Abstract: A battery recycle system includes a vending machine for vending secondary batteries. The vending machine has therein a telecommunication terminal connected to a server provided in a secondary battery for receiving information of minimum quality of a typical used secondary battery. Upon receiving a used battery from a user, the vending machine supplies a charged battery to the user at a reduced cost corresponding to the quality of the used battery. The used battery is charged and stocked for a next user.

Abstract: In an optical fiber-lens array, the optical axes of the gradient index rod lens and of the optical fiber are aligned easily with high accuracy. The optical fiber-lens array includes a first substrate having a gradient index rod lens accommodated in V-shaped grooves for rod lenses formed in parallel at prescribed pitches, and a second substrate having optical fibers accommodated in V-shaped grooves for optical fibers formed at the same array pitches with said V-shaped grooves for rod lenses. The first substrate and the second substrate are connected by guide pins placed on the common positioning guide grooves formed on the first substrate and the second substrate with the respective end surfaces of the gradient index rod lenses and the respective end surfaces of the corresponding optical fibers faced toward each other.

Abstract: Disclosed is an intrinsically safe sensor signal processing circuit, permitting lower cost installation and eliminating potential hazard. In the combination of a sensor which measures physical value as process variables in hazardous environment and a safety barrier which is mounted in non-hazardous environment, an intrinsically safe sensor signal processing circuit features the safety barrier for case of mounting, wherein current limiting resistances are connected in series with the sensor and these resistances are also connected to either an output or an inverting input of OP Amps that are considered as a driver or a feeder of the sensor signal. The safety barrier can adopt blocking capacitors instead of said current limiting resistors.

Abstract: Fine positioning of a shaped or patterned charged particle beam without use of intrusive fiducial marks is achieved by providing a dithered shadow pattern, preferably in the form of a grid, within the shaped or patterned charged particle beam. Light output from fiducial marks preferably formed of a scintillating material is reduced when the dithered shadow pattern is incident on some or all of the fiducial marks. The timing of the incidence of the shadow pattern on fiducial marks indicates the position of the shaped or patterned charged particle beam such that correction of the beam position on the target can be corrected to a small fraction of system resolution. The dither pattern and repetition period is chosen to avoid interference with uniformity of beam illumination of the target. Feedback of position error thus provides phase locked position correction in real time and is suitable for mask making since the fiducial marks are not intrusive.

Abstract: Image rotations of 90°, 180° and 270° and horizontal and vertical mirroring image transformations are performed losslessly and with greatly enhanced speed by processing orthogonal transform coefficients in a zig-zag order with direct storage of S (size) values, reassociated R (run of zero valued coefficients) from an adjacent coded orthogonal transform value and a non-zero valued transformation coefficient in reverse zig-zag order. Cache misses are avoided by processing values which are not widely separated in the coded data and other features of the technique and memory accesses are reduced to accelerate processing while extremely little computation is required. These effects are substantially augmented when intermediate codes having certain attributes including coding of zero valued coefficients and flagging certain code features are employed.

Abstract: A simplified reticle removal system used with an electron beam system. The simplified reticle removal system includes a reticle chamber having an angled opening and a maintenance panel removably or pivotably attached thereto. The angled opening provides access to a reticle stage housed within the reticle chamber. The angled opening further permits removal of the reticle stage from the reticle chamber without having to disassemble and remove the optics system of the electron beam system. This reduces maintenance and repair costs, as well as reduces down time of the electron beam system.

Abstract: A method for demand planning of products. The method comprises the steps of constructing a configure-to-order operation/multiple building block environment; and, forecasting the demand of the building blocks within this environment for establishing an efficient supply chain management.

Abstract: A light-sensitive detector (1) according to the present invention is constituted by an array (11) of photodetectors, a package (13) on which the array (11) of photodetectors is mounted, and a light-transmissible window (12) for making detection light incident on light-receiving surfaces of the photodetectors. The package (13) is provided with an aperture (14) which is formed in a position adjacent to the photodetectors so that light rays substantially parallel to the detection light can pass through the aperture (14).

Abstract: An electronic apparatus includes a base, a main body and a lock mechanism. A main body is rotatably supported on the base and having a display unit. A lock mechanism prevents the main body from rotating with respect to the base. The main body includes the display unit and a magnetic disk drive. The magnetic disk drive includes a magnetic head and a safety unit. The magnetic head accesses a recording medium. A safety unit moves the magnetic head to a save position where the magnetic head is safe in the magnetic disk drive when the lock mechanism is unlocked. The safety unit move the magnetic head to start a seeking operation over the recording medium when the lock mechanism is locked.

Abstract: A computer implemented method in a language independent system generates audio-driven facial animation given the speech recognition system for just one language. The method is based on the recognition that once alignment is generated, the mapping and the animation hardly have any language dependency in them. Translingual visual speech synthesis can be achieved if the first step of alignment generation can be made speech independent. Given a speech recognition system for a base language, the method synthesizes video with speech of any novel language as the input.

Abstract: A method of producing an optical module in which with respect to a housing (12) having an optical part (a lens 10) received therein, an optical semiconductor device (such as a laser diode 14) of a package structure is center-aligned to be positioned on an optical axis of the optical part and is attached to the housing (12). The method comprises the steps of: applying an ultraviolet-or-heat-curable resin (30) onto a joint surface between the housing and the optical semiconductor device and curing the ultraviolet-or-heat-curable resin (30) by external irradiation with ultraviolet rays in the condition that the optical axes of the lens and the laser diode are center-aligned and joined with each other to thereby temporarily fix the optical semiconductor device to the housing; and complementarily curing non-irradiated portions of the ultraviolet-or-heat-curable resin by heating.

Abstract: An aligning tool having a plurality of grooves formed side by side is provided; gradient index rod lenses are placed in alignment within the grooves at an average spacing of 1 &mgr;m-5 &mgr;m; the gradient index rod lenses are fixed to form an integral unit as they maintain the aligned state; thereafter the end faces of each rod lens are polished.

Abstract: A force transducer is inserted into a small boring inside a test object. Inside the boring, it can measure the elastic extensions caused by the surrounding stress matrix. The force transducer is provided in two parts. Both parts are provided with a conical inner boring or conical outer periphery in such a manner that they can be held inside the boring of the test object by a tractive force. In order to span a large tolerance zone, the outer part is axially provided with multiple slits on both sides. The outer part is provided with a polygonal shape and thereby detects the deformations to be measured, not over the entire periphery, but it records theres via the contacts axially oriented through the axial lines. The extension is integrated in a peripheral direction between the contacts and is transferred into the inner part.

Abstract: A method and apparatus which enables customers to remotely order goods from a merchant and receive the goods without revealing customer identity or address to the merchant, nor revealing what is bought to the bank or payment agency, and more generally to preserve as much anonymity as required such that no party except the customer has complete information about a transaction. The method uses clearing houses or encryption to break links between customer information and the merchant.

Abstract: An automatic teleconferencing control system uses a trigger definition database to define trigger criteria and corresponding conference control commands for corresponding trigger functions. Trigger criteria may relate to configuration profiles set for each participant or to conference level policy decisions. Participant attribute changes and media flows among participant stations on a conference are analyzed in accordance with the trigger criteria, and when trigger criteria are identified a corresponding conference control command is issued.

Abstract: A digital watermarking method encodes different pairs of watermarks into each of a plurality of images offered for use by a vendor. The watermarks in each pair are derived from two separate collections of watermarks and sufficiently different so as to prevent false positives. Because each pair of watermarks is assigned to a different customer relative to a particular image, unauthorized use of a digital image sold to a customer may be determined by locating the associated pair of watermarks assigned to the customer in the image. Collusion detection is also realized by forming each pair of masks from sub-collections of masks which are detectable in an image formed by combining the same images sold to one or more customers.

Abstract: In an optical system in which light output from an optical fiber (11) is collimated into parallel light rays by a gradient index rod lens (13), reflected by a filter (4) and then converged again by the rod lens (13) so that the resulting light is coupled to an optical fiber (12), a principal beam component of the light output from the optical fiber (11) disagrees with an optical axis (32) of the optical fiber (12) to thereby cause a coupling loss. When W is the distance between optical axes (31 and 32) of optical fibers (11 and 12) and Z is the length of a rod lens (13) on an optical axis (33) of the rod lens, the optical fibers (11 and 12) and the rod lens (13) are disposed to satisfy the condition: W·g·(0.25−Z/P)2≦6×10−5 in which g is a gradient index distribution coefficient of the rod lens, and P is the periodic length of the rod lens (13).

Abstract: Spiro[9,10-dihydroanthracene]-9,3′-pyrrolidine (SPAN) and derivatives thereof are provided as selective serotonin receptor antagonists. The compounds are selective, high affinity antagonists of 5-HT2 serotonin receptors. The compounds are useful as antidepressant and antianxiety agents.

Abstract: An ATM cell buffer system for buffering ATM cells in various network nodes forming an ATM network, comprising a congestion control unit for controlling congestion of the ATM cells, and further comprising a control counter for counting the number of ATM cells supplied from the ATM cell buffer, in every predetermined period, for every VC queue, within the congestion control unit 30, the congestion control unit deciding the count value of the counter as the minimum output bandwidth for deciding the number of ATM cells to be stored in the next predetermined period, for every connection.

Abstract: A adapter provides for connection of a pressure relief mechanism to a connection fitting portion of a quick connect fitting through a mating connection fitting portion and provides for movement of the pressure relief mechanism against a check valve in a hydraulic fluid conduit through a screw thread connection to the adapter. When the check valve is thus opened fluid flow is provided substantially axially through the pressure relief mechanism, thereby reducing the likelihood of disengagement of respective portions of the quick connect fitting when hydraulic fluid is present. Collection of hydraulic fluid in a vessel connected to the pressure relief mechanism is provided to allow recycling of the fluid and to prevent release of the fluid into the environment.