Abstract: The invention provides isolated nucleic acids molecules, designated 14715 nucleic acid molecules, which encode novel fringe family members. The invention also provides antisense nucleic acid molecules, recombinant expression vectors containing 14715 nucleic acid molecules, host cells into which the expression vectors have been introduced, and nonhuman transgenic animals in which a 14715 gene has been introduced or disrupted. The invention still further provides isolated 14715 proteins, fusion proteins, antigenic peptides and anti-14715 antibodies. Diagnostic and therapeutic methods utilizing compositions of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: The invention provides isolated nucleic acids molecules, designated 14715 nucleic acid molecules, which encode novel fringe family members. The invention also provides antisense nucleic acid molecules, recombinant expression vectors containing 14715 nucleic acid molecules, host cells into which the expression vectors have been introduced, and nonhuman transgenic animals in which a 14715 gene has been introduced or disrupted. The invention still further provides isolated 14715 proteins, fusion proteins, antigenic peptides and anti-14715 antibodies. Diagnostic and therapeutic methods utilizing compositions of the invention are also provided.

Abstract: A dental care kit for simulating a visit of a fictional tooth fairy and instructing a child of the importance of proper dental care. The inventive kit includes a storage chest containing a plurality of envelopes, magical fairy dust contained within a fairy dust container, an ink pad, left and right foot stamps, a coin bag, and a plurality of written notes. A method of utilizing the kit includes placing a deciduous tooth within one of the envelopes and underneath a pillow of the child's sleeping accommodations. After the child falls asleep, a parent of the child removes the tooth in the envelope for storage within the chest, sprinkles the magical fairy dust around and about the child, utilizes the left and right foot stamps and ink pad to place footprints on or about the child, places an amount of money within the coin bag underneath the pillow, and leaves one of the written notes underneath the pillow along with the coin bag.

Abstract: Improved apparatus and method for encoding and decoding information is disclosed herein. The invention uses the same marker segment information to engage an encoder or a decoder. The technique eliminates many of the complexities associated with building parameter lists, and generating various types of marker segments in a form compatible with both the decode and encode processing.

Abstract: A system is described for reformatting halftone data for compression, wherein an original bilevel image is reformatted to produce another bilevel image that allows vertical correlations to be recognized by the compression technique, thus improving compressibility dramatically, with particular suitability for facsimile transmissions. In reformatting it is assumed that a selected halftone frequency H will satisfactorily describe an entire document, and each of successive sets of H consecutive lines are concatenated to form respective single lines. The thus reformatted lines have a clearer halftone periodicity offering greater correlation and permit more efficient coding by well-known standard bilevel compression algorithms (e.g., CCITT G3 (MR) or GF4 (MMR)). For an image with unknown pattern frequency, a technique for readily estimating the frequency for use in reformating the image is described.

Abstract: A method for encoding and decoding digital image data, includes the steps of: testing the data for a vertical relationship between adjacent lines of the image; generating directly a reference code word representative of the vertical relationship for each successful test; generating by table lookup a run code word for a stream of data bits of common value for each unsuccessful test whereby a data element representing a number of bits in a code word is stored at a predetermined offset from a table entry for the code word; merging the vertical reference code words and the run code words generated by the above steps to form an encoded data stream; testing the encoded data stream for a reference code; decoding directly the vertical relationship from the reference code for each successful test; decoding by table lookup a run of bits of common value by serial examination of said encoded data stream for each unsuccessful test; and storing data decoded by the above steps in a predetermined relationship.

Abstract: The method according to the present invention enlarges a binary digital image by a method comprising the steps of: storing the rows of the image as a plurality of run end representations, in which a row is represented as a sequence of values giving the white and black run ends; enlarging each row of the image along the horizontal axis by altering the value of each run end representation to achieve enlargement on the horizontal axis by a factor F1; enlarging the image along the vertical axis by interpolating rows between the lines of the partially enlarged image so as to produce enlargement along the vertical axis by a factor F2; storing the enlarged size image generated by the above steps in run end form. An image enlarged by the method of the present invention may be reduced by the simple technique of dividing the image into blocks of pixels and assigning one pixel in a reduced image for each block of pixels in the larger image.

Abstract: A system for formatting electronic binary image data, which may be in compressed raster form, into transposed or rotated raster form for storage or output, such as on a printing device, is disclosed wherein the image data is first assembled in a buffer in the form of vectors of run ends representing successive raster scan lines of an original image to be reproduced. The elements of an intermediate buffer are initialized to zero and the data is entered into the intermediate buffer by using each run end to set a bit in the intermediate buffer, with the bits being set in the buffer elements in correspondence with the respective raster positions of the run ends. The elements of the intermediate buffer containing the entered electronic data are then combined, such as by EXCLUSIVE-ORing, to create transposed or rotated raster data, which may stored or input to a suitable output device, such as a printer or display.

Abstract: A method for encoding and decoding digital image data, includes the steps of: testing the data for a vertical relationship between adjacent lines of the image; generating directly a reference code word representative of the vertical relationship for each successful test; generating by table lookup a run code word for a stream of data bits of common value for each unsuccessful test whereby a data element representing a number of bits in a code word is stored at a predetermined offset from a table entry for the code word; merging the vertical reference code words and the run code words generated by the above steps to form an encoded data stream; testing the encoded data stream for a reference code; decoding directly the vertical relationship from the reference code for each successful test; decoding by table lookup a run of bits of common value by serial examination of said encoded data stream for each unsuccessful test; and storing data decoded by the above steps in a predetermined relationship.

Abstract: A binary image is reduced in size by a method including the steps of: storing the image in bit sequence; dividing the image into transposable blocks; transposing by look up table, for each block having any nonzero data, each group of 6 bits along a first axis to a group of 5 bits; transposing by look up table, for each block having any nonzero data, each group of 6 bits along a second axis to a group of 5 bits; storing said transposed blocks.

Abstract: A method for rotation of a binary image by 180 degrees, includes the steps of: positioning first and second address pointers at the center of at the beginning and end respectively of an image to be rotated; indexing the first pointer in a first direction through said image; indexing the second pointer in a second direction through said image; exchanging, for each index step, a first image word at the first pointer with a second image word, at the second pointer if the first image word and the second image word have any two bits with different values; reversing all exchanged words; storing the reversed, exchanged words at said pointer locations; repeating the above steps until the first pointer and the second pointer have been indexed through all words in the image at which point the image has been rotated by 180 degrees.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for converting an image in run representation form into a raster image which is rotated by some multiple of 90.degree. from the orientation of the original image is disclosed wherein the original image data which is stored in run end or run length form may be divided and stored in discontiguous blocks. In implementing a 90.degree. rotation, the image data is conceptually divided into vertical strips, each of which is independently rotated to create a horizontal strip of the output image. The rotation process is carried out by firstly converting the run representation image data to raster form, dividing the data in each row among a number of intermediate buffers, each of which contains the data from one vertical strip of the original image. The contents of each buffer are rotated and rearranged in an available buffer to form a horizontal strip of the rotated image ready for raster readout. Similarly, a convenient method of rotating the input image 180.degree.

Abstract: The method of the present invention reduces a binary digital image in size by a factor F by a method including the steps of: storing the image in bit sequence; removing one or more rows of bits along the vertical axis of the image to convert i rows of bits to j rows of bits where 0.5i.ltoreq.j<i; modifying a line adjacent to each line discarded to preserve selected information from the discarded line; repeating the steps of removing and modifying a predetermined number of times to achieve a reduction by a factor F1 along the vertical axis; rotating the image in a first direction by ninety degrees; removing one or more rows of bits along the original horizontal axis of the image to convert i rows of bits to j rows of bits where 0.5i.ltoreq.

Abstract: A method for converting an image from a bit map to a run end or run length representation includes the steps of: storing the image as a bit map representation; accessing for each byte in an image by a look-up table a selected routine, corresponding to such byte, from a number of routines for converting bit strings to run representations, wherein the look-up table accessed is selected in accordance with a color value of a preceding pixel binary bit; and executing the selected routine on the current byte to convert the bit string to a run representation; storing in a run representation buffer, as a count value, each run representation; repeating the above steps of accessing and executing for each byte and storing for each run of continuous color to the end of the image.

Abstract: A method for rotating an image by 90 degrees includes the steps of: storing the image in a raster format arranged in r rows by c columns, image information in each row being stored in a number of bytes, each byte having b bits, there being c/b bytes in each row of the raster format; moving a block of the image into a temporary storage, there being r rows by v columns in the block; separating each image block into groups of bytes of rotatable size; determining for each group if all bits are the same value; rotating each group that does not have all bits the same value; storing each rotated group in an output area of the raster storage; repeating the above steps for all remaining blocks of the image.

Abstract: A method for converting an image from a bit map to a run end or run length representation includes the steps of: storing said image as a bit map representation; initializing all variables to be used in the conversion process; converting by table lookup, each run of continuous color to a run representation, storing, in a run representation buffer, as a count value, each run representation; repeating the steps of converting and storing for each run of continuous color to the end of the image.

Abstract: A method for converting an image from a run representation to a bit map, includes the steps of: storing a plurality of run representations of an image in a buffer; initializing a line of data; converting, by table lookup, each run representation, in said line, to a picture element representation, storing said picture element representation of said line; repeating the steps of initializing, converting and storing for remaining run representations until said image has been converted to a bit map representation.

Abstract: A method for expanding a binary image includes the steps of: storing the image in bit sequence; inserting for each string of 5 bits along a first axis one or more expansion bits, to convert each said string of 5 bits to a string of 6 bits; assigning a value to each expansion bit generated by the above step; inserting one or more rows of expansion bits for each 5 rows of bits along a second axis of the image to convert each 5 rows of bits to 6 rows of bits along the second axis of the image; assigning a value to each expansion bit generated by the above steps; storing the enlarged image generated by the above steps.