Abstract: A transparent portable warming device to insure normothermia during medical transport, particularly for transporting pediatric patients and infants is disclosed. The warming device includes a one or more layers of a thin, flexible, transparent material. A heating element includes a parallel circuit of resistive wires controlled by a battery-powered power controller. The controller maintains the temperature of the blanket at a predetermined temperature level for periods of time suitable for transporting patients. In one embodiment, the resistive wires are nichrome, and the flexible material comprises polyvinylchloride. The system can be powered by a lightweight twelve volt battery.

Abstract: A combustion systems and components for rotary ramjet engines. An injection system, optionally stratified for ease of engine startup, provides an air and fuel mixture to a combustion chamber. An ignition system ignites the mixture. A flameholding system may be positioned for communication with the combustion chamber to force an ignited flow of the air and fuel mixture toward a center of rotation within the ramjet engine. The ramjet engine may have a diverging stator for improved exhaust efficiency. The ignition may take place in the engine air intake. Alternatively, the ignition may take place within the combustion chamber using a dual-hub electrically charged system. An impulse turbine may use recirculation of injected fuel to cool a rim-rotor and/or to reduce windage on the rim-rotor. A sealing system may reduce gas leaks from a fuel conduit into the engine air intake.

Abstract: The present disclosure introduces a rotor assembly having a concentric arrangement comprising a rotating turbine portion, a cooling channel and an annular reinforcement wall. The concentric arrangement is configured to rotate around a common axis. Also introduced is a rotary engine comprising the rotor assembly, in which the cooling channel further functions as a rotating compressor portion.

Abstract: A method (50) for detecting broadcast signals, transmitted by terrestrial sources (40) and received by a satellite (20), in individual signals obtained respectively from different individual antennas (24) of an antenna array (22) of the satellite, includes a first detection iteration (51a) and a second detection iteration (51b), each of the first and second detection iterations including a step (52) of forming, from the individual signals, virtual beams of different respective main radiation directions, and a step of searching for the presence of broadcast signals in the virtual beams. Furthermore, for at least one broadcast signal detected during the first detection iteration, the respective contributions of the at least one detected broadcast signal to the different individual signals are attenuated, relative to the first detection iteration, for all or part of the virtual beams formed during the second detection iteration. A system (10) for detecting broadcast signals is also described.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of filtering an input image using a target oriented filter pattern, which has been obtained by warping a source oriented filter pattern. Such a method comprises a step of computing a source oriented filter pattern at a central image point of said input image, said source oriented filter pattern comprising a source central line, a step of analyzing intensity levels of image points in the vicinity of the central image point for determining a target central line and a step of computing a target oriented filter pattern at the central image point from said target central line and said source oriented filter pattern by defining transformation rules between points of the source and points of the target oriented filter patterns. The method in accordance with the invention finally comprises a step of computing a target oriented filter from said target oriented filter pattern and of applying said target oriented filter to said input image for producing an output image.

Abstract: A modified Laplacian-pyramid method and system filters (340-360, 440-460) the Gaussian image at each level (31-33, 41-43) of the pyramid, and uses the filtered Gaussian image (341-361, 441-461) to produce the Laplacian-pyramid images (349-369, 449-469). The filtering of the Gaussian image is adaptive, and based at least in part on the characteristics of the Gaussian image at each stage. In one example embodiment, two filters (F1, F2) are used at each stage, and the Laplacian image (349-369) is based on a filtered version of the Gaussian image and an upsampled filtered version of a downsampling (346-366) of the Gaussian image. In another example, filter is used, and the Laplacian image (449-469) is based on the filtered version (441-461) of the Gaussian image and an upsampled downsampling (446-466) of the filtered version of the Gaussian image.

Abstract: The invention relates to an image processing system for reduction of the noise and enhancement of edges in images of a sequence, comprising means of decomposition of spatial image signal yielding slices of different content; means of temporal filtering for differently filtering the slices according to the content; and means of recomposition of the images of the sequence from the temporally filtered slices. The decomposition may be performed using means of pyramidal decomposition. The means of temporal filtering may comprise motion compensation and/or recursive adaptive filtering. This system may further comprise imaging means for displaying the images of the sequence. The invention further relates to a medical examination apparatus coupled to this system.