Abstract: Fiber optic cable waste is avoided by measuring amplitude oscillations of four-wave mixing products in positive-dispersion and negative-dispersion fiber optic cable to determine the lengths of a first, positive-dispersion cable segment and a second, negative-dispersion cable segment that are used to provide a specified length of fiber optic cable having a specified amount of path-average chromatic dispersion. The integrated dispersion of a positive-dispersion fiber optic cable as a function of length is measured to provide a first set of data, and the integrated dispersion of a negative-dispersion fiber optic cable as a function of length is measured to provide a second set of data. A fiber-optic cable is simultaneously fed with two optical signals, a first at wavelength .lambda..sub.1 and a second at wavelength .lambda..sub.2, and the number of sinusoidal oscillations that occur in the four-wave mixing products of the Stokes (or anti-Stokes) sideband as a function of cable length are measured.

Abstract: The invention provides an integrated systolic architecture which can perform both forward and inverse Discrete Wavelet Transforms with a minimum of complexity. A plurality of processing cells, each having an adder and a multiplier, are coupled to a set of multiplexers and delay elements to selectively receive a single input datastream in the forward DWT mode and two datastreams in the inverse DWT mode. In the forward DWT mode, the integrated architecture decomposes the input datastream into two output sequences--a high frequency sub-band output and a low frequency sub-band output. In the inverse DWT mode, the integrated architecture reconstructs the original input sequence by outputting even terms and odd terms on alternating clock cycles. As a result, the architecture can achieve 100% utilization and is suitable to be implemented in VLSI circuitry.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for inspecting the quality of transparent protective overlays. The inspection method and apparatus enables accurate inspection of formed transparent protective overlays and enables implementation of more quantitative control of transparent protective overlay quality. Such method and apparatus automatically and accurately inspects the quality of transparent protective overlays placed on substrate surfaces to determine whether the transparent protective overlay formed to protect information such as images, text, or symbols recorded on the surface of a card-type or other easily portable information-recorded medium is of acceptable quality.

Abstract: An improved transistor package with superior stability to wave soldering, having a nickel oxide barrier strip formed on the surface of the leads.