Abstract: An adherent, transparent moisture barrier is applied to alkaline earth sulfide phosphor particles by stirring in an anhydrous polar solvent including a fluorinating compound present in a concentration of no higher than 0.02 molar until a transparent fluorine-containing moisture-impervious coating has been applied to the particles. The polar solvent is removed and the coated particles dried. A second moisture barrier can also be applied to ensure long term resistance of the phosphors to degradation by moisture.

Abstract: A switch matrix comprising a mulitlayer ceramic circuit board having a M×N array of N×N switch modules. Specifically, the ceramic circuit board has a M×N array of mounting sites for accepting individual N×N switch modules. The ceramic circuit board contains all the necessary interconnects to form a M×N RF switch matrix.

Abstract: In a compressed domain digital communications system, a method for reducing a variable latency associated with a buffer and at least partially resulting from at least one splice between a FROM bitstream and a TO bitstream each including data corresponding to a plurality of frames, the method including: selectively deleting data corresponding to a select at least one of the frames from the buffer based upon the variable latency so as to reduce the variable latency when an amount of data corresponding to a number of frames present in the buffer is greater than a given number of frames; and, regulating a flow of data in the system to prevent an underflow condition in the system by effecting a repeat last frame command and prevent an overflow condition in the system by slowing a rate of transmission for the data associated with at least one of the frames in the TO bitstream.

Abstract: A semiconductor laser device with separated, highly-strained quantum wells employs highly-strained ternary and quasi-ternary compounds as material for each quantum well. A first device structure includes a quantum well composition range extended from strained ternary compounds employed in conventional quantum well laser devices. A second device structure, employing a similar structure to that of the first device, employs new quasi-ternary compounds with compositions outside of the miscibility gap of corresponding quaternary compounds for quantum wells in GaSb— or InAs-based laser devices which extend performance of mid-infrared laser devices operating in the 2.2-4.0 &mgr;m range. The semiconductor diode laser may be formed so as to operate having a multi-mode or single-mode radiation.

Abstract: Provided is a method of fabricating a substrate having on a surface thereof two or more spatially-resolved regions, each with a defined amount or concentration of one of one or more chemical components, the method comprising: associating a chemical component with particles of 1 &mgr;m to 500 &mgr;m diameter; electrostatically depositing the particles on the appropriate regions; and if a said spatially-resolved region is to receive a second chemical component, repeating steps (a) and (b) for that chemical component and the appropriate regions.

Abstract: A method for forming a back panel for a plasma display includes preparing a green ceramic tape having a temperature coefficient of expansion (TCE) which matches the TCE of a metal core. Barrier ribs are formed on the back panel by embossing or scribing the green ceramic tape. The formed green ceramic tape is then bonded to the metal core. Finally, the bonded formed green ceramic tape and the metal core are cofired to form the back panel.

Abstract: A signal processing apparatus and concomitant method for learning and integrating features from multiple resolutions for detecting and/or classifying objects. The signal processing apparatus comprises a hierarchical pyramid of neural networks (HPNN) having a “fine-to-coarse” structure or a combination of the “fine-to-coarse” and the “coarse-to-fine” structures.

Abstract: An array antenna includes a first ceramic layer and a second ceramic layer. A metal layer is disposed between the first and second ceramic layers. A plurality of radiating elements are mounted on the first ceramic layer, and a plurality of control circuits are mounted on the second ceramic layer. The control circuits are coupled to the radiating elements through a plurality of conductive vias which feed through the metal layer. The array antenna may also include a switch having a plurality of poles formed in the second ceramic layer and coupled to one of the radiating elements through one or more conductive vias. A plurality of phase delay elements may be coupled at a first end to a signal source and coupled at a second end to the respective plurality of poles of the switch to provide phase-delayed signals. A waveguide may also be formed within the ceramic layers. Conductive vias or coaxial transmission lines may be used to connect elements within the array antenna.

Abstract: A correlated double-sampling circuit for sampling an input signal received from a pixel sensor circuit via an input line. According to one embodiment, a first switch selectively couples a junction of first terminals of a first capacitor and a second capacitor to the input line. A second switch selectively couples an output node coupled to a second terminal of the second capacitor to a reference voltage. A third switch selectively couples the output node to an output line.

Abstract: In an image encoding scheme (e.g., MPEG-2) in which two or more different sets of motion vectors are generated for each image that is to be encoded using motion estimation, one or more sets of motion vectors are generated by applying temporal scaling to one or more other sets of motion vectors that may be generated using conventional motion estimation techniques. Using such a temporal interpolation scheme to generate one or more of the sets of motion vectors for each image can greatly reduce the processing load on an image encoding system for motion estimation processing. Local motion estimation can optionally be performed on the estimates generated using temporal interpolation to select final motion vectors, e.g., for use in subsequent image compression processing that relies on motion compensation.

Abstract: A microscopy system comprising a microscope including a stage, at least one magnifying lens, and a lens controller, a video capture device coupled to the microscope capturing a plurality of images of an object on the stage of the microscope and a processing subsystem receiving the plurality of images from the video capture device, in which the processing subsystem generates at least one resultant image as a function of the plurality of images. The at least one resultant image generated by the processing subsystem may include a mosaic, submosaic or a sequence of mosaics.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for reducing memory and memory bandwidth requirements in an MPEG-like decoder by compressing image information prior to storage such that a reduced resolution image information frame is stored and subsequently utilized by, e.g., a motion compensation module of the decoder. The invention responsively processes motion vector information in a manner consistent with the amount of compression imparted to a predicted image information frame, and the type of prediction employed in forming the predicted information frame.

Abstract: A circuit design technique polysilicon thin-film transistor (TFT) circuitry produces circuits that are relatively less sensitive to threshold variations among the TFT's than circuits designed using conventional techniques. The circuit is designed such that thin-film transistors that are sensitive to threshold variations are made larger than other thin-film transistors in the circuitry to minimize threshold variations among similar transistors implemented in the circuit. In one embodiment, a pixel structure for an active matrix display device implemented in polysilicon includes two transistors, a select transistor and a drive transistor. The drive transistor in the pixel structure is a thin film metal oxide silicon (MOS) transistor that includes a gate to source capacitance sufficient to hold an electrical potential which keeps the transistor in a conducting state for an image field interval. One embodiment of the pixel structure includes only the select transistor and the drive transistor.

Abstract: An apparatus for measuring the characteristics of a droplet of a liquid, such as a droplet of ink, includes a laser for generating and projecting a beam of light along a path. The beam is directed into a photodetector, such as a photodiode, which detects the amount of light provided by the beam and provides an electrical signal corresponding to the amount of light detected. Adjacent the output end of the laser are lenses which focus the beam of light at a focal point and form the beam into a sheet at the focal point. An ink jet head is adjacent the path of the beam at the focal point. The ink jet head projects a droplet of ink to and through the sheet portion of the beam so as to change the amount of light detected by the photodetector. From the electrical signal output of the photodetector various characteristics of the droplet can be determined, such as the size, shaped and velocity of the droplet.

Abstract: A system that estimates both the ego-motion of a camera through a scene and the structure of the scene by analyzing a batch of images of the scene obtained by the camera employs a correlation-based, iterative, multi-resolution algorithm. The system defines a global ego-motion constraint to refine estimates of inter-frame camera rotation and translation. It also uses local window-based correlation to refine the current estimate of scene structure. The batch of images is divided into a reference image and a group of inspection images. Each inspection image in the batch of images is aligned to the reference image by a warping transformation. The correlation is determined by analyzing respective Gaussian/Laplacian decompositions of the reference image and warped inspection images. The ego-motion constraint includes both rotation and translation parameters. These parameters are determined by globally correlating surfaces in the respective inspection images to the reference image.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for detecting salient motion in an image sequence using optical flow. For each pixel in an image, frame-to-frame optical flow information are collected over time for computing a rough estimate of the total image distance traveled by each pixel. Specifically, an optical flow field is generated for every two successive image frames. The resulting optical flow field is applied to warp one or more intermediate measure images that contain intermediate cumulative measurements. The warped measure images for an image sequence are used to compute a sum of frame-to-frame optical flow fields for the image sequence to yield a cumulative flow field that can be used to generate a measure of salience for each image point.

Abstract: Frames in a video sequence are divided into two or more regions and a specified number of macroblocks are selected in each region for intra-coding. Depending on the particular implementation, for one or more of the regions, the intra-macroblocks are selected randomly, while at least one other region is dividing into a specified number of slices with the least-recently intra-coded macroblock in each slice selected for intra-coding. When an error is detected at the decoder, the decoder discards data in the corresponding packet and applies a concealment strategy that involves using motion-compensated data if the motion vectors were accurately decoded; otherwise, using non-motion-compensated reference data for the macroblocks affected by the discarding of data. The refresh strategy of the present invention can be used to provide the resulting encoded bitstream with resilience to transmission errors, while maintaining an acceptable degree of video compression.

Abstract: Various mixtures of lead magnesium niobate and lead titanate are made, each mixture having a different Curie temperature, wherein these mixtures are mixed together to form capacitor inks that can be used to make capacitors embedded in multilayer ceramic circuit boards. These capacitors have extended temperature ranges of operation as well as low loss tangents and high dielectric constants.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for splicing a first information stream into a second information stream to produce an output information stream containing compressed digital data. The first and second information streams are synchronized using a common timing reference, thereby avoiding temporal discontinuity errors in an information stream decoder.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for encoding zerotrees in a wavelet-based coding technique. The method uses a depth-first pattern for traversing the zerotree, i.e., each branch of the tree, from parent to child to grandchild and so on, is fully traversed before a next branch is traversed. The depth-first tree traversal pattern is used to quantize the coefficients of the tree as well as to assign symbols to the quantized coefficients. The method assigns one of three symbols to each node: ZEROTREE ROOT, VALUED ZEROTREE ROOT, and VALUE. By using three symbols and the efficient tree traversal pattern, the method is substantially more efficient at encoding a zerotree than the prior art. Additionally, this concept is applied to the encoding of “vector” zerotrees.