Showing papers by "Panasonic published in 1997"

Virtual LAN system

Abstract: A virtual LAN system forms a virtual group which is based on elements having physical attribute or logical attribute and constituting a virtual LAN, sets a client address and priority of the virtual group in a virtual group registration table, and allocates unicast and broadcast traffic bands in group units.

Surface of bacteriorhodopsin revealed by high-resolution electron crystallography

Abstract: Bacteriorhodopsin is a transmembrane protein that uses light energy, absorbed by its chromophore retinal, to pump protons from the cytoplasm of bacteria such as Halobacterium salinarium into the extracellular space. It is made up of seven alpha-helices, and in the bacterium forms natural, two-dimensional crystals called purple membranes. We have analysed these crystals by electron cryo-microscopy to obtain images of bacteriorhodopsin at 3.0 A resolution. The structure covers nearly all 248 amino acids, including loops outside the membrane, and reveals the distribution of charged residues on both sides of the membrane surface. In addition, analysis of the electron-potential map produced by this method allows the determination of the charge status of these residues. On the extracellular side, four glutamate residues surround the entrance to the proton channel, whereas on the cytoplasmic side, four aspartic acids occur in a plane at the boundary of the hydrophobic-hydrophilic interface. The negative charges produced by these aspartate residues is encircled by areas of positive charge that may facilitate accumulation and lateral movement of protons on this surface.

The three-dimensional structure of aquaporin-1

Abstract: The entry and exit of water from cells is a fundamental process of life. Recognition of the high water permeability of red blood cells led to the proposal that specialized water pores exist in the plasma membrane. Expression in Xenopus oocytes and functional studies of an erythrocyte integral membrane protein of relative molecular mass 28,000, identified it as the mercury-sensitive water channel, aquaporin-1 (AQP1). Many related proteins, all belonging to the major intrinsic protein (MIP) family, are found throughout nature. AQP1 is a homotetramer containing four independent aqueous channels. When reconstituted into lipid bilayers, the protein forms two-dimensional lattices with a unit cell containing two tetramers in opposite orientation. Here we present the three-dimensional structure of AQP1 determined at 6A resolution by cryo-electron microscopy. Each AQP1 monomer has six tilted, bilayer-spanning alpha-helices which form a right-handed bundle surrounding a central density. These results, together with functional studies, provide a model that identifies the aqueous pore in the AQP1 molecule and indicates the organization of the tetrameric complex in the membrane.

Document search and retrieval system with partial match searching of user-drawn annotations

Abstract: In summary there is disclosed a document browser for electronic filing systems, which supports pen-based markup and annotation. The user may electronically write notes (60-64) anywhere on a page (32, 38) and then later search for those notes using the approximate ink matching (AIM) technique. The technique segments (104) the user-drawn strokes, extracts (108) and vector quantizes (112) features contained in those strokes. An edit distance comparison technique (118) is used to query the database (120), rendering the system capable of performing approximate or partial matches to achieve fuzzy search capability.

Electronic news reception apparatus that selectively retains sections and searches by keyword or index for text to speech conversion

Abstract: An electronic news receiving device receives text data for an electronic edition of a newspaper in the evening and audibly reads the newspaper to the user the next day. The newsreader includes a receiver which receives an electronic edition of a newspaper transmitted by a transmitter at an electronic news preparer's facility. The news preparer may mark words that do not conform to conventional letter-to-sound rules with a pronunciation flag and provide pronunciation data for the words with the electronic edition of the newspaper. The data may be compressed by providing a dictionary in the news receiving device and, at the preparer's facility, translating each word into a dictionary address. The transmission channel may include a telephone line, the vertical blanking interval of a television signal, a cable television channel, an AM/FM subcarrier signal or a satellite channel. The received electronic edition of the newspaper is processed by a section filter to retain desired sections of the newspaper and to discard unwanted sections. The retained news articles are stored in memory. A text-to-speech converter produces an audible output corresponding to the spoken text of the news articles. A user can input one or more keywords to cause the device to selectively read articles containing the keywords. The text to speech converter of the device uses rules and a dictionary to provide syntactic and semantic prosody for morpheme reconstructions. The user may determine which articles are read and may vary the rate at which articles are read using manual controls or spoken commands.

Video user's environment

Abstract: The user communicates through a digitizing writing surface with the audio/video control apparatus. An on-screen display is generated, providing the user with a user environment in which a wide range of different tasks and functions can be performed. The digitizing writing surface can be incorporated into a hand-held remote control unit and the audio/video control apparatus may likewise be incorporated into existing home entertainment or computer equipment. By tapping on the writing surface a command bar is presented on the screen, allowing the user to select among various functions. Included in these functions is an on-screen programming feature, allowing the user to select programs for viewing or recording by entry of user-drawn annotations or commands via the writing surface.

Solid electrolytic capacitors comprising a conductive layer made of a polymer of pyrrole or its derivative

Abstract: A solid electrolytic capacitor is composed of a pair of electrodes and a dielectric film therebetween, wherein one electrode includes a conducting polymer doped with a polyvalent anion and a monovalent anion. The conducting polymer layer may have a multi-layer structure wherein a second or third conductive polymer layer is made of doped thiophene or derivative thereof.

Error correction device for a communication system

Abstract: The error correction device is provided with an internal code decoder which outputs a series of decoded data and reliability information of the decoded data, a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) decoder, a de-interleaver, an erasure position detector, and an external code decoder for decoding an external code by soft judgement. When the external code is decoded by the soft judgment, not only the series of decoded data of the internal code and their reliability information but also frame error information based on CRC are used as input signals. It is therefore possible to perform error correction with a high accuracy and to obtain low BER characteristics.

Method and apparatus for providing electronic program guide information from a single electronic program guide server

Abstract: A method and apparatus for requesting, receiving, processing, and providing information from a single source to a television viewer. An information provider is accessed via a communications link and specific data, which is separate and distinct from video signals received by the television receiver, is downloaded to the television receiver. The data provided by the information provider is database information with minimal formatting and does not contain any graphical overhead. Requests for information from the information provider may be on demand or at a predetermined time. The information provided may be filtered by the information provider and/or television receiver based on selected program categories and/or a user provided profile.

Caption and photo extraction from scanned document images

Abstract: The bitmap image data is analyzed by connected component extraction to identify components or connected components that represent either individual characters or letters, or regions of a nontext image The connected components are classified as text or nontext based on geometric attributes such as the number of holes, arcs and line ends comprising each component A nearest-neighbor analysis then identifies which text components represent lines or strings of text and each line or string is further analyzed to determine its vertical or horizontal orientation Thereafter, separate vertical and horizontal font height filters are used to identify those text strings that are the most likely candidates For the most likely title candidates a bounding box is defined which can be associated with or overlaid upon the original bitmap data to select the title region for further processing or display Captions and photographs can also be located

Exposure control system controlling a solid state image sensing device

Abstract: An exposure adjustment apparatus determines, based on the level of a signal of an object converted by a solid state image sensing device, whether the exposure time or the gain is to be decreased, increased or maintained, and controls the gain of an amplifier and the drive pulse to be generated by a drive pulse generator. Thereby, the output signal level is adjusted by controlling only the exposure time of the solid state image sensing device and the gain of the video signal resulting in a compact and vibration-resistant exposure control system which is inexpensive.

Liquid crystal display device and method of manufacturing backlighting light guide panel therefor

Abstract: A light guide panel and liquid crystal display device including a liquid crystal cell array, a light guide panel or plate disposed on a rear surface of the liquid crystal cell array, and a light source disposed at a lateral side of the light guide panel or plate. The light guide panel or plate has a light incident surface on which light rays emitted from the light source are incident, a light-transmissive surface through which the incident light rays exit the light guide panel or plate toward the liquid crystal cell array, and a plurality of reflecting slant portions for directing the incident light rays toward the light-transmissive surface, wherein the reflecting slant portions are constituted by convexes or concaves which are substantially rectangular in plan view and substantially trapezoidal in sectional view.

Multithreaded processor for processing multiple instruction streams independently of each other by flexibly controlling throughput in each instruction stream

Abstract: A multithreaded processor for executing multiple instruction streams is provided. This multithreaded processor includes: a plurality of functional units for executing instructions; a plurality of instruction decode units, corresponding to the multiple instruction streams on a one-to-one basis, for respectively decoding an instruction, and producing an instruction issue request for designating to which functional unit the decoded instruction should be issued and requesting for the issuance of the decoded instruction to the designated functional unit; a holding unit for holding the priority level of each instruction stream; and a control unit for deciding which decoded instruction should be issued to a functional unit designated by two or more instruction issue requests at the same time, in accordance with the priority levels held by the holding unit.

Optical disk for high resolution and three-dimensional video recording, optical disk reproduction apparatus and optical disk recording apparatus

Abstract: The present invention has an objective of providing an optical disk having a high resolution picture and a system for reproducing data on the optical disk, which are compatible with a conventional system for reproducing an ordinary resolution picture. A high resolution signal is divided into a main signal and a sub signal by picture division means and MPEG-encoded. The main signal and the sub signal are divided into frames each having 1 GOP or more. The resultant first interleave block 54 and second interleave block 55 are recorded alternately on an optical disk. A high resolution reproduction apparatus reproduced both the first and second interleave blocks, so that a high resolution picture is obtained. A non-high resolution reproduction apparatus reproduces only the first or second interleave block, so that an ordinary resolution picture.

Master information carrier, process for producing the carrier, and method and apparatus for recording master information signal on magnetic recording medium by using the carrier

Abstract: A master information carrier comprises a substrate whose surface has an embossed pattern corresponding to an information signal. At least a surface of the protruding portion of the embossed pattern is made of a ferromagnetic material. A method for writing an information signal into a sheet or disk magnetic record medium with a ferromagnetic thin film or coating is performed by putting the surface of the magnetic record medium into contact with the master information carrier so as to write a magnetized pattern corresponding to the embossed pattern of the master information carrier into the magnetic record medium.

Television receiver, recording and reproduction device, data recording method, and data reproducing method

Abstract: A television receiver comprises a tuner for receiving a television video signal; data storage means including a data storage unit for storing the video signal received by the tuner, for its storage capacity, a writing pointer for time-sequentially writing the video signal into the data storage unit, and a reading pointer for reading the stored video signal; select means for selecting and outputting one of the reproduced video signal output from the data storage means and the video signal received by the tuner; and control means for controlling the data storage means and the select means in response to an external input signal.

Speech synthesizing system and redundancy-reduced waveform database therefor

Abstract: A speech synthesizing system using a redundancy-reduced waveform database is disclosed. Each waveform of a sample set of voice segments necessary and sufficient for speech synthesis is divided into pitch waveforms, which are classified into groups of pitch waveforms closely similar to one another. One of the pitch waveforms of each group is selected as a representative of the group and is given a pitch waveform ID. The waveform database at least comprises a pitch waveform pointer table each record of which comprises a voice segment ID of each of the voice segments and pitch waveform IDs the pitch waveforms of which, when combined in the listed order, constitute a waveform identified by the voice segment ID and a pitch waveform table of pitch waveform IDs and corresponding pitch waveforms. This enables the waveform database size to be reduced. For each of pitch waveforms the database lacks, one of the pitch waveform IDs adjacent to the lacking pitch waveform ID in the pitch waveform pointer table is used without deforming the pitch waveform.

Method of forming interlayer insulating film

Abstract: A material containing, as a main component, an organic silicon compound represented by the following general formula: R.sup.1.sub.x Si(OR.sup.2).sub.4-x (where R 1 is a phenyl group or a vinyl group; R 2 is an alkyl group; and x is an integer of 1 to 3) is caused to undergo plasma polymerization or react with an oxidizing agent to form an interlayer insulating film composed of a silicon oxide film containing an organic component. As the organic silicon compound where R 1 is a phenyl group, there can be listed phenyltrimethoxysilane or diphenyldimethoxysilane. As the organic silicon compound where R 1 is a vinyl group, there can be listed vinyltrimethoxysilane or divinyldimethoxysilane.

Document retrieval system

Abstract: A document retrieval system for searching a document coinciding with a retrieval request the user inputs and further ranking the document in accordance with the degree of coincidence between the document and the retrieval request. In the document retrieval system, a word frequency calculating section finds out the number of documents where a word appears, a frequency of occurrence of the word in a document and obtains a weighting parameter for the word, and a frequency score calculating section obtains a frequency score on the basis of the output of the word frequency calculating section. In addition, a word cooccurrence relation checking section checks word cooccurrence relations of the retrieval request and the document, and a cooccurrence score calculating section calculates a cooccurrence score from the degree of coincidence therebetween. A document score calculating section calculates a document score on the basis of the frequency score and the cooccurrence score. The documents are ranked in order of document score and displayed to the user.

Multimedia optical disc storing both video titles provided with AV functions and video titles with no such functions which can instantly distinguish between such kinds of titles, and a reproduction apparatus and reproduction method for such disc

Abstract: A multimedia optical disc on which a variety of types of video titles are recorded and which enables a reproduction apparatus to instantly distinguish whether emulated AV functions may be performed for any of the titles. The multimedia optical disc includes a manager area which stores playback type information corresponding to the management information for each video title, with the playback type information including a first flag showing whether the present video title is expressed using one or a plurality of sets of route information and a second flag showing whether a title is expressed using any branch information.

Optical disk, method for recording and reproducing write-once information on and from optical disk, optical disk reproducing device, optical disk recording and reproducing device, device for recording write-once information on optical disk, and optical disk recording device

Abstract: An optical disk storing write-once information usable for protecting the copyright of the software by preventing the duplication, unauthorized use, etc., of the software. In the optical disk, a recording layer (213) is formed on a disk substrate (211) with a dielectric layer (212) inbetween. Then, an intermediate dielectric layer (214) and a reflecting layer (215) are successively laminated upon the recording layer (213), and an overcoat layer (216) is formed on the surface of the reflecting layer (215). A plurality of BCA (one of write-once identification information systems) sections (220a and 220b) are recorded in the circumferential direction of the disk on the recording layer (213). The sections (220a and 220b) are recorded by lowering the vertical magnetic anisotropy of the recording layer (213). At the time or reproduction, the write-once information is detected from differential signals.

An electronic part and a method of production thereof

Abstract: The present invention relates to an electronic part used for mobile communications apparatuses and the like, and more particularly to an electronic part, such as an acoustic surface-wave device, a piezoelectric ceramic device or the like, which requires an oscillation space near the surface of the functional device chip thereof, and a method of production thereof. With this method, a space retainer for forming a sealed space at the functional portion of the chip can be hermetically sealed and have high moisture resistance, and the process of forming the space retainer can be carried out easily. The electronic part of the present invention comprises a functional device chip, a space retainer for forming a sealed space at the functional portion of the chip, a circuit substrate to which the chip is secured, electrode interconnection portions for establishing electric connection between the chip and the circuit substrate, and a sealing resin for covering and sealing at least the space retainer, wherein the space retainer comprises a support layer made of a synthetic resin film, provided with an opening enclosing the functional portion and joined onto the main surface, and a cover formed and joined onto the support layer so as to cover the functional portion and form a sealed space between the cover and the functional portion.

High frequency ring gate MOSFET

Abstract: In an active area surrounded with an isolation formed on a silicon substrate, a large number of unit cells are disposed in a matrix, and the unit cell together form one MOSFET. Each of the unit includes a ring gate electrode in the shape of a regular octagon, a drain region and a source region formed at the inside and outside of the gate electrode, respectively, two gate withdrawn wires extending from the gate electrode to area above the isolation, a substrate contact portion in which the surface of the substrate is exposed, and contacts for electrically connecting these elements with wires. These elements such as the ring gate electrode and the gate withdrawn wires are formed so as to attain a high frequency characteristic as good as possible. Thus a MOSFET for use in a high frequency signal device, the high frequency characteristic such as the minimum noise figure and the maximum oscillation frequency in particular can be totally improved.

Hypertext document retrieving apparatus for retrieving hypertext documents relating to each other

Abstract: A hypertext document and anchor sentences of parent documents for the hypertext document are registered with an hypertext document identifier as document information for each of hypertext documents having reference relationships with each other. A user can refer to one hypertext document according to an anchor sentence of another hypertext document functioning as a parent document. Also, occurrence positions of one word in hypertext documents and parent documents are registered as word information for each of words. When a keyword is input, a plurality of particular hypertext documents and particular parent documents in which the keyword appears are specified according to the word information, one particular hypertext document and corresponding particular parent documents are unified to a unified hypertext document for each particular hypertext document, an occurrence frequency of the keyword in each unified hypertext document is calculated according to the document information, importance degrees of the unified hypertext documents are calculated as those of the particular hypertext documents according to the occurrence frequencies, and ranking of the particular hypertext documents are determined according to those importance degrees. Because the occurrence frequency is calculated by considering the parent documents, the particular hypertext documents can be appropriately ranked.

Variable frequency switching of synchronized interleaved switching converters

Abstract: The interleaved switching converter circuit of the present invention includes: a first and a second switching converter which are connected in parallel to each other; a first control driver for turning ON/OFF the first switching converter; a charger/discharger having a first and a second capacitor and alternately charging/discharging the first and the second capacitors, in response to the turn ON/OFF of the first switching converter; and a second control driver for turning ON/OFF the second switching converter in synchronism with an inversion of a difference between voltages of the first and the second capacitors.

FET having a Si/SiGeC heterojunction channel

Abstract: Si and SiGeC layers are formed in an NMOS transistor on a Si substrate. A carrier accumulation layer is formed with the use of a discontinuous portion of a conduction band present at the heterointerface between the SiGeC and Si layers. Electrons travel in this carrier accumulation layer serving as a channel. In the SiGeC layer, the electron mobility is greater than in silicon, thus increasing the NMOS transistor in operational speed. In a PMOS transistor, a channel in which positive holes travel, is formed with the use of a discontinuous portion of a valence band at the interface between the SiGe and Si layers. In the SiGe layer, too, the positive hole mobility is greater than in the Si layer, thus increasing the PMOS transistor in operational speed. There can be provided a semiconductor device having field-effect transistors having channels lessened in crystal defect.

Transmitter-receiver of three-dimensional skeleton structure motions and method thereof

Abstract: A transmitter-receiver of three-dimensional skeleton structure motions in which motion data of a skeleton structure in three-dimensional computer graphics (CG) is transmitted from a transmitting end to a receiving end and, based on the transmitted skeleton structure motion data, to create animation at the receiving end, the transmitter-receiver comprises (1) transmitting means for deciding either of transmitting formats: (a) the motion data of the skeleton structure is added to an initial information and then transmitted as time series data; and (b) the motion data of the skeleton structure is disassembled into element data characterizing the motions in three-dimensional virtual space and then transmitted as data in which the disassembled element data is accompanied by connection methods thereto, and then transmitting the initial information to which the motion data of the skeleton structure is added based on the decided transmission format, as CG animation data, the initial information including hierarchy data for defining hierarchical relationship of the skeleton structure, the initial state of the hierarchy data, constraint of the joints of skeletons, shape data to be attached to the skeletons, and data relative to the attachment to the skeleton structure; (2) transferring means for transferring the CG animation data from the transmitting end computer to the receiving end computer, using a transmitting program on the transmitting end computer and a receiving program on the receiving end computer; and (3) receiving means in which the CG animation data from the transferring means is received, the transmitting format of the received CG animation data is discriminated and, for the format (a), the initial information and the time series data is interpreted to decide the posture of the skeleton structure according to kinematics and, for the format (b), the initial information and the data in which the disassembled element data is accompanied by the connection methods thereto is interpreted to decide the posture of the skeleton structure according to kinematics.

Method and apparatus for preventing illegal copy or illegal installation of information of optical recording medium

Abstract: A recording and reproducing system for performing the reproduction using an optical recording medium. A physical feature of a ROM type disk is extracted and enciphered before being recorded in an optical disk. The cipher reproduced and converted into a plain text physical feature, which in turn, is compared with the physical feature information detected from the ROM disk. When both are coincident with each other, the operation of the system stops, thereby preventing the use of an illegally duplicated disk. The physical feature information, recorded on a magnetic recording layer 4 of the optical recording medium 2, is reproduced by an optical head 8 and compared with the information measured by a physical feature information detector, thereby detecting a duplicated medium.

Synchronous reproduction apparatus

Abstract: A synchronous reproduction apparatus for synchronously reproducing a video signal and an audio signal, receives a multiplexed bit stream in which the following data are packeted: video encoded data obtained by encoding video frames, each frame being a fundamental unit of reproduction of a video signal; video presentation time data showing a time to output a reproduced video signal of each video frame; audio encoded data obtained by encoding audio frames, each frame being a fundamental unit of reproduction of an audio signal; audio presentation time data showing a time to output a reproduced audio signal of each audio frame; and system time data