Abstract: A method of forming a laminate for use in the production of printed circuit boards, comprising the steps of: a) forming a component comprised of a sheet of copper foil and a sheet of metal, the sheet of copper foil having an essentially uncontaminated surface facing an essentially uncontaminated surface of the sheet of metal, the surfaces of the sheets being in unattached contact with each other in an area that defines a substantially uncontaminated zone; b) applying a preformed adhesive film formed of a substantially uncured polymeric material onto an exposed surface of the copper foil, the adhesive film having a first surface and a second surface, the film being attached to the component with the first surface in contact with an exposed surface of the copper foil; and c) curing the adhesive film, wherein the second surface of the adhesive film is at least partially uncured.

Abstract: An apparatus for producing metal foil, comprising a drum cathode having an outer plating surface. The drum cathode is partially immersed to a set level in an electrolyte bath and is rotatable in a fixed direction about a generally horizontal axis. A main anode assembly having a main anode is immersed in the electrolyte bath, the main anode having a semi-cylindrical curved anode surface facing the drum cathode. The main anode is dimensioned to be spaced from the plating surface of the drum cathode so as to define a generally uniform gap therebetween. An energy source is connected to the main anode for energizing the main anode. A chamber containing an electrolyte solution is disposed above the electrolyte bath and adjacent the cathode drum where the cathode drum exits the electrolyte bath. A treatment anode is immersed in the electrolyte solution in the chamber adjacent the drum cathode. An energy source is connected to the treatment anode for energizing the treatment anode.

Abstract: Digital audio is generated and coded using a multi-state dynamical system such as cellular automata. The rules of evolution of the dynamical system and the initial configuration are the key control parameters determining the characteristics of the generated audio. The present invention may be utilized as the basis of an audio synthesizer and as an efficient means to compress audio data.

Abstract: Digital video data is encoded by using the evolving states of cellular automata. The video stream is decomposed into reference frames that are separated by blocks of intermediate video frames. The reference frames are transformed with transform basis functions derived from the evolving cellular automata. The ensuing transform coefficients are encoded using a sub-band-based embedded stream technique that places the most important coefficients at the top of a hierarchical storage/transmission. Compression of the reference frames is achieved when the stream encoding/decoding is terminated after: 1) a stipulated maximum bit budget is reached, or 2) when a predefined maximum error rate is attained. The intermediate frames are encoded by a predictive method that utilizes one-dimensional multi-state dynamical system. An encoding method is provided for accelerating the transmission of video data through communications networks and storing the compressed data on digital storage media.