Abstract: Angular position sensing apparatuses and methods are disclosed. An angular position sensing apparatus can include a rotatable base and two or more magnets located proximate to one another upon the rotatable base. The magnets are generally magnetized parallel and opposite to one another to create a uniform magnetic field thereof. Additionally, a sensor can be located external to the two magnets, such that the sensor comes into contact with the uniform magnetic field to sense a change in angular position associated with the rotatable base.

Abstract: The ring magnet speed and direction sensing scheme according to the present invention addresses many of the shortcomings of the prior art. In accordance with various aspects of the present invention, a pair of bridges placed on the same semiconductor chip are provided for sensing the passing of north/south transition points on a ring magnet. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, the bridge contains a first group of runners that are perpendicular to a second group of runners. The bridges are placed to cause the signal from one bridge to slightly follow the signal from the other bridge. Placement of the bridges on the same chip enables highly accurate readings.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for sensing the speed and direction of a rotating target is disclosed. A first differential Hall package can be generally located opposite to a second differential Hall package, wherein the first differential Hall package and second differential Hall package comprise mirror images of one another. A first output signal can then be generated by the first differential Hall package and a second output signal by the second differential Hall package during a rotation of the rotating target. The first Hall output signal can thus be compared to the second Hall output signal during a shift of the rotating target from a sinusoidal phase to a non-sinusoidal phase thereof, thereby permitting accurate phase information indicative of the speed and direction of the rotating target to be obtained.

Abstract: Water treatment methods and systems using laser light. Water enters a treatment area from waterline tubing wherein water within the treatment area is subjected to light from a laser as it passes through the treatment area, and wherein microorganisms contained within said water are reactive to the light and are killed. The water is provided to a point of use after treatment by light. The treatment area may be a junction box having an entry point for receiving water from input tubing connected to the input portion of the junction box; a fiber optic line or laser source coupled to the junction box for delivery of light from a laser into the junction box; and an exit point and/or port for providing water passing through the junction box to a point of use.

Abstract: Methods and systems for distributing mass across a limited number of receiving receptacles associated with a rotating device or rotating system in order to affect a balance control action for dynamically balancing the rotating device or rotating system are disclosed. Out-of-balance forces and motion can be continually determined and utilized to estimate balance control actions. A determined balance control action may be represented as a force magnitude to be applied at a specific angular point of an axial control plane. The counterbalancing action distributes mass across a ringed distribution of retaining receptacles on the axial control plane of the rotating apparatus.

Abstract: A method of clustering using a novel template to define a region of influence. Using neighboring approximation methods, computation times can be significantly reduced. The template and method are applicable and improve pattern recognition techniques.

Abstract: Variable locations on a suitably coated light reactive semiconductor sheet can be illuminated by a pattern of diffracted light to form discrete conductive pathways between antenna radiating elements and an antenna groundplane. Varying the diffracted light pattern temporally and/or spatially changes the conductive pathways and the antenna's beam pattern. Similar variations modify the characteristics of an antenna's radiating element or reflective groundplane, thereby providing frequency control or limited directional control of the beam pattern. Methods for controlling the diffracted light permit an antenna beam pattern to form, redirect, and scan rapidly.

Abstract: A method and system for power management of components within a system by introducing low-level instructions, such as NOPS, delay loops, and sleep modes, into the instruction sequences within logical components of the system, thereby allowing the system to maintain desirable power dissipation over a given time interval. Through employment of a control mechanism, a system can interrupt itself periodically to determine if the power dissipation must be limited and to what extent. A system can determine if and by how much it must limit its power by polling external components. The method may be implemented by a controller that intelligently manages power dissipation of components through selective manipulation of computer operations by selected components. Controll of power dissipation for the selected components is intelligently based on overall system performance requirements.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for estimating the angle-modulation imposed on a transmitted Radio Frequency (RF) or Intermediate Frequency (IF) carrier. The method estimates angle-modulation when communications channels add distortions such as noise to transmitted signals. The system provides reconstituted frequency modulation from a feedforward demodulator. The goal is to reduce the modulation index of a desired signal and to employ a narrower band-pass filter that passes this signal while rejecting the distortion that accompanies it. A plurality of stages, 1 through M, exist within the system. Stages 2 through M contain the same components, although filter coefficients and alignment delays may differ from stage to stage. Stage 1 of the demodulator differs slightly from the remaining stages, since the only input required by Stage 1 is a complex envelope signal that contains both the desired signal and the distortion added by the channel.

Abstract: A method for recognizing job separator pages that tolerates more changes in imaging conditions involving pixel resolution, noise, pose changes (rotation, translation and shear) and a system which can be trained on-site to learn any new separator page. The invention is suitable for use in any scanning assembly systems such as flatbed scanners, feed through document handlers, single page feed scanners, as well wraparound document handlers, and is insensitive to leading and trailing edge-base skew detection problems. A job sheet is visually recognized. Detection of alignment markers is invariant to skew of the most general form and includes all rotations and stretches that occur on a page due to page folding.

Abstract: There is provided a network server which interfaces a client with selected database sites from a plurality of database sites. The network server comprises a meta-database (including both text information and multimedia information), a search agent, and a refining module. The search agent indexes the meta-database with a user query obtained from the client, and then distributes queries, developed pursuant to such indexing, to the selected ones of the plurality of database sites. In turn, database site information (responsive to the distributed queries) is retrieved from the selected ones of the plurality of database sites. A refining module is used to update the meta-database with the database relevancy information.