Abstract: The improved diffractive-based laser scanning system of the present invention monitors portions of the laser light beams generated by a laser light source (e.g., VLD) employed therein to generate a mode switching signal indicative of a shift in the characteristic wavelength of the laser light beams emitted from the laser light source. In response thereto, a temperature controller selectively heats (or cool) the laser light source to minimize and avoid such wavelength changes, thereby mitigating any potential problems caused by such wavelength changes (for example, unwanted beam distortion and signal processing errors as described above). Preferably, mode switching (e.g., change in characteristic wavelength of light emitted from the laser light source) is detected by monitoring a zeroth diffractive order beam produced by a diffractive element of the system. Moreover, temperature control of the laser light source is preferably accomplished using active heating elements (e.g.

Abstract: An improved method of and apparatus for aggregating data elements in multidimensional databases (MDDB) realized in the form of a high-performance stand-alone (i.e. external) aggregation server which can be plugged-into conventional OLAP systems to achieve significant improvements in system performance. In accordance with the principals of the present invention, the stand-alone aggregation server contains a scalable MDDB and a high-performance aggregation engine that are integrated into the modular architecture of the aggregation server. The stand-alone aggregation server of the present invention can uniformly distributed data elements among a plurality of processors, for balanced loading and processing, and therefore is highly scalable.

Abstract: A holographic laser scanner for producing a high-resolution raster-type 2-D laser scanning pattern within a 3-D scanning volume. The scanner comprises a housing, holographic laser scanning mechanism disposed within the housing for producing a high-resolution raster-type 2-D scanning pattern within a 3-D scanning volume. The holographic laser scanning mechanism includes a laser beam source for producing a laser beam, and a holographic scanning disc rotatable about an axis of rotation and supporting a plurality of holographic optical elements. The laser beam is directed towards the holographic laser scanning disc at an angle of incidence so that the laser beam is diffracted by the holographic optical elements and produce a raster-type 2-D laser scanning pattern for scanning code symbols within the 3-D scanning volume.