Author: claimsbot

1. Apparatus for surfing instruction, comprising:
a motorized surfboard with a propulsion system and a wireless receiver configured to control the activation state of the propulsion system, and
an instructor’s wireless transmitter in communication with the wireless receiver to control the propulsion system,
where the instructor’s wireless transmitter is configured to control a motion of the motorized surfboard through water from a position off the motorized surfboard.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a rider’s wireless transmitter in communication with the wireless receiver to control the propulsion system from a position on the motorized surfboard.
3. The apparatus of claim 2, where the rider’s wireless transmitter is wearable and comprises actuators positioned on a rider’s transmitter-operating hand.
4. The apparatus of claim 2, where:
the wireless receiver is configured to recognize an override signal taking precedence over any other wireless signal received, and
the instructor’s wireless transmitter is configured to transmit the override signal following an instructor’s demand.
5. The apparatus of claim 2, further comprising a wireless communication link between the rider’s wireless transmitter and the instructor’s wireless transmitter.
6. The apparatus of claim 5, where the wireless communication link comprises a voice channel.
7. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:
a board-data transmitter embedded in the motorized surfboard, configured to transmit information collected by integrated sensing elements, and
a board-data receiver configured to receive the information from the board transmitter and accessible to at least one of the instructor and the rider,
a processing element configured to interpret the information from the board-data receiver, and
an output device to present the information interpreted by the processor in a human-comprehensible form.
8. The apparatus of claim 7, further comprising a storage element connected to the processor and configured to store the information interpreted by the processor.
9. The apparatus of claim 7, where
the information comprises one of the group consisting of fuel level, battery charge level, motor power level, board speed, temperature, and board pitch or roll angle, and
the output device comprises one of the group consisting of a real-time display, a display associated with the storage element, an audio speaker, and a haptic transducer.
10. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an auxiliary wireless transmitter remote from, but communicating with, at least one of the group consisting of the motorized surfboard, the rider’s wireless transmitter, and the instructor’s wireless transmitter.
11. A method for surfing instruction using the apparatus of claim 1, comprising:
placing the motorized surfboard of claim 1 in a natural or human-made body of water;
arranging for a student to mount the motorized surfboard;
using the instructor’s wireless transmitter of claim 1 to activate the propulsion system of claim 1 and cause the motorized surfboard, carrying the mounted student, to move across the surface of the water.
12. The method of claim 11, further comprising instructing or observing the student in the practice of at least one of surfing balance, paddling, wave-catching, takeoff, pop-up, weight-shifting, or maneuvering on the motorized surfboard as the propulsion system moves the motorized surfboard across the surface of the water.
13. The method of claim 11, where the water is too calm for unmotorized surfing.
14. The method of claim 13, further comprising at least one of:
operating the propulsion system at variable speeds according to the student’s skill level,
operating the propulsion system in a pulsed or otherwise variable mode to simulate the changing forces of waves and currents, and
directing the propulsion system to work against the student’s paddling to build strength for paddling against incoming waves.
15. The method of claim 11, further comprising recording at least one of
the instructions given to the student,
the student’s comments, and
the student’s performance.
16. The method of claim 11, further comprising at least one of
monitoring information from a board-data transmitter, and
recording information from the board-data transmitter to review with or without the student at a later time.
17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:
providing a rider’s wireless transmitter to the student, and
teaching the student to control the propulsion system using the rider’s wireless transmitter while riding the motorized surfboard.
18. The method of claim 17, further comprising communicating with the student over a wireless link between the instructor’s wireless transmitter and the rider’s wireless transmitter while the student is on or near the motorized surfboard.
19. The method of claim 17, further comprising taking control of the motorized surfboard from the student by activating an override switch on the instructor’s wireless transmitter.
20. The method of claim 11, where the water has waves of a suitable size for unmotorized surfing, and further comprising at least one of:
using the propulsion system to propel the motorized surfboard against breaking waves to reach a zone of sloping swells,
using the propulsion system to reach a necessary speed for catching a wave, and
controlling the propulsion system to help the student evade hazards in the water.

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 the decoding of a received signal comprising symbols distributed in space, time andor frequency by a space-time or space-frequency encoding matrix, wherein the method implements a space-time decoding step and at least one iteration, each iteration comprising the following sub-steps:
diversity pre-decoding, which is the inverse of a diversity pre-encoding carried out when said signal is emitted, delivering pre-decoded data;
estimation of the symbols forming said signal, from said pre-decoded data, delivering estimated symbols; and
diversity pre-encoding identical to said diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission, applied to said estimated symbols, to give an estimated signal, except for the last iteration.
2. The method according to claim 1 comprising:
the space-time decoding, which is the inverse of the space-time encoding implemented at emission, delivering a decoded signal;
equalization of said decoded signal, delivering an equalized signal;
conversion of a matrix of the equalized signals into a diagonal matrix, obtained from a total encodingchanneldecoding matrix taking account of at least said encoding matrix, and of a decoding matrix that is the conjugate transpose of said encoding matrix;
the diversity pre-decoding, which is the inverse of the diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission of said signal, delivering the pre-decoded data;
the estimation of the symbols forming said signal, from said pre-decoded data, delivering the estimated symbols;
the diversity pre-encoding, identical to said diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission, applied to said estimated symbols, to give the estimated signal; and
at least one iteration of an interference cancellation step implementing the following sub-steps:
subtraction, from said equalized signal, of said estimated signal multiplied by an interference matrix, delivering an optimized signal;
diversity pre-decoding of said optimized signal, that is the inverse of the diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission of said signal, delivering improved pre-decoded data;
estimation of the symbols forming said optimized signal, from the improved pre-decoded data, delivering new estimated symbols; and
diversity pre-encoding identical to said diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission, applied to said new estimated symbols to give a new estimated signal, except for the last iteration.
3. The method according to claim 2, wherein said space-time decoding and equalization steps andor said equalization and conversion steps are done jointly.
4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said encoded symbols are emitted by means of at least two antennas, which produce different corresponding transmission channels and wherein the method of decoding takes the different corresponding transmission channels comprehensively into account.
5. The method according to claim 2, wherein said equalization step implements an equalization according to one of the techniques belonging to the group comprising:
MMSE type equalization;
EGC type equalization;
ZF type equalization; and
equalization taking account of a piece of information representing a signal-to-noise ratio between the received signal and a reception noise.
6. The method according to claim 2, wherein said steps of symbol estimation implement a soft decision, associating a piece of confidence information with the soft decision and said subtraction step or steps take account of said pieces of confidence information.
7. The method according to claim 2, wherein said received signal comprises a multicarrier signal.
8. The method according to claim 1, wherein said pre-encoding is obtained by one of the following methods:
a spread-spectrum technique; and
linear pre-encoding.
9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method implements an automatic gain control step before or after said equalization step andor during at least one of said iterations.
10. The method according to claim 1 and further comprising a channel-decoding step, symmetrical with a channel-encoding step implemented at emission.
11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said channel-decoding step implements a turbo-decoding operation.
12. The method according to claim 1 and further comprising at least one de-interlacing step and at least one re-interlacing step, corresponding to an interlacing implemented at emission.
13. The method according to claim 1 and further comprising a step of improvement of a channel estimation, taking account of the estimated symbols during at least one of said iterations.
14. The method according to claim 2 and further comprising transmitting by four antennas the signal to be received, referred to as the received signal, through at least one transmission channel, wherein said total encodingchanneldecoding matrix is equal to:
G
=

\u03b3
\u2061
A
0
0
J
0
A
–
J
0
0
–
J
A
0
J
0
0
A
with:
A=|h1|2+|h2|2+|h3|2+|h4|2

J=2Re{h1h*4\u2212h2h*3},

representing the interference, and
\u03b3
=

1
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1

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+
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+
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+
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+

1
SNR
where
\u2062

:

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=
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is a matrix grouping the space-time encoding and the transmission channel,
and SNR represents the signal-to-noise ratio.
15. The method according to claim 2 and further comprising transmitting by eight antennas the signal to be received, referred to as the received signal, through at least one transmission channel, wherein said total encodingchanneldecoding matrix is equal to:
G
=

\u2062

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H
H

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=

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with
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=

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and
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=

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and
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=

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where
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:

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=

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,
is a matrix grouping the space-time encoding and the transmission channel
and SNR represents the signal-to-noise ratio.
16. The method of claim 14 and further comprising, prior to the step of transmitting, encoding said signal to be received, wherein the encoding implements a space-time encoding such that:
H
=
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,
17. A receiver for receiving a received signal, comprising symbols distributed in space and time andor frequency by means of a space-time encoding matrix, wherein the receiver comprises means of space-time decoding that is the inverse of the space-time encoding implemented at emission, and:
means of diversity pre-decoding, performing a pre-decoding which is the inverse of a diversity pre-encoding carried out at emission of said signal, delivering pre-decoded data;
means of estimation of the symbols forming said signal, from the pre-decoded data, delivering new estimated symbols;
means of diversity pre-encoding, performing a pre-encoding identical to said diversity pre-encoding implemented at emission, applied to said new estimated symbols, to give a new estimated signal, said means of diversity pre-decoding, estimation, and diversity pre-encoding being implemented at least once for each symbol.
18. A method for the decoding of a received signal comprising symbols distributed in space, time andor frequency by means of a space-time or space-frequency encoding matrix, wherein the method comprises:
diagonalization, obtained from a total encodingchanneldecoding matrix taking account of at least said encoding matrix, of a decoding matrix, corresponding to the matrix that is the conjugate transpose of said encoding matrix;
demodulation, symmetrical with a modulation implemented at emission;
de-interlacing symmetrical with an interlacing implemented at emission;
channel decoding symmetrical with a channel encoding implemented at emission;
re-interlacing, identical with the interlacing implemented at emission;
re-modulation identical with the modulation implemented at emission, delivering an estimated signal; and
at least one iteration of an interference cancellation step comprising a subtraction from an equalized signal of said estimated signal multiplied by an interference matrix, delivering an optimized signal.

1. A method of fabricating a semiconductor device comprising:
providing a semiconductor substrate;
forming a high-k dielectric layer over the substrate;
forming a semiconductor layer over the high-k dielectric layer;
removing a portion of the semiconductor layer such that the semiconductor layer in a first region has a first thickness and the semiconductor layer in a second region has a second thickness less than the first thickness;
forming a hard mask layer over the semiconductor layer;
patterning the hard mask layer, semiconductor layer, and high-k dielectric layer to form a first gate structure in the first region and a second gate structure in the second region;
forming an interlayer dielectric (ILD) over the first and second gate structures;
performing a first chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on the ILD that substantially stops at the semiconductor layer of the first gate structure;
removing the semiconductor layer from the first gate structure thereby forming a first trench, wherein the hard mask layer of the second gate structure protects the semiconductor layer of the second gate structure;
forming a first metal layer to fill in the first trench;
removing the hard mask layer and semiconductor layer from the second gate structure thereby forming a second trench; and
forming a second metal layer to fill in the second trench.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the forming the first metal layer includes:
depositing a first metal material over the substrate substantially filling in the first trench; and
performing a second CMP to remove the first metal material outside of the first trench.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the forming the second metal layer includes:
depositing a second metal material over the substrate substantially filling in the second trench; and
performing a third CMP to remove the second metal material outside of the second trench.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first metal layer includes a metal having a first type of work function.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the second metal layer includes a metal having a second type of work function different from the first type of work function.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the metal having the first type of work function is an N-metal and the first gate structure is part of an nMOS device; and
wherein the metal having the second type of work function is a P-metal and the second gate structure is part of pMOS device.
7. The method of claim 5, wherein the metal having the first type of work function is an P-metal and the first gate structure is part of an pMOS device; and
wherein the metal having the second type of work function is an N-metal and the second gate structure is part of nMOS device.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the semiconductor layer includes a polysilicon.
9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
forming an interfacial layer on the substrate prior to forming the high-k dielectric layer; and
forming a barrier layer on the high-k dielectric layer prior to forming the semiconductor layer;
wherein the high-k dielectric layer is formed on the interfacial layer;
wherein the semiconductor layer is formed on the barrier layer.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the removing a portion of the semiconductor layer includes:
forming a patterned photoresist layer to protect the semiconductor layer in the first region; and
etching the unprotected semiconductor layer in the second region from the first thickness to the second thickness.
11. A method of fabricating a semiconductor device comprising:
providing a semiconductor substrate;
forming a high-k dielectric layer over the substrate;
forming a barrier layer over the high-k dielectric layer;
forming a silicon layer over the barrier layer;
partially etching the silicon layer such that the silicon layer in a first region has a first thickness and the silicon layer in a second region has a second thickness less than the first thickness;
forming a hard mask layer over the partially etched silicon layer;
forming a first gate structure in the first region and a second gate structure in the second region, the first gate structure including the silicon layer having the first thickness and the second gate structure including the silicon layer having the second thickness;
forming an interlayer dielectric (ILD) over the first and second gate structures;
performing a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on the ILD that substantially stops at the silicon layer of the first gate structure, the CMP removing a portion of the hard mask layer of the second gate structure;
removing the silicon layer from the first gate structure thereby forming a first trench;
forming a first metal layer to fill in the first trench;
removing the remaining portion of the hard mask layer and the silicon layer from the second gate structure thereby forming a second trench; and
forming a second metal layer to fill in the second trench.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first metal layer is formed of a metal having a first type of work function and the second metal layer is formed of a metal having a second type of work function different from the first type of work function.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the first gate structure is part of a pMOS device and the second gate structure is part of an nMOS device.
14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first gate structure is part of an nMOS device and the second gate structure is part of a pMOS device.
15. The method of claim 11, wherein a difference between the first thickness and the second thickness ranges from about 300 to about 400 angstrom (A).
16. A method for fabricating a semiconductor device, the method comprising:
providing a semiconductor substrate having a first region and a second region;
forming a first gate structure over the first region and a second gate structure over the second region, the first and second gate structures each including a high-k dielectric layer formed over the substrate, a silicon layer formed over the high-k dielectric layer, and a hard mask layer formed over the silicon layer, wherein the silicon layer of the first gate structure has a first thickness and the silicon layer of the second gate structure has a second thickness less than the first thickness;
forming an interlayer dielectric (ILD) over the first and second gate structures;
performing a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on the ILD that exposes the silicon layer of the first gate structure;
removing the silicon layer from the first gate structure thereby forming a first trench, wherein the hard mask layer of the second gate structure protects the silicon layer of the second gate structure from being removed;
forming a first metal layer to fill in the first trench;
removing the hard mask layer and the silicon layer from the second gate structure thereby forming a second trench; and
forming a second metal layer to fill in the second trench.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the forming the first gate structure and the second gate structure includes:
forming the high-k dielectric layer over the substrate;
forming the silicon layer over the high-k dielectric layer;
forming a patterned photoresist layer to protect the silicon layer in the first region;
etching a portion of the silicon layer in the second region;
removing the patterned photoresist layer;
forming the hard mask layer over the silicon layer;
patterning the hard mask layer, silicon layer, and high-k dielectric layer to form the first gate structure in the first region and the second gate structure in the second region;
18. The method of claim 16, wherein a difference between the first thickness and the second thickness ranges from about 300 to about 400 angstrom (A).
19. The method of claim 16, wherein the first metal layer includes a P-type work function metal and the second metal layer includes an N-type work function metal.
20. The method of claim 16, wherein the first metal layer includes an N-type work function metal and the second metal layer includes a P-type work function metal.

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 computer implemented method for corporate data analysis, comprising:
receiving a set of data, the set of data including information about a corporation; and
transforming the set of data into a graph representation, the graph representation including nodes whose properties are based on the set of data.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical representation includes at least one visible organizational anomaly.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of data includes information about employee reporting relationships.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the graphical representation includes nodes representing employees and the sizes of the nodes are based on the number of direct reports the employees have.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of data includes information about keywords associated with employees.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the graphical representation includes a set of nodes representing keywords and the sizes of the nodes are based on frequencies of appearances associated with the keywords.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical representation includes multi-layer corporate information.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the multi-layer corporate information includes employee reporting information and employee keywords information.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of data may be retrieved from an internal corporate system.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical representation represents a subset of the set of data.
11. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving one or more user inputs for a particular graphical representation prior to transforming the set of data into the graphical representation.
12. The method of claim 11, further comprising processing the set of data based on the one or more user inputs.
13. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a machine-readable storage device, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:
receiving a set of data, the set of data including information about a corporation; and
transforming the set of data into a graph representation, which can be translated into graphical representation including nodes whose properties are based on the set of data.
14. The product of claim 13, wherein the graphical representation includes at least one visible organizational anomaly.
15. The product of claim 13, wherein the set of data includes information about employee reporting relationships.
16. The product of claim 15, wherein the graphical representation includes nodes representing employees and the sizes of the nodes are based on the number of direct reports the employees have.
17. The product of claim 13, wherein the set of data includes information about keywords associated with employees.
18. The product of claim 17, wherein the graphical representation includes a set of nodes representing keywords and the sizes of the nodes are based on frequencies of appearances associated with the keywords.
19. The product of claim 13, wherein the graphical representation includes multi-layer corporate information.
20. The product of claim 19, wherein the multi-layer corporate information includes employee reporting information and employee keywords information.
21. The product of claim 13, wherein the set of data may be retrieved from an internal corporate system.
22. The product of claim 13, wherein the graphical representation represents a subset of the set of data.
23. The product of claim 13, further comprising receiving one or more user inputs for a particular graphical representation prior to transforming the set of data into the graphical representation.
24. The product of claim 23, further comprising processing the set of data based on the one or more user inputs.