A movement of an object is recognised as a predetermined movement, by transmitting signals between transmitter-receiver pairs, which are reflected from the object. A first event is recorded for one of the transmitter-receiver pairs if a reflected signal meets a predetermined proximity criterion, and a second event is recorded for a second transmitter-receiver pair if, after the first event, a subsequent reflected signal meets a predetermined proximity criterion. The first and second events are used to identify the movement.

The invention is directed to an article with a liquid-impregnated surface, the surface having a matrix of features thereupon, spaced sufficiently close to stably contain a liquid therebetween or therewithin, and preferable also a thin film thereupon. The surface provides the article with advantageous non-wetting properties. Compared to previous non-wetting surfaces, which include a gas (e.g., air) entrained within surface textures, these liquid-impregnated surfaces are resistant to impalement and frost formation, and are therefore more robust.

A modular interactive system and method for customizing health education to an individual at a remote terminal to induce a modification in a health-related behavior of the individual. The automated system includes a questionnaire generator for questioning the individual to determine his or her motivational drivers and comprehension capacity. The questionnaire generator is a graphical user interface that allows a clinician to graphically attach questions to answer to action. A processor then generates a script program based on what the clinician has attached together. A profile generator receives answers entered by the individual from the remote terminal and generates a motivational driver profile and a comprehension capacity profile of the individual. A translator receives clinical data relating to a current health condition of the individual and translates the clinical data, the motivational driver profile, and the comprehension capacity profile into a profile code. An educational fulfillment bank matches the profile code to matching educational materials and transfers the matched educational materials to the remote terminal. An evaluation program evaluates educational responses of the individual and provides profile updates for targeting subsequent educational material to the individual based on the educational responses.

Method and apparatus for storing heat in industrial systems where large sources of stored energy are called upon to meet a work load, storing the heat content of a hot working fluid by using the hot working fluid as a heat transfer fluid in vapor form and depositing its heat content on a heat storage medium and then removing the cooled and condensed liquid phase of that heat transfer fluid, and when hot working fluid again is needed, the liquid heat transfer fluid is returned to the heated storage medium and is reheated as it passes through the hot storage medium and then is returned to the working system to be used as a hot working fluid.

An invention for creating, sending, and using self-descriptive objects as messages over a network is disclosed. In an embodiment of the present invention, self-descriptive persistent dictionary objects are serialized and sent as messages across a message queuing network. The receiving messaging system unserializes the message object, and passes the object to the destination application. The application then queries or enumerates message elements from the instantiated persistent dictionary, and performs the programmed response. Using these self-descriptive objects as messages, the sending and receiving applications no longer rely on an a priori convention or a special-coding serialization scheme. Rather, messaging applications can communicate arbitrary objects in a standard way with no prior agreement as to the nature and semantics of message contents.

The invention is directed to an article with a liquid-impregnated surface, the surface having a matrix of features thereupon, spaced sufficiently close to stably contain a liquid therebetween or therewithin, and preferable also a thin film thereupon. The surface provides the article with advantageous non-wetting properties. Compared to previous non-wetting surfaces, which include a gas (e.g., air) entrained within surface textures, these liquid-impregnated surfaces are resistant to impalement and frost formation, and are therefore more robust.

Optical fiber lasers and components for optical fiber laser. An optical fiber laser can comprise a fiber laser cavity having a wavelength of operation at which the cavity provides output light, the cavity including optical fiber that guides light having the wavelength of operation, the fiber having first and second lengths, the first length having a core having a V-number at the wavelength of operation and a numerical aperture, the second length having a core that is multimode at the wavelength of operation and that has a V-number that is greater than the V-number of the core of the first length optical fiber at the wavelength of operation and a numerical aperture that is less than the numerical aperture of the core of the first length of optical fiber. At least one of the lengths comprises an active material that can provide light having the wavelength of operation via stimulated emission responsive to the optical fiber receiving pump light. Components include a mode field adapter and optical fiber interconnection apparatus, which can be used to couple the first and second lengths of optical fiber, or can couple the fiber laser to an optical fiber power amplifier, which can be a multimode or single mode amplifier.

A system, method, and computer readable medium for remote access to Internet Protocol television by enabling place shifting utilizing a telephone company network, that comprises, confirming an identity of a remote Internet Protocol enabled device, managing a rate of a data stream to the remote Internet Protocol enabled device based upon the confirmed identity, and transmitting the data stream to the remote Internet Protocol enabled device utilizing a broadband network.

The invention generally relates to dextran fibers which are preferably electrospun and devices formed from such fibers. In particular, such devices may include substances of interest (such as therapeutic substances) associated with the electrospun fibers. Upon exposure to a liquid the electrospun fibers dissolve immediately and the substances of interest are released into the liquid. Exemplary devices include bandages formed from electrospun dextran fibers and associated agents that promote hemostasis, such as thrombin and fibrinogen.

A segmentation algorithm is optimized to robustly locate and measure the volume of fluid filled or non-fluid filled structures or organs from imaging systems derived from ultrasound, computer assisted tomography, magnetic resonance, and position emission tomography. A clinical specimen is measured with a plurality of 2D scan planes processed by the segmentation algorithm to estimate the 2D based area the 3D based volumes of fluid-filled and non-fluid filled organs or structures.

A helmet blastometer for characterizing the direction, speed, magnitude, and duration of a blast event to determine the likelihood of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (biTBI). A set of external sensors, each having one or more time of arrival (TOA) gages, is mounted at various positions on a rigid outer shell of the helmet. Each external sensor includes a first TOA gage that produces a TOA signal in response to a fast rising blast induced positive pressure change above a predetermined threshold. These positive pressure change TOA signals are received by a receiver and analyzed to determine direction, speed, and magnitude of a blast. At least one of the external sensors may also include a second TOA gauge that produces a TOA signal in response to a negative pressure change below a predetermined threshold. The positive and negative pressure change TOA signals from the same external sensor are used by the receiver processor to determine blast duration. In another embodiment, a second set of internal contact pressure sensors is connected to an inner liner of the helmet to detect contact pressure on a user's head. Preferably, the receiver processor determines that a biTBI has likely been sustained by when one or more of the blast direction, speed, magnitude and contact pressure has satisfied a predetermined biTBI threshold, upon which a biTBI warning indicator may be triggered.

There is provided a method for operating multi-node data stores. A data table is stored in a first computing node and an index table is stored in a second computing node. The index table provides keys used for accessing data in the first computing node and other multi-node data stores. Operations that update or read the data table accessed from the first computing node and the index table accessed from the second computing node are performed. The operations optimize between latency in updating or reading the data table and the index table and data consistency maintained between data entries in the data table and data entries pointed by indices in the index table

Hand pointing has been an intuitive gesture for human interaction with computers. A hand pointing estimation system is provided, based on two regular cameras, which includes hand region detection, hand finger estimation, two views' feature detection, and 3D pointing direction estimation. The technique may employ a polar coordinate system to represent the hand region, and tests show a good result in terms of the robustness to hand orientation variation. To estimate the pointing direction, Active Appearance Models are employed to detect and track, e.g., 14 feature points along the hand contour from a top view and a side view. Combining two views of the hand features, the 3D pointing direction is estimated.

A flow measurement apparatus is provided that combines the functionality of an apparatus that uses strain-based sensors and ultrasonic sensors to measure the speed of sound propagating through a fluid flowing within a pipe, and measure pressures disturbances (e.g. vortical disturbances or eddies) moving with a fluid to determine respective parameters of the flow propagating through a pipe. The apparatus includes a sensing device that includes an array of pressure sensors used to measure the acoustic and convective pressure variations in the flow to determine desired parameters and an ultrasonic meter portion to measure the velocity and volumetric flow of the fluid. In response to an input signal or internal logic, the processor can manually or dynamically switch between the pressure sensors and ultrasonic sensors to measure the parameters of the flow. The flow measurement apparatus thereby provides a robust meter capable of measuring fluid flows having a wide range of different characteristics and flows exposed to different environmental conditions.

An ultrasonic waterjet apparatus (10) has a mobile generator module (20) and a high-pressure water hose (40) for delivering high-pressure water from the mobile generator module (20) to a hand-held gun (50) with a trigger and an ultrasonic nozzle (60). An ultrasonic generator in the mobile generator module (20) transmits high-frequency electrical pulses to a piezoelectric or magnetostrictive transducer (62) which vibrates to modulate a high-pressure waterjet flowing through the nozzle (60). The waterjet exiting the ultrasonic nozzle (60) is pulsed into mini slugs of water, each of which imparts a waterhammer pressure on a target surface. The ultrasonic waterjet apparatus (10) may be used to cut and de-burr materials, to clean and de-coat surfaces, and to break rocks. The ultrasonic waterjet apparatus (10) performs these tasks with much greater efficiency than conventional continuous-flow waterjet systems because of the repetitive waterhammer effect. A nozzle with multiple exit orifices or a rotating nozzle (76) may be provided in lieu of a nozzle with a single exit orifice to render cleaning and de-coating large surfaces more efficient. A water dump valve (27) and controlling solenoid are located in the mobile generator module (20) rather than the gun (50) to make the gun lighter and more ergonomic.

A power source for an electric arc welding process, wherein the power source comprises an input stage having an AC input and a first DC output signal; a second stage in the form of an unregulated DC to DC converter having an input connected to the first DC output signal and an output in the form of a second DC output signal electrically isolated from the first DC output signal and with a magnitude of a given ratio to the first DC output signal; and, a third stage to convert the second DC output signal to a welding output for the welding process.

An electro-orthodontic appliance is provided that helps accelerate orthodontic tooth movement through the application of a controlled electrical current to gum and teeth, thus stimulating osteogenesis.

A power source for an electric arc welding process, wherein the power source comprises an input stage having an AC input and a first DC output signal; a second stage in the form of an unregulated DC to DC converter having an input connected to the first DC output signal and an output in the form of a second DC output signal electrically isolated from the first DC output signal and with a magnitude of a given ratio to the first DC output signal; and, a third stage to convert the second DC output signal to a welding output for the welding process.

Disclosed herein are a system and method for status monitoring, including debug error detection, during data packet processing. In general terms, the system for status monitoring during data packet processing can be implemented as a system including a packet processor and a buffer. The packet processor generates processing data based on one or more control structures while revising packet data. The packet processor generates the processing data while performing one or more lookup cycles. The buffer records the processing data and the status of the one or more control structures. The processing data includes a lookup number and the lookup number identifies the number of cycles performed by the packet processor.