Abstract: A brushless direct-current motor is provided includes an inner stator and an outer rotor. The rotor includes a rotor core disposed around the stator, an inner annular member mounted on a rotor shaft, and a plurality of radial blades extending angularly from the rotor core to the inner annular member forming a fan. A first end cap is provided including a radial back plate proximate the fan and a center opening in the radial back plate through which the rotor shaft extends. A second end cap is provided including a main body disposed adjacent the stator opposite the fan. The radial back plate of the first end cap includes at least one sloped surface forming at least one air gap such that the airflow generated by the fan is centrifugally guided within the first end cap by the sloped surface and caused to exit through the air gap.

Abstract: Techniques for navigating an artistic map are disclosed. The artistic map is often non-linear scaled, which means the map includes various objects being exaggeratedly shown. When a point of an object is selected as a destination, the coordinates of the point is captured. The coordinates of the point are then transformed to a physical point represented by latitude and longitude. A direction from a current location to the physical point is determined. Subsequently, the direction is modified or transformed in accordance with the map being displayed.

Abstract: Improved designs of navigation devices or systems are disclosed. A navigation device presents a digital map resembling an ambient environment with a certain level of realism, where various objects resembling major structures or signs are presented or superimposed in the map. Depending on the time of the day or the weather condition of the time, the map or the objects therein is caused to be altered correspondingly in a tone that reflects the time or weather.

Abstract: Improved designs of navigation devices or systems are disclosed. A navigation device presents a digital map resembling an ambient environment with a certain level of realism, where various objects resembling major structures or signs are presented or superimposed in the map. Depending on the time of the day or the weather condition of the time, the map or the objects therein is caused to be altered correspondingly in a tone that reflects the time or weather.

Abstract: Techniques for navigating an artistic map are disclosed. The artistic map is often non-linear scaled, which means the map includes various objects being exaggeratedly shown. When a point of an object is selected as a destination, the coordinates of the point is captured. The coordinates of the point are then transformed to a physical point represented by latitude and longitude. A direction from a current location to the physical point is determined. Subsequently, the direction is modified or transformed in accordance with the map being displayed.

Abstract: A user activates the transaction facilitation system from an online banking homepage. Thereafter, communication is performed over a secure communication network. User and transaction type information are received and a unique transaction number is generated. Product information from a vendor is provided to the user, and selected product information is received from the user. Selected transaction information and the transaction number are transmitted to the user's financial institution, and transaction confirmation information is received from the financial institution. A purchase order and the transaction number are transmitted to the vendor, and a confirmation of the purchase order is received from the vendor. An indication of the confirmation of the purchase order, the transaction number, and a customer relations management password are transmitted to the financial institution.

Abstract: A voice conversion system employs a codebook mapping approach to transforming a source voice to sound like a target voice. Each speech frame is represented by a weighted average of codebook entries. The weights represent a perceptual distance of the speech frame and may be refined by a gradient descent analysis. The vocal tract characteristics, represented by a line spectral frequency vector, the excitation characteristics, represented by a linear predictive coding residual, the duration, and the amplitude of the speech frame are transformed in the same weighted-average framework.

Abstract: A system and method for synthesizing a facial image, compares a speech frame from an incoming speech signal with acoustic features stored within visually similar entries in an audio-visual codebook to produce a set of weights. The audio-visual codebook also stores visual features corresponding to the acoustic features. A composite visual feature is generated as a weighted sum of the corresponding visual features, from which the facial image is synthesized. The audio-visual codebook may include multiple samples of the acoustic and visual features for each entry, which corresponds to a sequence of one or more phonemes.

Abstract: A prosody modification system and methodology calculates synchronization marks in an original, quasi-periodic signal to a finer precision than the sampling rate of the original signal. Synthetic synchronization marks are generated according to the desired prosody modification also to a finer precision than the sampling rate of the original signal. Waveforms are extracted from the original signal and are fine-shifted to the exact location on the synthetic time axis by a resampling technique. The fine-shifted waveforms are windowed by an asymmetric filtering window, overlapped, and summed together to produce a synthetic signal.

Abstract: A system and method of facilitating a secure transaction is provided. A financial institution of a buyer receives purchase data of a transaction of an item from a transaction facilitator, which acts as an intermediary between the buyer and seller. The financial institution receives a request for payment for the transaction from the buyer. The financial institution associates the buyer with the purchase data of the transaction, and determines whether to approve the transaction. Preferably, the buyer's account identifier such as a credit card or bank card number is not transmitted at any point in the transaction. This allows the transaction to be highly secure.