Abstract: A spectrometric device for optical analysis of material composition, coating thickness, surface porosity, and/or other characteristics uses several monochromatic light sources—e.g., laser diodes—to illuminate a sample, with a camera taking an image of the sample under each source's light, and with the various images then being combined to generate a (hyper)spectral image. To address the difficulty in obtaining uniform illumination intensity across the illuminated sample area with solid-state light sources, the output from the light sources may be supplied to an integrating sphere (preferably after being combined within a fiber combiner), and then to a fiber bundle whose output ends are configured as a ring light (a ring of fiber ends directing light at a common spot). The camera may then focus on the spot, at which the sample may be placed for illumination and imaging.

Abstract: In a combination of a transceiver cabinet housing a plurality of transceivers and one or more DECON boards for supporting said transceivers, and a cable for connecting one or more of said transceivers through a selected DECON board to selected control and radio interfaces, a first end of the cable is connected to the selected DECON board, and the second end of the cable is split into and includes multiple discrete portions, each discrete portion being associated with one particular transceiver supported by the selected DECON board such that each discrete portion, and thus one particular transceiver, can be connected to a particular RTT board of a control and radio interfaces.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for adapting base station equipment at a sectorized cell site to relieve high call blocking rates in a first heavily utilized sector. The method includes selecting a TCB cabinet corresponding to a second more sparsely utilized sector and placing first sector transceivers in a first set of designated slots of the TCB cabinet and second sector. A split receive (uplink) signal path within the second sector TCB cabinet is achieved by substituting a four input port combiner card for a conventional two input port combiner card. First and second sector receive signals are respectively directed to first and second input port pairs of the combiner card and are separately routed by the TCB cabinet backplane circuitry to the first and second sector transceivers. The foregoing method allows the cell site owner to add needed transceivers to the heavily-utilized sector without purchasing and installing a new base station.

Abstract: The present invention is a food sharing including in combination, a holder having a proximal end for grasping by one or more users or participants, a distal end for holding a preferably replaceable food, and a design or configuration allowing multiple participants to have equal simultaneous access to the food. The food has at least one break zone allowing for at least two portions with approximately equal size segments. The invention also includes a unique method for sharing food.