What is claimed is:
1. A sensor using radiation pulses, said sensor comprising:
an emitting device for emitting radiation pulses repeatedly; and
a receiving device for receiving said radiation pulses, said receiving device including converting means having an output line for converting the received radiation pulses into electrical pulses;
said receiving device including pulse judging means for judging whether an electrical pulse appearing on said output line of said converting means is a true electrical pulse caused by receiving the radiation pulses emitted from said emitting device or a false electrical pulse caused by noise on the basis of a known waveform characteristic of said true electrical pulse;
said receiving device generating an output signal on the basis of result of judging by said pulse judging means.
2. The sensor of claim 1 wherein said known waveform characteristic comprises standard values on the waveform of said true electrical pulse at two or more standard times.
3. The sensor of claim 1 wherein said known waveform characteristic comprises standard values on a waveform obtained by differentiating the waveform of said true electrical pulse at two or more standard times.
4. The sensor of claim 2 wherein said standard times corresponds to peaks on the waveform of said true electrical pulse.
5. The sensor of claim 4 wherein said standard times include both one corresponding to a peak with positive polarity and another corresponding to a peak with negative polarity.
6. The sensor of claim 2 wherein said pulse judging means comprises:
two or more comparators each for comparing signal level appearing on said output line of said converting means by a standard value corresponding to said true electrical pulse;
delay means for delaying an output of one of said comparators such that the outputs from said comparators are adjusted in time such that the standard times associated with said outputs match; and
logical calculation means for carrying out logical calculation on the time-adjusted outputs from said comparators.
7. The sensor of claim 1 wherein said radiation pulse is light pulse.
8. A sensor using radiation pulses, said sensor comprising:
an emitting device for emitting radiation pulses repeatedly; and
a receiving device for receiving said radiation pulses, said receiving device including converting means having an output line for converting the received radiation pulses into electrical pulses;
said emitting device including pulse transmitting means for transmitting said radiation pulse according to a specified bit pattern;
said receiving device including:
pulse judging means for judging whether an electrical pulse appearing on said output line of said converting means is a true electrical pulse caused by receiving the radiation pulse emitted from said emitting device or a false electrical pulse caused by noise on the basis of a known waveform characteristic of said true electrical pulse; and
bit pattern judging means for making a comparison between the bit pattern of electrical pulse judged by said pulse judging means to be a true electrical pulse and a standard bit pattern and judging according to result of said comparison whether radiation pulse was normally received;
said receiving device generating an output signal on the basis of result of judging by said bit pattern judging means.
9. The sensor of claim 8 wherein said bit pattern judging means simultaneously compares the bit pattern of said electrical pulse appearing on said output line of said converting means with two or more preselected standard bit patterns with different phases, said sensor thereby judging whether said radiation pulse was normally received.
10. The sensor of claim 8 wherein said bit pattern judging means makes said comparison with redundancy.
11. The sensor of claim 8 wherein said radiation pulse is light pulse.
12. A photoelectric sensor comprising:
an emitting device for emitting light pulses repeatedly; and
a receiving device for receiving said light pulses, said receiving device including converting means having an output line for converting the received light pulses into electrical pulses;
said emitting device including pulse transmitting means for transmitting said light pulses according to an emission bit pattern based on arrangement of bits each indicating emission and non-emission of light, respectively;
said receiving device including:
bit generating means for generating light indicating bits each indicative of whether or not an electrical pulse appeared on said output line of said converting means; and
bit pattern judging means for making a comparison between a received bit pattern based on said light indicating bits and a standard bit pattern based on said emission bit pattern and judging from the result of said comparison whether a light pulse emitted from said emitting device has been normally received;
said photoelectric sensor generating an output signal on the basis of result of judging by said bit pattern judging means.
13. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said emission bit pattern is one of a plurality of preliminarily prepared emission bit patterns each having a different arrangement of said bits indicating emission and non-emission of light.
14. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said emitting device further includes means for generating randomly said emission bit pattern.
15. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said emission bit pattern arranges said bits indicating emission and non-emission of light in maximal-length sequence.
16. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said bit pattern judging means compares said received bit pattern simultaneously with two or more standard bit patterns.
17. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said bit pattern judging means makes said comparison with redundancy.
18. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein said emission bit pattern includes at least two bits in a row indicating emission.
19. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein the number of bits in said emission bit pattern is variable.
20. The photoelectric sensor of claim 12 wherein the length of bit in said emission bit pattern is variable.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method for automated credibility management, the method comprising:
providing an application to a particular entity for installation on a network enabled device of the particular entity;
continually receiving over the Internet from a plurality of online sites at a credibility management system machine, reviews and ratings about experiences and accounts of others with the particular entity, the machine comprising a microprocessor and memory storing at least one threshold, wherein the microprocessor
updates a score quantifying credibility of the particular entity based on sentiment expressed in said reviews and ratings;
monitors the score in relation to a threshold as said score changes because of said updates;
generates an alert in response to a change in the score causing said score to pass the threshold;
transmits the alert over the Internet to the network enabled device, wherein the alert activates the application to display on the network enabled device a notification that credibility of the particular entity has passed the threshold.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising continually receiving over the Internet from a plurality of online sites at the credibility management system machine, reviews and ratings about experiences and accounts of others with a subset of entities that are related to the particular entity according to a specified filter.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor further identifies a positively reviewed or rated business practice in the reviews and ratings directed to the subset of entities.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the alert further presents the positively reviewed or rated business practice as a suggested business practice for improving the particular entity credibility score.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving a set of filters provided by the particular entity using the application to the credibility management system machine, wherein the set of filters specify at least one of an operational industry and geographic region.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the microprocessor further filters a subset of entities from a plurality of entities using the set of filters, wherein the subset of entities includes entities from the plurality of entities that operate within the operational industry or geographic region specified in the set of filters.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the microprocessor further generates an index presenting the particular entity credibility score relative to credibility scores of the subset of entities.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein said alert further activates the display to present the index with a set of interactive tools enabling the particular entity to adjust the set of filters, wherein adjusting the set of filters modifies the index to present the particular entity credibility score relative to the credibility scores of a different second subset of entities from the plurality of entities that satisfy the adjusted set of filters.
9. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving a value for the threshold from the application over the Internet at the machine, wherein the value is entered by the particular entity to the application.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the alert comprises sending at least one of an email and text message over the Internet to the application.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor performs natural language processing of the reviews, and wherein generating the alert comprises providing a notification of a review containing negative sentiment directed to the particular entity or a practice of the particular entity.
12. A method comprising:
providing an application to a particular entity for installation on a network enabled device of the particular entity, the application displaying a graphical user interface (GUI) with an interactive tool controlling a value for a filter;
continually receiving over the Internet from a plurality of online sites at a credibility management system machine, reviews and ratings about experiences and accounts of others with the particular entity, the machine comprising a microprocessor and memory storing at least one threshold, wherein the microprocessor,
obtains a credit score of the particular entity and a credit score for each entity of a set of entities that satisfy the filter value;
generates an alert comprising an index presenting the particular entity credit score in relation to credit scores of the set of entities;
transmits the alert over the Internet to the network enabled device, wherein the alert updates the application GUI to display said index.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the microprocessor further generates a credit rating for the particular entity as a supplement to the credit score, wherein said generating comprises adjusting the particular entity credit score according to the credit scores of the set of entities, wherein the microprocessor incrementally increases the particular entity credit rating based on a number of entities from the set of entities having a lower credit score than the particular entity credit score, and wherein the credit rating presents creditworthiness of the particular entity relative to creditworthiness of each entity of the set of entities.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the alert further presents the particular entity credit rating in place of or in addition to the credit score in the application GUI.
15. The method of claim 12, wherein the filter specifies a geographic region surrounding the particular entity, wherein the interactive tool defines the geographic region surrounding the particular entity, and wherein the set of entities comprises entities operating within the geographic region of the filter.
16. The method of claim 12, wherein the filter specifies an industry, and wherein the set of entities comprises entities operating within the industry specified by the filter.
17. The method of claim 12, wherein the index is a graph plotting (i) a plurality of data points representing the credit score of each entity of the set of entities and (ii) an indicator identifying in the graph, the credit score of the particular entity.
18. A method comprising:
providing a credibility or credit monitoring application to a particular entity for installation on a network enabled device of the particular entity;
continually receiving references to events over the Internet from a plurality of online sites at a system machine, the machine comprising a microprocessor and memory, wherein the microprocessor,
identifies a threshold number of the references directed to a particular event;
processes the references directed to the particular event to identify at least one of a geographic region or industry in which the particular entity operates influenced by the particular event;
determines a magnitude of the event based on sentiment expressed within the references directed to the particular event;
adjusts one of a credibility score or credit score of the particular entity based on the magnitude of the particular event;
transmits an alert over the Internet to the network enabled device, wherein the alert activates the application to display a change to one of the particular entity credibility score or credit score as a result of said adjusting according to the magnitude of the particular event.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein said identifying comprises identifying a threshold number of negative references to the geographic region or industry in which the particular entity operates, and wherein said adjusting comprises decreasing the credibility score or the credit score of the particular entity based on the magnitude of the negative references to the particular event.