Abstract: The disclosed technology concerns a method for wetting and dispersing a pulverulent polycarboxylic acid containing polymer in aqueous media without the need of a steric stabilizer and/or a wetting agent, said method comprises a) providing a pulverulent pre-neutralized carboxylic acid containing polymer or copolymer, wherein said polymer or copolymer is prepared from a monomer mixture comprising at least one olefinically unsaturated carboxylic acid group containing monomer, and wherein from about 1 to about 10 wt. % of said carboxylic acid group containing monomer(s) is neutralized; b) mixing said pulverulent pre-neutralized carboxylic acid containing polymer or copolymer in aqueous medium; and c) mixing a deswelling agent selected from an acid, a salt, and combinations thereof with said aqueous medium, and optionally d), adjusting the pH.

Abstract: A pixel array may be illuminated with backlight illumination from a backlight. The backlight may include a two-dimensional array of light-emitting diodes, with each light-emitting diode being placed in a respective cell. Different light-emitting diodes may have unique brightness magnitudes based on the content of the given display frame. Driver integrated circuits may control one or more associated light-emitting diodes to have a desired brightness level. The driver integrated circuits may be formed in an active area of the backlight. The driver integrated circuits may be arranged in groups that are daisy chained together. A digital signal (that includes information such as addressing information) may be propagated through the group of driver integrated circuits. To manage thermal performance of the backlight, the backlight may include a thermally conductive layer and/or a heat sink structure. To increase the efficiency of the backlight, the backlight may include one or more reflective layers.

Abstract: Oral care based imaging computer-implemented systems and methods for determining perceived attractiveness of a facial image portion of at least one person depicted in a digital image. The method has the following steps: a) obtaining a digital image comprising at least one oral feature of at least one person, wherein the digital image includes a facial image portion of the at least one person, the facial image portion having both positive and negative attributes as defined by pixel data of the digital image; b) analyzing the facial image portion; c) generating an Attractiveness Score indicative of a perceived attractiveness of the facial image portion based on the analyzed facial image portion in the obtained digital image; d) further generating an image description that identifies at least one area in said facial image portion based on the Attractiveness Score; and e) presenting the image description to a use.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for transferring a data signal including receiving a digital data signal by a first data input of a transmitter multiplexer; inverting the digital data signal by a first inverter, thereby providing an inverted digital data signal; receiving the inverted digital data signal by a first inverted data input of the transmitter multiplexer; counting, by a first counter, a clock signal; transmitting, by the first counter and in response to the first counter counting a threshold number of clock cycles, a first selection signal to a first selection signal input of the transmitter multiplexer; and alternately transmitting, in response to the first selection signal and by a first digital data signal output of the transmitter multiplexer, the digital data signal and the inverted digital data signal as the transmitter output signal to a receiver, the receiver and the digital data signal output operably coupled to a data link.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for transferring a data signal including receiving a digital data signal by a first input of a multiplexer of a transmitter operably coupled to a data link; transmitting, by a digital data signal output of the multiplexer, the digital data signal to a receiver that is operably coupled to the data link; receiving, by a selection signal input of the multiplexer, a first selection signal that indicates an idle mode for the transmitter; receiving, by a second input of the multiplexer, a patterned data signal; and transmitting, by the digital data signal output and in response to the first selection signal, the patterned data signal to the receiver.

Abstract: Oral care based imaging computer-implemented systems and methods for analyzing attributes of a facial image portion of at least one person depicted in a digital image. An oral care digital imaging computer-implemented method for analyzing a facial image portion of a person depicted in a digital image may include analyzing the facial image portion for positive and negative attributes as defined by pixel data of the digital image and generating a probability value based on the positive and negative attributes in the facial image portion in the digital image.

Abstract: A polymer/hydrophilic silica blend is provided comprising (a) a thickening polymer powder, comprising (i) structural units of C4-8 alkyl (meth)acrylate monomer; (ii) structural units of (meth)acrylic acid monomer, and (iii) structural units of a specialized associative monomer of formula (I) wherein R1 is a linear saturated C10-20 alkyl group; and n is an average of 20 to 28; and (b) a hydrophilic silica powder; wherein the weight ratio of hydrophilic silica powder to thickening polymer powder in the polymer/hydrophilic silica blend is 1:9 to 9:1. Also provided are personal care compositions containing same and methods of using same.

Abstract: A testing and performance analysis methodology applies a series of test vector pairs to the input ports of an echo canceller under test. The test vector signal pair may represent a particular speech activity state transition, e.g., a Brady Model transition. A scoring compression function such as a sigmoid squashing function is used to evaluate quantized performance parameters. The sub-scores may be weighted and averaged to provide an overall performance score.

Abstract: High compression rate codecs in gateways servicing Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Voice Band Data (VBD) calls distort modem/fax Answer Back Tones (e.g., 2100 Hz), which may lead to signal distortion and call hang-ups. To prevent such occurrences, a method or corresponding apparatus forces originating and terminating gateways to stay in a low complexity non-voice compression codec (e.g., ITU G.711) after prenegotiating a high complexity, voice compression codec (e.g., G.729 or G.726) during a short beginning period of a voice call. The low complexity codec avoids distorted answer back tone leakage associated with previous solutions that use a notch filter to block the leakage, thereby significantly improving the success rate of a VBD call by completely eliminating modem answer back tone distortion caused by high complexity codecs that use voice compression and by completely eliminating use of the notch filter.

Abstract: A method, or corresponding apparatus, assumes a call is a Voice Band Data (VBD) call. The method disables a local echo canceller and transmits a tone that disables distal echo canceller(s) along a communications path across which the call is communicated. After disabling the echo cancellers, the echo cancellers are allowed to operate in a typical manner, such as according to ITU standards, after the call is established, including remaining disabled if the call is a Voice Band Data call and being automatically enabled if the call is or becomes a voice call. The method or apparatus is particularly useful in networks having Point of Service (POS) devices that have modems that do not send out a 2100 Hz tone to disable echo cancelling in the communications path. In one embodiment, the method or corresponding apparatus is deployed in a gateway.