Abstract: A device to measure speed of a fluid in a pipe. An adjustment and a surface finish are accomplished between a fluid bearing and a hollow tube coupled with a turbine, with friction minimized to a point that it is possible to measure speeds of less than one cm/s which have hitherto been unexplored.

Abstract: A device for transfer of granular solid material between two chambers at different pressures. A piston type transfer pump device used in a horizontal position transfers granular material into the compression chamber by gravity and evacuates the material into the exhaust chamber at a higher pressure. Such a device may for example find an application for feeding a gasification reactor with biomass.

Abstract: A device to measure speed of a fluid in a pipe. An adjustment and a surface finish are accomplished between a fluid bearing and a hollow tube coupled with a turbine, with friction minimized to a point that it is possible to measure speeds of less than one cm/s which have hitherto been unexplored.

Abstract: An H-bridge circuit capable of performing switching using one or more intermediate voltage phases each held for a period of time in the midst of the switching operation. This reduces power dissipation associated with the switching operation, while only using one set of high/low voltage supplies. The H-bridge may be used to provide current via an inductor to a load. A class AB amplifier may be placed in parallel with the H-bridge to provide supplemental correcting current to the load to allow the combination to act as an efficient and accurate signal driver. Furthermore, the use of intermediate voltages in the H bridge allows for increased slew rates for any given operation frequency, and allows for the driving of a given signal on the load using a lower operational frequency.

Abstract: Echo cancelling in a communication line system, particularly an ISDN or XDSL system, is performed with a tunable hybrid having tunable passive elements. The tunable hybrid is integrated in the analog front-end portion of the communication line system. The values of the tunable passive elements are digitally controlled by a microprocessor.

Abstract: The invention concerns a time domain reflectometry method for estimating properties of a transmission channel, for instance a channel for transmitting electric or acoustic signals. This method includes the steps of generating, at one end of the channel, a plurality of pulses (40, 42, 44) covering differency frequency bands, and processing the echoes provided by these pulses at the same end of the channel. The frequency bands of the generated pulses are preferably overlapping. The invention is particularly applicable to the testing of ADSL services.

Abstract: To reduce the DC-offset in bursts (B1, B2) of a digital signal (S1), some samples of one of the digital bursts (B1) which have no predetermined value are averaged by an averager (AV) resulting in a correction value (CV). Meanwhile the samples of this digital burst (B1) are temporarily stored in a memory (MEM1). The DC-offset correction value (CV) calculated by the averager (AV) is then substracted from the samples of the digital bursts (B1, B2). In this way, the dynamic range of the samples is reduced significantly.

Abstract: To reduce the DC-offset in bursts (B1, B2) of a digital signal (S1), some samples of one of the digital bursts (B1) which have no predetermined value are averaged by an averager (AV) resulting in a correction value (CV). Meanwhile the samples of this digital burst (B1) are temporarily stored in a memory (MEM1). The DC-offset correction value (CV) calculated by the averager (AV) is then subtracted from the samples of the digital bursts (B1, B2). In this way, he dynamic range of the samples is reduced significantly.

Abstract: Echo cancelling in a communication line system, particularly an ISDN or XDSL system, is performed by means of a tunable hybrid (5) which comprises tunable passive elements and is integrated in the analog part of the front end (3), whereby the values of the tunable passive elements are controlled by digital control means (4), for example a microprocessor.

Abstract: A layered capacitor device with high capacitance per unit area is realized by alternating in the vertical direction first layers (FL1, FL2, FL3, FL4, FL5) and second layers (SL1, SL2, SL3, SL4). A first layer (FL2) consists of horizontally alternating electrically conducting tracks (T2,2; T2,3) and electrically insulating tracks, whereas a second layer includes of electrically insulating material, e.g. an oxide. In this way top-bottom capacitors (CTB) and side-wall capacitors (CSW) are constituted that are parallel coupled to form the layered capacitor device. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, this parallel coupling is realized by conductively interconnecting diagonally neighboring electrically conducting tracks (T1,2; T2,3).

Abstract: The invention relates to apparatus for presenting and orienting a box (B) in order to enable articles to be removed or stored. The apparatus is characterized by the fact that it comprises a pair of parallel hinged arms (4) which are extended by a pivoting box support (5), the hinged arms (4) being movable both ways between a low position and a high position, in both of which positions the support (5) is substantially horizontal, thereby enabling the box (B) to be placed on the support (5) or to be removed therefrom, the arms moving via an intermediate position in which the support (5) is inclined relative to the horizontal and facilitates access to the inside of the box (B) to remove said articles or to put them into place.

Abstract: The invention relates to an optical transmission system that implements encrypting of an information carrying signal by deterministic chaos. The system includes a transmitter (1), a receiver (4), and one transmission channel coupled between the transmitter (1) and the receiver (4). The transmitter (1) includes a deterministic chaos generator (3) coupled to an encoding system (2). The deterministic chaos generator (3) includes a wavelength tunable laser-emitting diode (33) and a feedback loop (34). The active layer of laser diode (33) is offset controlled by a laser signal passed through a non-linear optical element (32) and a delay line (31). The receiver (4) has a deterministic chaos generator (7) coupled to a synchronizer (6) and a decoder coupled to the synchronizer (6). Preferably, chaos generator (3) is the same as chaos generator (7). Other features are disclosed.

Abstract: The sensing circuit is used in an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) transmission system to detect a wave signal with a predetermined shape in an input signal (IN1/IN2) transmitted over the system and applied to an input terminal (IN1/IN2) of the sensing circuit. It includes two branches with a correlated double sampling circuit (CDS1/CDS2), a counter circuit (C1/C2) and a comparator circuit (CMP1/CMP2) coupled in series. An input (IN1/IN2) of the correlated double sampling circuit of each branch is coupled to the input of the sensing circuit and an output of the comparator circuits is coupled to an output terminal (OUT) of the sensing circuit via an OR-ing circuit. The correlated double sampling circuits are adapted to provide a sampled signal and the counter circuits count the number of pulses of the sampled signals.

Abstract: A differential mixer (DM) used in a telecommunication radio transmitter able to operate with a 3 Volt supply includes a silicon bipolar cross-connected pair of differential amplifiers (A; B) for receiving a first input voltage (LO) at a high frequency, a pair of current sources (I1; I2), and a voltage-to-current MOS converter (VIC) for receiving a second input voltage (VIN) at a lower frequency. The converter is adapted to convert the low frequency voltage to a differential current (INN) and is coupled to the junction points of the amplifiers and the current sources. The converter further includes a regulated differential cascode circuit (P1; P2) to which the low frequency input voltage (VIN) is applied via resistors (RI1; RI2) and which is coupled to the supply terminals (VCC; GND) of the mixer via two pairs of constant current sources (PB1, PB2; NB1, NB2) respectively.