Abstract: A method of operating a device for the handling of containers, wherein the containers are conveyed at least locally through the device and are handled by the device in at least one pre-set manner, and wherein at least one flowable medium is used to operate the device. According to various aspects, pre-set areas of the device are irradiated by means of a radiation device in order to make at least one medium detectable in an area of the device in which the medium is present in a non-functional manner.

Abstract: Representations of spatial audio scenes using higher-order Ambisonics HOA technology typically require a large number of coefficients per time instant. This data rate is too high for most practical applications that require real-time transmission of audio signals. According to the invention, the compression is carried out in spatial domain instead of HOA domain. The (N+1)2 input HOA coefficients are transformed into (N+1)2 equivalent signals in spatial domain, and the resulting (N+1)2 time-domain signals are input to a bank of parallel perceptual codecs. At decoder side, the individual spatial-domain signals are decoded, and the spatial-domain coefficients are transformed back into HOA domain in order to recover the original HOA representation.

Abstract: A device for dispensing a dental material comprises a container for containing the material and an outlet which is closed by a closure. A breakable seal is arranged between the closure and the container. The device further is operable between a storage position in which the outlet is closed and an operational position in which the outlet is open. An initial operation toward the operational position causes the seal to break, whereby the closure is captured in the device. The device may provide a relatively long shelf life for the material, and may facilitate preparation of the material for use.

Abstract: A dispensing device for a dental substance is provided which has an outlet for the dental substance, and a valve for opening and closing the outlet. The device is switchable between a storage mode and an operative mode. In the storage mode a cannula is locked in the device and the valve opens the outlet, and in the storage mode the cannula can be released from the device and the valve closes the outlet. The device may facilitate handling and may be relatively inexpensive.

Abstract: Perceptual audio codecs make use of filter banks and MDCT in order to achieve a compact representation of the audio signal, by removing redundancy and irrelevancy from the original audio signal. During quasi-stationary parts of the audio signal a high frequency resolution of the filter bank is advantageous in order to achieve a high coding gain, but this high frequency resolution is coupled to a coarse temporal resolution that becomes a problem during transient signal parts by producing audible pre-echo effects. The invention achieves improved coding/decoding quality by applying on top of the output of a first filter bank a second non-uniform filter bank, i.e. a cascaded MDCT. The inventive codec uses switching to an additional extension filter bank (or multi-resolution filter bank) in order to re-group the time-frequency representation during transient or fast changing audio signal sections.

Abstract: In the MPEG-4 standard ISO/IEC 14496:2001 several audio objects that can be coded with different MPEG-4 format coding types can together form a composed audio system representing a single soundtrack from the several audio substreams. In a receiver the multiple audio objects are decoded separately, but not directly played back to a listener. Instead, transmitted instructions for mixdown are used to prepare a single soundtrack. Mixdown conflicts can occur in case the audio signals to be combined have different channel numbers or configurations. According to the invention an additional audio channel configuration node is used that tags the correct channel configuration information items to the decoded audio data streams to be presented. The invention enables the content provider to set the channel configuration in such a way that the presenter at receiver side can produce a correct channel presentation under all circumstances.

Abstract: The present invention is related to a device for providing a dental material. The device comprises first and second compartments formed between sheet-like layers, and first and second dispensing outlets for the first and second compartments, respectively. For use, the device can be positioned with the compartments overlapping each other and with the dispensing outlets located side by side. The invention may provide a rather inexpensive device which may help a user in a convenient preparation of a dental material.

Abstract: For the quantisation of spectral data in an audio transform encoder psycho-acoustic information is required, i.e. an approximation of the true masking threshold. According to the invention, for each spectrum to be quantised in the audio signal encoding, an excitation pattern is computed and coded for both long and short window/transform lengths. The excitation patterns are grouped together in a variable-size matrix. A pre-determined sorting order with a fixed number of values only is applied to the excitation pattern data matrix values, and by that re-ordering a quadratic matrix is formed to which matrix' bit planes a SPECK encoding is applied.

Abstract: A mixer for mixing a dental composition comprises a mixer housing with a wall of the mixer housing forming a light filter. The light filter provides for substantially blocking light of certain wavelengths, whereas it transmits light of at least some other wavelengths. The invention may help to prevent dental compositions from degrading.

Abstract: In frame-based bit stream formats the data required for decoding a current frame are usually stored within the data section for that frame. One exception is the mp3 bit stream where data for a current frame is stored in previous frames. If the decoder did not receive the required previous frame, decoding of the current mp3 frame is skipped. The invention can be applied for such bit streams, in an archival mode, a streaming mode and a sample-exact cutting of an archival mode. In the streaming and cutting modes, new headers are established. The number of frames required for initialising the decoder status is signalised in the header, as well as a consistency check value in the streaming mode. These frames are used for decoder initialisation but not for decoding samples or coefficients. For a sample-exact cutting, for the frame at which the cut shall occur, the number of samples or coefficients to be muted is also indicated in the header.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for encoding of a bit amount of a data section and to a corresponding decoding method. Furthermore, the invention relates to encoding, decoding, transmission and/or storage of audio and/or video data wherein said method for encoding of a bit amount of a data section and/or said corresponding decoding method are used in processing of the audio and/or video data. Said method for encoding of a bit amount of a data section comprises the steps of encoding said bit amount indicating integer as a first number of equally valued bits followed by a stop bit of different value wherein said first number equals said bit amount increased by a threshold value. Using said method, quotients of values larger than a threshold can be encoded using unary as well as binary code wherein quotients of values smaller than the threshold can be encoded in unary code.

Abstract: A method of operating a device for the handling of containers, wherein the containers are conveyed at least locally through the device and are handled by the device in at least one pre-set manner, and wherein at least one flowable medium is used to operate the device. According to various aspects, pre-set areas of the device are irradiated by means of a radiation device in order to make at least one medium detectable in an area of the device in which the medium is present in a non-functional manner.

Abstract: Disclosed is a placement system for a free-flying kite-type wind-attacked element in a watercraft in which the kite-type wind-attacked element comprising a profiled wing is connected to the vessel body via a traction rope. Said wind-attacked element can be guided from a neutral position on board the watercraft into a raised position that is free from obstacles located at the same or a higher level. An azimuthally pivotable fixture is provided by means of which the wind-attacked element can be brought into a position in which the same is exposed to a sufficient wind effect. Furthermore, a docking receiving device is provided which is to be removably connected to the docking adapter of the wind-attacked element on the side facing away from the wind while also allowing the wind-attacked element to be furled with the aid of automatically engaging holding means.

Abstract: A dental package and a method of making such dental package for holding flowable dental material. The method comprising the steps of providing a container having an opening and providing first portion of a flowable dental material in the container. Further the method comprises hardening a predetermined second portion of the flowable dental material to form a a closure that closes the opening. The invention provides for improved manufacturing and for facilitating the use of the package.

Abstract: The invention is related to lossless encoding of a source signal, using a lossy encoded data stream and a lossless extension data stream which together form a lossless encoded data stream for said source signal, whereby lossless audio compression means audio coding with bit-exact reproduction of the original PCM samples at decoder output. The lossy encoding/decoding may be an mp3 coding/decoding. The invention uses an integer MDCT and frequency domain de-correlation and time domain de-correlation for the residual signal of the base-layer lossy audio codec. The exploitation of side information from the lossy base-layer codec allows for reduction of redundancies in the gross bit stream, thus improving the coding efficiency of the lossy based lossless codec.

Abstract: Lossless compression algorithms can only exploit redundancies of the original audio signal to reduce the data rate, but not irrelevancies as identified by psycho-acoustics. Lossless audio coding schemes apply a filter or transform for decorrelation and then encode the transformed signal. The encoded bit stream comprises the parameters of the transform or filter, and the lossless representation of the transformed signal. However, in case of lossy based lossless coding the additional amount of information exceeds the amount of data for the base layer by a multiple of the base layer data amount. Therefore the additional data cannot be packed completely into the base layer data stream e.g. as ancillary data. The at least two data streams resulting from the combination of lossy coding format with a lossless coding extension are the base layer containing the lossy coding information and the enhancement data stream for rebuilding the mathematically lossless original input signal.

Abstract: In lossy based lossless coding a PCM audio signal passes through a lossy encoder to a lossy decoder. The lossy encoder provides a lossy bit stream. The lossy decoder also provides side information that is used to control the coefficients of a prediction filter that de-correlates the difference signal between the PCM signal and the lossy decoder output. The de-correlated difference signal is lossless encoded, providing an extension bit stream. Instead of, or in addition to, de-correlating in the time domain, a de-correlation in the frequency domain using spectral whitening can be performed. The lossy encoded bit stream together with the lossless encoded extension bit stream form a lossless encoded bitstream. The invention facilitates enhancing a lossy perceptual audio encoding/decoding by an extension that enables mathematically exact reproduction of the original waveform, and provides additional data for reconstructing at decoder site an intermediate-quality audio signal.

Abstract: In lossy based lossless coding a PCM audio signal passes through a lossy encoder to a lossy decoder. The lossy encoder provides a lossy bit stream. The difference signal between the PCM signal and the lossy decoder output is lossless encoded, providing an extension bit stream. The invention facilitates enhancing a lossy perceptual audio encoding/decoding by an extension that enables mathematically exact reproduction of the original waveform using enhanced de-correlation, and provides additional data for reconstructing at decoder site an intermediate-quality audio signal. The lossless extension can be used to extend the widely used mp3 encoding/decoding to lossless encoding/decoding and superior quality mp3 encoding/de-coding.

Abstract: Movies are produced in 24 Hz frame frequency and progressive scanning format (denoted 24p) for projection in film theatres, adhering to a worldwide standard for 35 mm film. However, the major TV systems in the world use interlaced scanning and either 50 Hz field frequency (denoted 50i) or 60 Hz field frequency (denoted 60i). Content providers would prefer providing single-picture-frequency single-audio-speed AV discs that can be replayed in most parts of the world. According to the invention, For a 50 HZ output mode, in the media player either audio signal frames are dropped adaptively or video fields or frames are repeated adaptively, depending on the current video and audio content. Thereby the less perceptible stream controls the synchronisation.

Abstract: Advanced solutions for encrypting multi-layer audio data are required, ie. audio data that comprise a base layer and one or more enhancement layers. A method for encrypting such an encoded audio signal comprises separating the base layer into two sections, encrypting the side information within frames of the second section of the base layer, and encrypting at least a part of the data of the enhancement layer, wherein the encrypted section of the base layer and the encrypted enhancement layer require different decryption keys for decryption. Thus, free preview zones are possible to implement.