1. A method for sensing a magnetic field, comprising:
using a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith to generate light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of a magnetic field;
detecting the light; and
correlating the intensity of the detected light with the strength of the magnetic field.
2. A method for detecting a presence of a magnetic field, comprising:
using a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith to generate light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of a magnetic field;
detecting the light; and
correlating the intensity of the detected light with the presence or absence of the magnetic field.
3. A method for transmitting information, comprising:
expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
using a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith to generate light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field;
transmitting the light;
receiving the transmitted light;
detecting the intensity of the received light; and
obtaining the information from the detected intensity.
4. A system for transmitting information, comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity.
5. A system as in claim 4, where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter.
6. A system as in claim 5, where said at least one magnetic sensing device comprises a magnetoresistive device.
7. A system as in claim 5, where said at least one magnetic sensing device comprises a giant magnetoresistive device.
8. A system as in claim 5, where said at least one magnetic sensing device comprises a magnetic tunnel junction.
9. A system as in claim 5, where said light emitter is comprised of a light emitting diode.
10. A system as in claim 5, where said light emitter is comprised of a laser diode.
11. A system as in claim 5, where said light emitter is comprised of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser.
12. A system as in claim 5, where said light emitter is comprised of a resonant cavity light emitting diode.
13. A system for transmitting information, comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity;
where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter; and
where said at least one magnetic sensing device is comprised of a magnetoresistive device, where said light emitter is comprised of a semiconductor light emitter, and where said magnetoresistive device and said semiconductor light emitter are electrically coupled together in series between a power source terminal and a common terminal.
14. A system for transmitting information comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity;
where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter; and
where said at least one magnetic sensing device is comprised of a magnetoresistive device, where said light emitter is comprised of a semiconductor light emitter, and where said magnetoresistive device and said semiconductor light emitter are disposed in a stacked manner one upon another and are electrically coupled together in series between a power source terminal and a common terminal.
15. A system for transmitting information, comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity;
where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter; and
where said at least one magnetic sensing device is comprised of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), where said light emitter is comprised of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), and where said MTJ and said VCSEL are electrically coupled together in series between a power source terminal and a common terminal.
16. A system for transmitting information, comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity;
where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter; and
where said at least one magnetic sensing device comprises a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), where said light emitter is comprised of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), and where said MTJ and said VCSEL are disposed in a stacked manner one upon another, and are electrically coupled together in series between a power source terminal and a common terminal.
17. A system for transmitting information, comprising:
an information source for expressing information as a time varying magnetic field;
a device that is magnetically coupled to said information source for generating light that has an intensity that varies as a function of a strength of the time varying magnetic field, said device comprising a thin film multilayer magnetic sensing device that is electrically coupled to a light emitter and disposed over a common substrate therewith;
means for conveying the light from the device;
a receiver for receiving the conveyed light, said receiver comprising a detector for detecting the intensity of the received light and a circuit for obtaining the information from the detected intensity;
where said device comprises at least one magnetic sensing device having an electrical resistance that varies as a function of the strength of the magnetic field, said at least one magnetic sensing device being electrically coupled in series with a light emitter;
where said at least one magnetic sensing device comprises a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), where said light emitter is comprised of a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), and where said MTJ and said VCSEL are disposed in a stacked manner one upon another, and are electrically coupled together in series between a power source terminal and a common terminal; and
where there are a plurality of said MTJs and said VCSELs disposed in a stacked manner one upon another on said substrate.
18. A system as in claim 4, where said conveying means comprises at least one of free space, an optical fiber and an optical waveguide.
19. A system as in claim 4, where said information source comprises a magnetic data storage medium.
20. A system as in claim 4, where said information source comprises an integrated circuit.
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 enabling a developer of a steering application to associate semantic tags with user responses, the method comprising:
obtaining user responses to an open-ended steering question posed by an interactive response system;
automatically grouping the user responses into groups, wherein each group is a set of sentences that are semantically related;
automatically assigning preliminary semantic tags to each of the groups; and
providing a user interface that enables a user to validate the content of the groups to ensure that all sentences within a group have the same semantic meaning and to view and edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with the groups, wherein the interface includes:
a groups view that displays a list of the groups and corresponding semantic tags for each group, wherein the groups view enables a user to edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with each of the groups,
a sentence view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view, a list of unique sentences associated with the selected group, wherein in the sentence view a user is able to verify whether or not a sentence belongs to the group selected in the groups view, and
a related-groups view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view or a selected sentence in the sentence view, a plurality of groups most closely-related to the selected group or sentence.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user responses are spoken utterances.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein, prior to grouping the user responses into groups, transcriptions are obtained for the spoken utterances.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user responses are in the form of written or textual inputs.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the written or textual inputs include one or more of text messaging, emails, online chat system communications, and Internet or web-based communications.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantic tags comprise a value for an action and a value for an object.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein, from the sentence view, a user is able to move a displayed sentence to a different group.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein, in the related groups view, groups are displayed in a star diagram with the selected group or sentence in the middle of the star diagram and the plurality of most closely-related groups surrounding the selected group or sentence.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein, in the related groups view, the plurality of most closely-related groups are displayed in a list in order of semantic distance from the selected group or sentence.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein a sentence in the sentence view can be moved to a different group by dragging the sentence to one of the plurality of most closely-related groups in the related-groups view.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein a sentence in the sentence view can be moved to a different group by dragging the sentence to one of the plurality of groups in the groups view.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface enables the user to merge groups.
13. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface enables the user to create a new group.
14. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium comprising a computer program that, when executed by a computer system, enables the computer system to perform a method for enabling a developer of a steering application to associate semantic tags with user responses, the method comprising:
obtaining user responses to an open-ended steering question posed by an interactive response system;
selecting a subset of user responses;
automatically grouping the user responses within the subset into groups, wherein each group is a set of sentences that are semantically related;
automatically assigning preliminary semantic tags to each of the groups;
providing a user interface that enables a user to validate the content of the groups to ensure that all sentences within a group have the same semantic meaning and to view and edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with the groups, wherein the interface includes:
a groups view that displays a list of the groups and corresponding semantic tags for each group, wherein the groups view enables a user to edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with each of the groups,
a sentence view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view, a list of unique sentences associated with the selected group, wherein in the sentence view a user is able to verify whether or not a sentence belongs to the group selected in the groups view, and
a related-groups view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view or a selected sentence in the sentence view, a plurality of groups most closely-related to the selected group or sentence; and
iteratively repeating the selecting, grouping, assigning, and providing steps with different subsets of user responses until all user responses have been processed, wherein each iteration uses data from previously validated and tagged groups to increase the accuracy of the clustering and assigning steps.
15. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the subsets are selected and processed such that the most common user responses are processed first.
16. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the subsets are selected and processed such that user responses with key words or phrases are processed first.
17. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the user responses are spoken utterances and, prior to the selecting step, transcriptions are obtained for the utterances.
18. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the user responses are written responses.
19. The non-transitory, computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the selecting, grouping, assigning, and providing steps are repeated in response to the user pressing a button to initiate semantic clustering for a next subset of responses.
20. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium comprising a computer program that, when executed by a computer system, enables the computer system to perform a method for enabling a developer of a steering application to associate semantic tags with user responses, the method comprising:
obtaining user responses to an open-ended steering question;
automatically grouping the user responses into groups, wherein each group is a set of sentences that are semantically related;
automatically assigning preliminary semantic tags to each of the groups; and
providing a user interface that enables a user to validate the content of the groups to ensure that all sentences within a group have the same semantic meaning and to view and edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with the groups, wherein the interface includes:
a groups view that displays a list of the groups and corresponding semantic tags for each group, wherein the groups view enables a user to edit the preliminary semantic tags associated with each of the groups,
a sentence view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view, a list of unique sentences associated with the selected group, wherein in the sentence view a user is able to verify whether or not a sentence belongs to the group selected in the groups view, and
a related-groups view that displays, for a selected group in the groups view or a selected sentence in the sentence view, a plurality of groups most closely-related to the selected group or sentence.