Abstract: A charge/deflecting electrode is provided on an orifice surface of an inkjet head near nozzle orifices formed in the orifice surface. A suction tube is pressed against the orifice surface and the electrode to retain a space therebetween. When a negative pressure is generated in a suction hole of the suction tube, ink and foreign matter are sucked from the nozzle orifices. The space is asymmetric on left and right sides so the negative pressure develops a whirlpool-shaped flow including a mixture of air and ink near the suction hole.

Abstract: Underwater position determination is provided by combining sonar-derived ranging data between a sonar receiver and a sonar transmitter with GPS position data to provide geographically-referenced position data accurately representing the position of a sonar receiver carried or worn by a diver or submersible vehicle. Function and accuracy enhancements are provided to compensate for diver and sonar transmitter and depth difference and differences of sonar signal propagation speed as well as several techniques of compensation for change of position of the GPS receiver and for logging diver and/or vehicle path.

Abstract: A method and system for dicing a semiconductor wafer providing a structure with greatly reduced backside chipping and cracking, as well as increased die strength. Semiconductor chip structures obtained from wafers diced according to this invention are also encompassed.

Abstract: An e-commerce mechanism tries to dynamically estimate or refine a profile of a buyer and hence change their negotiation strategy in a dynamic and an on-line manner. An e-commerce site can negotiate with a customer based on his or her profile. The e-commerce site may sell one or more types of items to various customers. These customers may be brokers, other intermediaries, businesses or consumers. Similarly, the e-commerce site may be a broker, an auctioneer, an intermediary, a seller, or even a manufacturer. In one specific case of this invention, the existing data on various customers' past purchases, buying behavior, demographics and other parameters is studied to arrive at attributes which are then used to segment customers into various profiles. The profiles depend not only on the demographic factors but also on factors like the season, the time of day, the geographical area and the cultural upbringing.

Abstract: A method and system offer confidential purchase of electronic data which can be used without any need of knowledge in cryptography nor mastery of computer use beyond usual usage of the World Wide Web (WWW). The method and system which guarantee confidentiality as long as there is no collusion between agents working for a large number of reputable companies whose references can be easily checked on the Internet before proceeding to the order. In addition, the method and system allow for guaranteed payment and offer recourse in case of improper delivery.

Abstract: An edge correction apparatus for a digital video camera includes horizontal and vertical edge signal generators, horizontal and vertical edge signal gain controllers, an adder, a slice processor, and a vertical edge component suppression position detector. The horizontal and vertical edge signal generators respectively generate horizontal and vertical edge correction signals in the horizontal and vertical directions of a sensed image obtained via the image sensing element of a digital video camera. The horizontal and vertical edge signal gain controllers control the gains of the horizontal and vertical edge correction signals. The adder adds the horizontal and vertical edge correction signals whose gains are controlled. The slice processor adds, to the image processing signal of the digital video camera, an edge correction signal obtained by performing slice processing for an edge signal output from the adder.

Abstract: A plurality of nozzle rows are formed in a nozzle plate, and nozzle electrodes for generating a deflecting field are provided for every two nozzle rows. Each electrode is attached to the nozzle plate so as to locate between the corresponding adjacent two nozzles. Ink reception absorption bodies are embedded in the bottom surface of the electrodes. Refresh ink droplets deflected by the deflecting field travels along U-turn paths and impinge on the ink reception absorption bodies.

Abstract: A magnetic fluid is provided comprising a block copolymer stabilizer, magnetic particles and a fluid polysiloxane medium. The stabilizer comprises an anchor block which chelates magnetic metal particles, and at least one end block which is compatible with the polysiloxane medium.

Abstract: A PVC management system in each of ATM switches is disclosed. Each of the ATM switches includes a pair of an incoming header translator and an outgoing header translator, which are provided for each line. The incoming header translator and the outgoing header translator are controlled to provide a working PVC and a protection PVC which are associated with different transmission lines, wherein the working PVC and the protection PVC are selectable under control of a network management system.

Abstract: A system is described for collecting and displaying summary information from disparate sources. The system provides for user customization of data acquisition parameters for locating articles to be summarized, user customization of parameters for parsing the located source material so as to extract headlines, and user organization of extracted headlines into groups.

Abstract: A method s for specifying and implementing automation of business processes where the specification is independently manipulable by both the business process owner and technical implementers, and resulting technical elements can be tested for compliance with every detail in the specification. The method creates a single shared model suitable for understanding and execution in both the business and technical domains by focusing on the specification problem in the area of business automation. The solution to the specification problem lies in Information, Function, Flow (IFF or IF2) factorization of business processes. Models of the business are constructed by way of the IF2 modeling methodology. This is a complete model which includes, by construction, external specifications of each task included in the business model. The modularization problem is solved by preserving the partitioning of the system created in the business model.

Abstract: A method of doing meaningful modifications on an image is presented. These modifications can then be used in variety of applications related to image shape manipulation and similar shape retrieval. The method extracts macrofeatures and microfeature from a given shape. Deformations are done on the macrofeatures only. These deformations are either predefined, or are taken from a deformation library, or are calculated from the shape itself, The microfeatures are then added to the deformed macrofeatures to get a deformed shape. The shape deformations then allow user's perception of shape similarity to be learned, which is reflected in the values of parameters in a parameterized shape similarity metric. The user can use one of the deformed shapes as the initial query point, instead of the shape he or she started with.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of fabricating electromagnetic coil vanes. The method utilizes laser machining to provide high resolution, dense coil wire patterns on both sides of a ceramic vane substrate. A firing operation is first performed that eutectically bonds the copper to the ceramic. Laser machining is then used to produce a coil pattern in the copper. The substrate is drilled to provide a through hole which, when filled or partially filled with a conducting material, forms an electrical connection between the two coil patterns.

Abstract: A super-directional loudspeaker is provided, which makes for a listener to receive an audible sound at a high sound pressure with a compact size. This loudspeaker is comprised of a supporting member having a concave surface, and electro-acoustic transducer elements fixed to the supporting member. The elements are designed to receive an electrical input signal and to produce acoustic vibrations according to the electrical input signal thus received, thereby emitting directional ultrasonic waves in the air. The elements are arranged along the concave surface of the supporting member in such a way that the directional ultrasonic waves emitted by the elements propagate in the air to converge on a listening point in front of the concave surface. It is preferred that the curvature of the concave surface of the supporting member is adjustable according to the location of the listener.

Abstract: A composite, layered, integrated circuit formed by bonding of insulator layers on wafers provides for combination of otherwise incompatible technologies such as trench capacitor DRAM arrays and high performance, low power, low voltage silicon on insulator (SOI) switching transistors and short signal propagation paths between devices formed on respective wafer layers of a chip. In preferred embodiments, an SOI wafer is formed by hydrophilic bonding of a wafer over an integrated circuit device and then cleaving a layer of the second wafer away using implanted hydrogen and low temperature heat treatment. Further wafers of various structures and compositions may be bonded thereover and connections between circuit elements and connection pads in respective wafers made using short vias that provide fast signal propagation as well as providing more numerous connections than can be provided on chip edges.

Abstract: A code-multiplexing communication apparatus includes a splitting unit for splitting incoming serial transmitted data into N (N is integer equal to or greater than 2) number of signal trains; N number of spread unit for performing spreading for each of the N number of signal sequences with use of a spread code; an adding unit adding the N number of signal sequences with the spreading processed by the N number of spread unit, for outputting a code-multiplexed signal; and a modulating unit for modulating the code-multiplexed signal, comprising, filter unit having an inverse characteristic to a frequency characteristic of an autocorrelated distortion caused by the spreading, removing a transmission path distortion.

Abstract: A semiconductor device having a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structure includes a field-effect transistor having amorphized source and drain regions formed by implanting silicon or germanium ions into a silicon layer formed over a buried insulator. The fully amorphized source and drain regions ultimately result in permanent crystalline defects that cause p-n junction leakage which allows charge in the body of the device to dissipate, thereby improving the overall efficiency and performance of the device. The source and drain regions are amorphized throughout their entire thickness to prevent single crystal re-crystallization from occurring during annealing and other subsequent processing steps that can degrade the quality of the p-n leakage junctions.

Abstract: A test carrier according to the present invention can materialize stable contact between electrode bumps of a semiconductor device and a contact sheet no matter where the electrode bumps are. The test carrier comprises a contact sheet 4 disposed on a carrier base 1 and having bumps 50 in contact with and connected to electrode pads on the surface of the semiconductor device and external electrodes 48 for testing, a pressing member 6 for applying predetermined contact pressure between the electrode pads and the bumps 50, and a securing member 70 for securing the contact sheet on the carrier base. The center of thermal expansion of the contact sheet secured by the securing member 70 is offset from all the bumps 50. Further, the securing member 70 secures the carrier base and the contact sheet at two or more securing points, and the center of a figure formed by linking the securing points is offset from the bumps 50.

Abstract: There is provided a circuit for reproducing bit timing, including (a) a first analog-digital converter for converting a real part signal of a complex modulation signal into a real part digital signal, the complex modulation signal having a base band frequency band and obtained from a received modulation signal modulated into a digital phase, (b) a second analog-digital converter for converting an imaginary part signal of the complex modulation signal into an imaginary part digital signal, (c) a first detector for receiving the real part digital signal and the imaginary part digital signal, detecting a phase angle of the complex modulation signal on a complex plane, and transmitting a first signal indicative of the phase angle, (d) a delay circuit for delaying the first signal by a symbol interval, (e) a second detector for detecting a difference in phase on the complex plane between the complex modulation signals in the symbol interval, (f) a third detector for detecting a timing gap between a sampling clock

Abstract: A method of speech driven lip synthesis which applies viseme based training models to units of visual speech. The audio data is grouped into a smaller number of visually distinct visemes rather than the larger number of phonemes. These visemes then form the basis for a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) state sequence or the output nodes of a neural network. During the training phase, audio and visual features are extracted from input speech, which is then aligned according to the apparent viseme sequence with the corresponding audio features being used to calculate the HMM state output probabilities or the output of the neutral network. During the synthesis phase, the acoustic input is aligned with the most likely viseme HMM sequence (in the case of an HMM based model) or with the nodes of the network (in the case of a neural network based system), which is then used for animation.