Abstract: The invention discloses a data storage system and a control method thereof. The data storage system according to the invention includes N groups of storage devices, where N is an integer larger than 1. The invention is to judge if the use information of one of the batches of data satisfies the set of condition thresholds relative to the group of storage devices where said one batch of data is stored, and if NO, to re-allocate said one batch of data to one of the group of storage devices whose condition thresholds are satisfied by the use information of said one batch of data and to update the virtual drive locations of said one batch of data mapping the logical locations of the storage devices.

Abstract: An adjustable wrench includes a fixed jaw, a movable jaw, and a handle. The fixed jaw includes a chamber and a hole defined therein. An adjusting mechanism and an abutting mechanism are disposed in the chamber. The adjusting mechanism includes a worm gear and a fixing member. The abutting mechanism includes an abutting member. The handle is pivotally fixed to the fixed jaw. The adjustable wrench is operable in a first direction wrenching an object and including the worm gear stopped from moving along the fixing member by the abutting member fixedly abuts against the worm gear. The adjustable wrench is operable in a second direction moving relative to the object and including the worm gear adapted to be moved with respect to the fixing member and including the movable jaw moving with respect to the fixed jaw and including the abutting member not fixedly abutted against the worm gear.

Abstract: The disclosure provides an electronic device and a detecting position method adapted for the electronic device. The device stores an infrared sensing mode and a capture mode. The method includes steps of: entering the infrared sensing mode in response to an input signal and capturing infrared signals from an external environment, amplifying the infrared signals and converting the infrared signals into digital signals, evaluating whether part of the infrared signals falls into a predetermined waveband, if yes, focusing on an infrared thermal source whose infrared signals fall into the predetermined waveband, switching from the infrared sensing mode to the capture mode, taking a photo of the infrared thermal source, and processing the photo to identify a position of the infrared thermal source in the photo and displaying the position of the infrared thermal source in the photo.

Abstract: The disclosure provides an emergency message transmission method and an electronic device implementing the method. The electronic device stores a reference voltage value and comprises a smoke assessing unit. The method includes steps: capturing air composition around the electronic device, assessing whether the air composition has changed, if the air composition has changed, detecting an electrical current of the smoke assessing unit, amplifying the electrical current and converting the amplified current to a voltage value, comparing the converted voltage value with the reference voltage value, judging whether the converted voltage value reaches the reference voltage value, and if the converted voltage value reaches the reference voltage value, outputting a signal including an emergency message.

Abstract: For sample adaptive offset, classification may be used to classify the pixels into multiple categories and pixels in each category are offset compensated using an offset value for the category. The classification may be based on values of the current pixel and its neighboring pixels before SAO compensation. Therefore, the SAO compensated pixel cannot be written back to the current pixel location until the category for all pixels are determined. An embodiment of the present invention stores the relation between the current pixel and said one or more neighboring pixels so that the SAO compensated current pixel can replace the current pixel without buffering the to-be-processed pixels for classification. The SAO process may be performed on a region by region basis to adapt to the local characteristics of the picture. Rate-distortion optimization (RDO) is often used to guide the mode decision, such as region splitting/region merging decision.

Abstract: A light control signal generating circuit includes a photosensitive element, two transistors, and four resistances. A first resistance and the photosensitive element are connected in series between a power voltage terminal and a ground terminal. A base electrode of a first transistor is connected to a node between the first resistance and the photosensitive element, a collecting electrode is connected to the power voltage terminal through a second resistance, and an emitting electrode is connected to the ground terminal through a third resistance. A base electrode of a second transistor is connected to a node between the second resistance and the first transistor, a collecting electrode is connected to the power voltage terminal through a fourth resistance, and an emitting electrode is connected to the ground terminal through the third resistance. An output terminal is formed from a node between the fourth resistance and the second transistor.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for sample adaptive offset to restore intensity shift of processed video data are described. In a video coding system, the video data are subject to various processing such as prediction, transformation, quantization, deblocking, and adaptive loop filtering. Along the processing path in the video coding system, certain characteristics of the processed video data may be altered from the original video data due to the operations applied to video data. For example, the mean value of the processed video may be shifted. Therefore, the pixel intensity shift has to be carefully compensated or restored to alleviate the artifacts. Accordingly a sample adaptive offset scheme is disclosed that can take into consideration of the dynamic characteristics within a frame using a region partition scheme. Furthermore, the sample adaptive offset scheme also supports multiple SAO types that can be tailored to the characteristics of processed video data and achieve better quality.

Abstract: A ratchet wrench includes a driving end including a ratchet member, two pawls releasably and selectively engaging with the ratchet member for setting the ratchet wrench in two operation modes, and a switching mechanism disposed between the pawls. The switching mechanism includes limits urging the respective pawls such that one limit engages with one pawl to urge it to disengage from the ratchet member while the other limit disengages from the other pawl to allow it to engage with the ratchet member in one operation mode, and the other limit engages with the other pawl to urge it to disengage from the ratchet member while the one limit disengages from the one pawl to allow it to engage with the ratchet member in another operation mode. Additionally, the pawls are prevented from being mis-shifted by the switching mechanism.

Abstract: An electronic baby monitoring device includes a sensor monitor and a motion sensor. The motion sensor communicates with the sensor monitor and includes an accelerometer, a control module, an emitting module, a power source, and a switch. The accelerometer senses the acceleration value of the motion sensor. When the control module determines that at least two acceleration values sensed continuously by the accelerometer respectively reach or exceed a predetermined value, the control module turns on the switch to control the power source to provide power to the emitting module, generates control signals, and controls the emitting module to emit the control signals to the sensor monitor to direct the sensor monitor to take action.

Abstract: An angle-adjustable auxiliary vehicle mirror includes a base and a mirror. The base has a concave rest with a threaded hole. The mirror fits in a concave chamber of the base, with an auxiliary lens combined on top, having an arc-shaped convex formed at the bottom to engage with the concave rest. An opening is bored in the arc-shaped convex. A washer with a through hole is put on the arc-shaped convex. A screw is orderly inserted through the through hole and the opening to engage with the threaded hole to keep the mirror positioned, with the arc-shaped convex contacting with the concave rest. With the screw not tightly engaged with the mirror, the arc-shaped convex can axially slide on the concave rest to alter the angle of the mirror.

Abstract: A display apparatus and a method for locking and unlocking a touch-sensitive screen are provided. A user interface is provided on the display apparatus for a user to set at least two types of passwords. At least two types of passwords displayed on the user interface are stored when input of the at least two types of passwords ends. The touch-sensitive screen is locked according to any one of the at least two stored types of passwords. The touch-sensitive screen is unlocked if an input password matches any one of the at least two types of passwords.

Abstract: A touch-sensitive device includes a transparent substrate, a decorative layer, and a touch-sensing electrode layer. The decorative layer is disposed on the transparent substrate, and a notch is formed on the decorative layer at a position substantially coinciding with a distribution area of an icon formed on a non-screen area. The touch-sensing electrode layer includes a plurality of first transparent electrodes, second transparent electrodes and connecting lines. Each connecting line connects two adjacent first transparent electrodes or two adjacent second transparent electrodes and does not overlap a periphery of the notch.

Abstract: Techniques for controlling current flow in semiconductor devices, such as LEDs are provided. For some embodiments, a current-guiding structure may be provided including adjacent high and low contact areas. For some embodiments, a second current path (in addition to a current path between an n-contact pad and a substrate) may be provided. For some embodiments, both a current-guiding structure and second current path may be provided.

Abstract: A system and method of rendering a graphical user interface for a media based device which employs techniques for layering graphical elements. The method includes providing a background layer for the graphical user interface and graphical layers over the background layer. The method also superimposing an opaque view over a portion of the translucent graphic layer and marking the opaque view as opaque so that the portion of the translucent layer is not redrawn when the content in the opaque view is altered.

Abstract: A system for compensating the characteristics of a fan, applied to a heat-dissipating fan of an electronic device. This system comprises of an analyzing module for analyzing the relation between the duty ratio of pulse width modulation (PWM) and the rotational speed of the fan to generate analyzing data, and a compensating module for generating compensating data basing on the analyzing data and a specific proportion relation between the temperature and the duty ratio of PWM.

Abstract: A touch panel and a touch display panel having the same are provided. The touch panel includes a cover plate, a decoration layer, a plurality of first sensing series, a plurality of second sensing series, and a plurality of third sensing series. The cover plate has a display area and a non-display area surrounding the display area. The decoration layer is disposed on the non-display area of the cover plate. Each of the first sensing series includes a plurality of first sensing pads, a plurality of display-area first bridge lines, and a plurality of non display-area first bridge lines. The display-area first bridge lines bridge the first sensing pads located in the display area in a first direction. The non display-area first bridge lines bridge the first sensing pads located in the non-display area in the first direction, wherein the material of the non display-area first bridge lines is metal.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for encoding a video sequence comprising a plurality of pictures are disclosed. In video coding systems, the temporal redundancy is exploited using motion compensated prediction. The video sequence is often organized into multiple GOP (group of pictures) where different types of GOP may be used. In conventional coding systems, IPPP and IBBP GOP structure is often used. In H.264/AVC and the emerging High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), hierarchical GOP structure, including hierarchical P GOP structure and hierarchical B GOP structure, has been introduced to allow temporal scalability. Furthermore, low-delay IBBB GOP structure has been also introduced, for low-delay application. In the present invention, a low-delay hierarchical B GOP structure is disclosed. The new structure uses low-delay B-pictures only so as to minimize the processing delay while the hierarchical structure provides the temporal scalability.

Abstract: A glucanase having increased enzyme activity and thermostability is disclosed. The glucanase comprises a modified amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2, wherein valine at position 18 is substituted with tyrosine and tryptophan at position 203 is substituted with tyrosine.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for determining a motion vector predictor (MVP) or a MVP candidate based on a MVP set are disclosed. In video coding systems, the spatial and temporal redundancy is exploited using spatial and temporal prediction to reduce the video data to be transmitted or stored. Motion vector prediction has been used to further conserve the bitrate associated with motion vector coding. Motion vector prediction technique being developed for the current high efficiency video coding (HEVC) only uses a MVP candidate set including spatial MVP candidates and a temporal candidate corresponding to the co-located block. In the current disclosure, the spatial and temporal motion vector predictor set is extended to include at least one spatially neighboring block associated with list 0 reference pictures and list 1 reference pictures, and co-located block and its neighboring block associated with list 0 reference pictures and list 1 reference pictures.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for deriving a temporal motion vector predictor (MVP) are disclosed. The MVP is derived for a current block of a current picture in Inter, or Merge, or Skip mode based on co-located reference blocks of a co-located block. The co-located reference blocks comprise an above-left reference block of the bottom-right neighboring block of the co-located block. The reference motion vectors associated with the co-located reference blocks are received and used to derive the temporal MVP. Various configurations of co-located reference blocks can be used to practice the present invention. If the MVP cannot be found based on the above-left reference block, search for the MVP can be continued based on other co-located reference blocks. When an MVP is found, the MVP is checked against the previously found MVP. If the MVP is the same as the previously found MVP, the search for MVP continues.