Abstract: A telecommunication network has first and second subscribers connected to first and second telecommunication switches, respectively. A third switch is disposed at a hierarchical level above the second switch and receives a call setup message. The call setup message includes a first group affiliation parameter defining one organization of which the first subscriber is a member and a destination number of the second subscriber called by the first subscriber. A record in a database coupled to the third switch is located in response to receiving the call setup message. The located record is based on the destination number contained in the call setup message. A call screening parameter stored in the record is also identified. A determination is made of whether the call will be allowed to terminate to the second subscriber based on a comparison of the call screening parameter and the first group affiliation parameter. Thus, call screening is based on the membership of the first subscriber in an organization.

Abstract: A wire guide and optical fiber storage spool assembly for use with a patch panel has at least one substantially C-shaped wire guide which has first and second angled members, at least one of which can be flexed toward the other for mounting the guide to the panel. A flexible locking member extends between the angled members and can be flexed in a direction transverse to the flex direction of the angled member to permit flexing thereof. The unflexed locking member prevents flexing of the angled member when mounted to the panel and thereby prevents accidental dis-engagement of the wire guide from the panel.

Abstract: A switching circuit is provided to process a DC voltage and apply a low frequency AC voltage, having a trapezoidal waveform, to a co-axial cable transmitting the low frequency AC voltage to a load which may be powered by the low frequency AC voltage as well as a DC voltage. In one specific embodiment two of the switches are connected as part of buck regulation circuits to serve a dual purpose of polarity switching and regulation.

Abstract: A protective hood for a faceplate which has one or more couplers therein for receiving electrical and/or optical fiber connectors has an elongated substantially hollow body. The body has a U-shaped open end and a flat closed end, and a sloping or angularly disposed planar surface extending from adjacent the open end downwardly to the closed end. The body has interior extending flanges adapted to fit within L-shaped track forming members on the faceplate to permit up and down movement of the hood, and an interior stop member for limiting the downward movement to define a closed position.

Abstract: An expandable local area hub network is provided by the present invention. The network comprises a plurality of hubs connected along a common memory bus. Each hub includes a plurality of ports for interfacing with remote stations. An arbiter is coupled to the hubs for granting a hub controlling access to the memory bus to transmit a packet on the memory bus. In use, the arbiter receives requests from the hubs and designates a hub, based upon an internal protocol, temporary bus master hub by granting the temporary bus master hub controlling access to the memory bus.

Abstract: Articles according to the invention exemplarily comprise a magnetically hard oxide layer in contact with a magnetically soft oxide layer, with spins in the latter at room temperature exchange-coupled to the (oriented) spins in the former. Exemplarily both materials are ferrimagnetic spinel-type oxides, e.g., CoFe.sub.2 O.sub.4 /(Mn, Zn)Fe.sub.2 O.sub.4. Material combinations according to the invention can be advantageously used in high frequency circuit components such as inductors, since the magnetically soft layer can be in a substantially single domain state even after exposure to a magnetic field of considerable strength, e.g., up to about 500 Oe.

Abstract: An apparatus and method is described for multicasting an inlet data cell, received as part of a multicast request, through a self-routing multistage routing network. Two algorithms are disclosed which use at most three passes to perform any arbitrary multicast. In the first pass, data is usually routed from the source to a set of consecutive outputs. These outputs are used as inputs in the second pass for routing to the destination cubes, and in some cases, a third pass can be used to route the remaining cubes. Since these cubes constitute a partition of the original multicast set, the multicast is completed when each of the cubes has been successfully routed. The routing algorithms guarantee that those cubes used in each pass through the network do not have internal blocking. The criterion to select a multicast routing algorithm for a particular application is to keep a appropriate balance between the control simplicity, the number of passes and the number of internal links used by the algorithm.

Abstract: This invention involves apparatus for determining the thermal resistivities W.sub.s (=1/.kappa..sub.s) of electrically insulating, crystalline or polycrystalline samples under test (SUTs), all comprising host material such as CVD diamond. Once the optical absorptivities .alpha..sub.1 and .alpha..sub.2 and the thermal resistivities W.sub.1 and W.sub.2 of at least two other crystalline or polycrystalline bodies B.sub.1 and B.sub.2, respectively, comprising the same host material as the SUTs, and containing the same type of impurity or combination of impurities as the SUTs, are measured by some other technique--the inventive apparatus can then determine the thermal resistivities W.sub.s of the SUTs rather quickly from a measurement only of the optical absorptivities a.sub.s of the SUTs. These determinations of the thermal resistivities W.sub.s of the SUTs rely on our discovery that the following linear relationship exists: W=A+C.alpha.

Abstract: An apparatus for creating an illusion of eye contact in a video telephony system includes a video camera and a display screen. The video camera is aligned with the display screen so the viewer's image is transmitted by the video camera with the illusion of eye contact. The display screen has an array of lenses defining part of a first optical path, for transmitting to a video camera a viewer's image. An array of regions interspersed among the array of lenses defines part of a second optical path, for directing to the viewer, displayed images. The array of lenses and the array of regions are each too small to be separately resolvable by the human eye, so that the lenses do not interfere with the perceived quality of the transmitted viewer's image, and the transparent regions do not deteriorate noticeably the video display images projected to the viewer.

Abstract: Provision of a novel passivation layer can result in improved reliability of semiconductor lasers having a laser cavity defined by 2 laser facets. In a preferred embodiment, the passivation layer is a zinc selenide layer (e.g., 5 nm), formed on an essentially contamination-free laser facet. More generally, the passivation layer comprises at least one of Mg, Zn, Cd and Hg, and at least one of S, Se and Te. Typically, the facets are formed by cleaving in vacuum, immediately followed by in-situ deposition of the novel passivation layer material on the facets.

Abstract: A mobility management system and a traditional telecommunication switching system provide telecommunication terminal features by the mobility management system executing a software architecture that utilizes a unique terminal management application for each type of wireless terminal and a unique terminal emulator application for each type of telecommunication link that interconnects the mobility management system to the telecommunication switching system. There is an individually assigned telecommunication link for each wireless terminal. The terminal management applications and the terminal emulator applications communicate utilizing an internal message protocol. In response to a wireless terminal requesting actuation of a feature, a terminal management application converts that request into the required internal protocol messages and transmits the internal protocol messages to the terminal emulator application that controls the telecommunication link assigned to the wireless terminal.

Abstract: The method of shaping a polycrystalline diamond (PCD) body (exemplarily a wafer of CVD-PCD) utilizes our discovery that the rate and amount of diamond removal from a given region of a PCD body depends, for a given metal "etchant" at a given temperature, on the thickness of the etchant layer overlying the given region, with relatively larger etchant thickness being associated with relatively higher removal rate and amount. Exemplarily, the method can be used to substantially remove thickness variations and/or film curvature from as-produced PCD films. An exemplary metal that can be used in the practice of the invention is mischmetal. The metal etchant can be molten, partially molten or solid.

Abstract: The techniques for determining the orientation of lines in images disclosed herein take as their starting point an apparently universal typesetting convention: that symbols are generally closer to other symbols in the line to which they belong than they are to symbols in other lines. The techniques make a graph by connecting symbols in an image of a block of text with edges (lines) and then determine the predominant orientation of the shortest edges. Because the symbols in a line are closer to each other than to symbols in other lines, the predominant orientation of the shortest edges will be the same as the orientation of the lines. An advantageous mode of obtaining the shortest edges is to construct a Euclidean minimum spanning tree from the graph. A Euclidean minimum spanning tree of a graph contains all the nodes (symbols) of the original graph but connects the nodes with the shortest possible set of edges. The edges which predominate in the Euclidean minimum spanning tree are the shortest edges.

Abstract: A power converter and a method of operating a power converter. The power converter includes: (1) a transformer for receiving bipolar electrical input power from a power source, the power substantially free of dead time and (2) a hybridge rectifier coupled to the transformer and including first and second output inductors of independently selectable, differing inductance, the hybridge rectifier receiving the input power from the transformer and rectifying the input power to produce an output power substantially free of ripple current at a predetermined duty cycle operating point of the converter, the first and second output inductors being of independently selectable, differing inductance thereby to allow the predetermined duty cycle operating point to be adjustable.

Abstract: A speech coding system employing an adaptive codebook model of periodicity is augmented with a pitch-predictive filter (PPF). This PPF has a delay equal to the integer component of the pitch-period and a gain which is adaptive based on a measure of periodicity of the speech signal. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, speech processing systems which include a first portion comprising an adaptive codebook and corresponding adaptive codebook amplifier and a second portion comprising a fixed codebook coupled to a pitch filter, are adapted to delay the adaptive codebook gain; determine the pitch filter gain based on the delayed adaptive codebook gain, and amplify samples of a signal in the pitch filter based on said determined pitch filter gain. The adaptive codebook gain is delayed for one subframe. The pitch filter gain equals the delayed. adaptive codebook gain, except when the adaptive codebook gain is either less than 0.2 or greater than 0.8.

Abstract: An apparatus and process in which a particle beam is used to introduce a pattern into an energy sensitive material is disclosed. A coil assembly is used to selectively control both the orientation of the particle beam relative to the substrate on which the energy sensitive material is applied and the magnification or demagnification of the image in the particle beam. The coil assembly comprises at least two coils. The particle beam is projected through the coil assembly. The coil assembly is used to rotate the particle beam to compensate for an observed difference between the actual substrate orientation and the desired substrate orientation. The coils in the coil assembly are excited so that the desired rotation is introduced into the particle beam by the cumulative effects of the magnetic fields generated by the excited coils in the coil assembly.

Abstract: An improved integrated circuit conductor layout technique provides lower and upper conductor levels that bound circuit blocks and provide for power supply voltage distribution to the circuitry in the circuit blocks. The lower and upper conductor levels also provide for first and second groups of parallel signal conductors in wiring channels between circuit blocks. An intermediate conductor level is located between the lower and upper conductor levels, and conducts power supply voltages between adjacent circuit blocks. The power supply conductors formed in the intermediate conductor level also serve to isolate the signal conductors in the lower conductor level from the signal conductors in the upper conductor level (and vice-versa) in the wiring channel. This isolation typically improves the design of the integrated circuit by providing more reliable estimates of signal propagation in the wiring channels.

Abstract: Digital information is encoded in the video portion of a television signal such that "n" (n is an integer) bits of the digital information are carried by each successive frame in a group of frames. The digital information is encoded by modulating a carrier signal, using, for example, either amplitude shift keying (ASK) or frequency shift keying (FSK), and the modulated carrier is then added to the video signal selectively, only in portions of the television program that (a) are not likely to be perceptible by a viewer, and (b) are of sufficient intensity to transmit the data. The video signal including the encoded digital data, may be transmitted, in real time, to a television receiver, or recorded for later playback.