All The Claims

We claim:

1. A system for stacking a predetermined number of nestable objects comprising:
a cavity configured to permit entry and containment of nestable objects to create an orientated, stacked arrangement, wherein the cavity has a receiving end and a discharge end a flange functionally positioned proximate the discharge end to create a span within the cavity having a length;
an ejector mechanism functionally positioned proximate the receiving end of the cavity;
wherein the flange and ejector mechanism cooperative to change the orientation of the stacked arrangement upon entry of a final nestable object to the cavity by discharging the stacked arrangement.
2. The system of claim 1 wherein the flange is stationary.
3. The system of claim 1 wherein the flange is functionally affixed to a bottom quarter of the discharge end.
4. The system of claim 1 wherein the flange and ejector cooperative to change the orientation of the nestable objects from a substantially vertical position to a substantially horizontal position.
5. The system of claim 1 wherein the flange protrudes into the cavity.
6. The system of claim 1 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 2 to 50.
7. The system of claim 6 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 8 to 35.
8. The system of claim 7 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 20 to 25.
9. The system of claim 1 wherein the flange is adjustable.
10. The system of claim 9 wherein the flange is adjustable perpendicular to the cavity to change the height of the flange.
11. The system of claim 9 wherein the flange is adjustable in a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the cavity to change the length of the span.
12. The system of claim 9 further comprising an indexing mechanism for adjusting the flange position proximate the discharge end of the cavity.
13. The system of claim 12 wherein the indexing mechanism is attached to the cavity.
14. The system of claim 1 wherein the cavity can be extended in a longitudinal direction to change the length of the span.
15. The system of claim 1 wherein the cavity can be shortened in a longitudinal direction to change the length of the span.
16. The system of claim 1 further comprising a surface for receiving the discharged stacked arrangement proximate the discharge end.
17. The system of claim 16 wherein the surface for receiving is a conveyor.
18. The system of claim 1 wherein the nestable objects are selected from a group consisting of plates, bowls, trays, cups, lids, disks, food containers, covers, and the like.
19. A method for automatically stacking a predetermined number of nestable objects comprising the steps of:
providing a cavity suitable for containing a plurality of nestable objects, the cavity having a receiving end, a discharge end, and a flange, wherein the flange is functionally positioned proximate the discharge end;
receiving a series of consecutive nestable objects into the cavity at the receiving end to form an oriented, stacked arrangement of objects;
advancing the stacked arrangement toward the flange wherein the stacked arrangement, upon reaching a predetermined size, comes into functional contact with the flange;
discharging the stacked arrangement from the cavity onto a surface to thereby change the orientation of the stacked arrangement by preventing the advancing of an edge of the stacked arrangement by contact with the flange.
20. The method of claim 19 wherein consecutively received nestable objects advance previously received objects toward the flange.
21. The method of claim 19 wherein the receipt of the nestable object corresponding to the predetermined number in cooperation with a ejector mechanism advances the stacked arrangement of objects into functional contact with the flange.
22. The method of claim 19 wherein the predetermined number of nestable of objects is within the range of 2 to 50.
23. The method of claim 19 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 8 to 35.
24. The method of claim 19 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 20 to 25.
25. The method of claim 19 wherein the flange is stationary.
26. The method of claim 19 further comprising the step of transporting stacked arrangements after they are discharged from an area of discharge to allow for subsequent stacked arrangements to be discharged.
27. The method of claim 26 wherein the step of transporting is achieved by a conveyor.
28. A system for packaging a predetermined number of nestable objects comprising:
a manufacturing source for producing a plurality of nestable objects which are designed to be packaged;
a stacking apparatus comprising a cavity, the cavity configured for receiving nestable objects from the manufacturing source and containing the nestable objects in an orientated, stacked arrangement, the cavity comprising a flange, the flange cooperating with an ejector mechanism to automatically change the orientation of the stacked arrangement when the predetermined number of nestable objects are received by the cavity;
a packaging mechanism configured for receiving and packaging the stacked arrangement of nestable objects from the stacking apparatus.
29. The system of claim 28 wherein the flange is stationary.
30. The system of claim 28 wherein the predetermined number of objects and the number of nestable objects that are packaged are consistently identical.
31. The system of claim 28 wherein the predetermined number of nestable objects is within the range of 8 to 35.
32. The system of claim 28 wherein the objects change orientation and are discharged when the nestable objects come into functional contact with the flange.
33. The system of claim 32 wherein the flange is adjustable.
34. The system of claim 33 wherein the flange is functionally affixed proximate a discharge end of the cavity.

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, comprising:
monitoring a plurality of physical servers, on a computing system, that each provide an initial level of virtual resources to a plurality of virtual machines;
receiving a requested level of virtual resources for a virtual machine of interest hosted by a first physical server from the plurality of physical servers;
determining whether the first physical server is able to host the requested level of virtual resources for the virtual machine of interest; and
implementing, in response to the first physical server not being able to host the requested level of resources for the virtual machine of interest, a path to accommodate the virtual machine of interest involving a schedule of actions for a plurality of secondary virtual machines on the plurality of physical servers, the path implemented by:
resizing the plurality of secondary virtual machines to create unallocated virtual resources;
measuring unallocated virtual resources in the plurality of physical servers; and
migrating at least some of a resized plurality of secondary virtual machines to the plurality of physical servers with sufficient unallocated virtual resources to accommodate each secondary virtual machine so that the first physical server has sufficient unallocated virtual resources to accommodate the virtual machine of interest.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
increasing, in response to the first physical server being able to host the requested level of resources for the virtual machine of interest, the virtual resources to the requested level for the virtual machine of interest on the first physical server.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein implementing the path includes:
determining whether the virtual machine of interest is able to be migrated to a second physical server from the plurality of servers; and
migrating the virtual machine of interest to the second physical server in response to the virtual machine of interest being able to be migrated to the second physical server.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the virtual machine of interest is able to be migrated in response to the second physical server having sufficient unallocated virtual resources for the virtual machine of interest.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein resizing the plurality of secondary virtual machines includes:
determining an operating threshold of the plurality of secondary virtual machines; and
resizing the plurality of secondary virtual machines to the operating threshold.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
increasing the virtual resources to the requested level for the virtual machine of interest.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein implementing the path includes:
predicting the schedule of actions that define a path; and
determining whether the schedule of actions is within an action threshold; and

implementing the path in response to the schedule of actions being within the action threshold.
8-20. (canceled)

1. A method for performing discontinuous transmission in an asynchronous transfer mode ATM between a transcoder and a base transceiver station, comprising the steps of:
performing a transmission of an ATM cell in a downlink direction each time a predetermined time period has expired, when signal frames indicating a speechless period are supplied;
determining said predetermined time period by counting a predetermined number of said signal frames indicating a speechless period;
performing an uplink transmission of an ATM cell only when a signal frame indicating a useful information has been supplied;
wherein frames containing speech information are transmitted to an ATM connection via an ATM interface,
whereas in case of frames containing a comfort noise information, only an ATM cell containing the first frame containing the comfort noise information is transmitted, wherein subsequent frames with comfort noise information lead to an initialization of a first counter and thereafter to a successive incrementation thereof until the first counter has counted to a defined value, wherein, when the defined value has been reached, an ATM cell containing the corresponding frame is transmitted to the ATM connection and the processing starts again as long as subsequent frames with comfort noise information are transmitted,
wherein, in the uplink direction, when an ATM cell containing a frame indicating a timing alignment is received, a second counter is reset, and, with any subsequently received ATM cell, the second counter is incremented and the contained frame is passed to the transcoder until a predetermined count value has been reached,
when no ATM cells are received after the initial synchronization of the second counter, frames with information indicating a bad frame are generated and the second counter is incremented until the count value reaches the predetermined value, and
when ATM cells are received before the second counter has reached the predetermined value, the corresponding frames are passed to the transcoder while the second counter is still incremented with any received ATM cell.
2. A method according to claim 1, wherein an idle speech frame is generated, when no ATM cell has been received at a receiving end of the downlink transmission.
3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the last signal frame received at the receiving end of the downlink transmission and indicating a speechless period is repeated, when the number of ATM cells not received at the receiving end of the downlink transmission corresponds to said predetermined number of signal frames after which an ATM cell is transmitted.
4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the first counter is initialized each time an ATM cell containing a signal frame indicating a speechless period has been received, and wherein said first counter is incremented each time no ATM cell has been received.
5. A method according to claim 1, wherein a frame indicating a useless information is generated, when no ATM cell has been received at a receiving end of the uplink transmission.
6. A method according to claim 5, wherein a time alignment flag (TAF) is set at the receiving end of the uplink transmission, when the number of ATM cells received or missed since the last setting of the time alignment flag corresponds to said predetermined number of signal frames.
7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the second counter is initialized when an ATM cell containing a set time alignment flag is received at the receiving end of the uplink transmission, and wherein said counter is incremented each time an ATM cell is received or missed at the receiving end of the uplink transmission.
8. A method according to claim 1, wherein said predetermined number is determined on the basis of a discontinuous transmission period during said speechless period.
9. A method according to claim 1, wherein said uplink and downlink transmission is performed in a GSM system between the transcoder and the base transceiver station.
10. A method according to claim 9, wherein a bad frame indicator flag (BFI), of a GSM speech frame is used to indicate a useless information in said uplink transmission.
11. A method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein a silence predictor flag (SID), of a GSM speech frame is set on the basis of a speech flag, (SP), of said GSM speech frame, and wherein said silence predictor flag is used to indicate said speechless period in said downlink transmission.

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. An endoscope system comprising:
an endoscope having a solid-state imaging device and an objective optical system that converges an object image on said solid-state imaging device, said objective optical system including an optical phase modulation member that exhibits a response of 0.2 or more derived from an optical transfer function relative to a spatial frequency on said solid-state imaging device determined based on the Nyquist theorem, that is, a Nyquist frequency, over a wider range of distances than a depth of field offered by an objective optical system not including the optical phase modulation member; and
a signal processing unit that processes an image signal produced by said endoscope so as to produce a video signal.
2. The endoscope system according to claim 1, wherein when a distance to an object is set to a value minimizing the area of a point image on the light receiving surface of said solid-state imaging device, the area W of the point image on the light receiving surface of said solid-state imaging device is expressed as follows:
W\u2266(6P)2

where P denotes a pitch between adjoining pixel locations in said solid-state imaging device.
3. The endoscope system according to claim 1, wherein assuming that the optical axis of said objective optical system is regarded as a Z axis and a plane orthogonal to the Z axis contains X and Y axes, said optical phase modulation member has a free-form surface expressed as follows:
Z=A(X3+Y3)

where A denotes a coefficient.
4. The endoscope system according to claim 3, wherein assuming that the optical axis of said objective optical system is regarded as a Z axis and X and Y axes, each of which denotes absolute value of 1 or less, are orthogonal each other, said optical phase modulation member transforms the phase of light according to:
exp{i\xd7\u03b1(X3+Y3)}

where \u03b1 denotes a coefficient of 8 or less.
5. The endoscope system according to claim 1, wherein said optical phrase modulation member has no limitations of a rotational direction with respect to said objective optical system.
6. The endoscope system according to claim 1, wherein said objective optical system includes an aperture stop having a circular aperture.
7. The endoscope system according to claim 2, wherein the dimension of the aperture of said aperture stop and the shape of said optical phase modulation member are determined so that: when a distance to an object is set to a value minimizing the area of a point image on the light receiving surface of said solid-state imaging device, the size of the point image satisfies the following condition:
W\u2266(6P)2.
8. The endoscope system according to claim 1, wherein said signal processing unit includes a rotationally symmetrical digital filter.
9. An endoscope system comprising:
an endoscope having a solid-state imaging device and an objective optical system that converges an object image on said solid-state imaging device, said objective optical system including an optical phase modulation member that exhibits a response of 0.2 or more derived from an optical transfer function relative to a spatial frequency on said solid-state imaging device determined based on the Nyquist theorem, that is, a Nyquist frequency, over a wider range of distances than a depth of field offered by an objective optical system not including the optical phase modulation member; and
a signal processing unit that processes an image signal produced by said endoscope so as to produce a video signal, said signal processing unit including an image processor that enhances components of the video signal, which is produced based on the image signal produced by said endoscope, falling within a specific frequency band.
10. The endoscope system according to claim 9, wherein said image processor enhances video signal components falling within intermediate and high frequency bands so that the responses relative to spatial frequency bands associated with the intermediate and high frequency bands will be improved.
11. The endoscope system according to claim 10, wherein said image processor enhances the video signal components falling within the intermediate and high frequency bands so as to make the signal levels thereof twice to three times higher.
12. The endoscope system according to claim 9, wherein said image processor determines a frequency band, which is associated with a spatial frequency band relative to which the response derived from the optical transfer function is improved, according to the area of a point image on the light receiving surface of said solid-state imaging device.
13. The endoscope system according to claim 9, wherein said optical phrase modulation member has no limitations of a rotational direction with respect to said objective optical system.
14. The endoscope system according to claim 13, wherein said objective optical system includes an aperture stop having a circular aperture.
15. An endoscope system comprising:
an endoscope having a solid-state imaging device and an objective optical system that converges an object image on said solid-state imaging device, said objective optical system including an optical phase modulation member that exhibits a response of 0.2 or more derived from an optical transfer function relative to a spatial frequency on said solid-state imaging device determined based on the Nyquist theorem, that is, a Nyquist frequency, over a wider range of distances than a depth of field offered by an objective optical system not having the optical phase modulation member; and
a signal processing unit that processes an image signal produced by said endoscope so as to produce a video signal, said signal processing unit including a hue image processor that performs different kinds of image processing on red, green, and blue video signals produced based on the image signal produced by said endoscope.
16. The endoscope system according to claim 15, wherein said optical phrase modulation member has no limitations of a rotational direction with respect to said objective optical system.
17. The endoscope system according to claim 16, wherein said objective optical system includes an aperture stop having a circular aperture.
18. An endoscope system comprising:
an endoscope having a solid-state imaging device and an objective optical system that converges an object image on said solid-state imaging device, said objective optical system including an optical phase modulation means that transforms the phase of light, and exhibiting a response of 0.2 or more derived from an optical transfer function relative to a spatial frequency on said solid-state imaging device determined based on the Nyquist theorem, that is, a Nyquist frequency; and
a signal processing unit that processes an image signal produced by said endoscope so as to produce a video signal.
19. An endoscope, comprising:
an imaging device for imaging an object; and
an objective optical system that converges an object image on the imaging device;
wherein the objective optical system includes an optical phase modulation member for performing optical phase modulation that exhibit a response of 0.2 or more derived from an optical transfer function relative to a Nyquist frequency on the imaging device.