US07642152B2
A method of fabricating spacers is provided. The method includes providing a substrate with a device structure formed thereon. The device structure comprises a gate structure and a pair of source/drain regions. Then, a spacer material layer is formed over the substrate to cover the substrate and the device structure. Thereafter, an etching process is performed to remove a portion of the spacer material layer so that spacers are formed on the respective sidewalls of the gate structure. After that, a plasma treatment step is performed to form a spacer protection layer on the surface of the substrate, the spacers and the gate structure.
US07642151B2
A semiconductor device includes a silicon substrate, a strain-inducing layer, a silicon layer, a FET, and an isolation region. On the silicon substrate, the strain-inducing layer is provided. On the strain-inducing layer, the silicon layer is provided. The strain-inducing layer induces lattice strain in a channel region of the FET in the silicon layer. The silicon layer includes the FET. The FET includes a source/drain region, an SD extension region, a gate electrode and a sidewall. The source/drain region and the strain-inducing layer are spaced from each other. Around the FET, the isolation region is provided. The isolation region penetrates the silicon layer so as to reach the strain-inducing layer.
US07642142B2
A method for forming a semiconductor device includes providing a substrate and forming conductor patterns and openings on the substrate. Next the openings are filled with a mask layer and upper portions of the conductor patterns are etched to form cavities. Following, a portion of the mask layer is removed to form a trench between two neighboring conductor patterns, wherein the trench exposes the substrate and the sidewalls of the two neighboring conductor patterns. Next, an insulating layer on the cavities and the trench is conformably formed, a second conductive layer is formed on the insulating layer and the trench is filled with the second conductive layer.
US07642141B2
A manufacturing method for a display device having a first conductive type thin film transistor and a second conductive type thin film transistor, comprising the steps of: in formation regions for a first conductive type thin film transistor and a second conductive type thin film transistor forming a semiconductor layer, a first insulating film covering the semiconductor layer and a gate electrode disposed on the first insulating film so as to intersect the semiconductor layer, on substrate having first conductive type impurity regions on both outer sides of a channel region of the semiconductor layer below the gate electrode forming a second insulating film, in the second insulating film and the first insulating film forming a contact hole for a drain electrode and a source electrode, in the formation region for the second conductive type thin film transistor forming electrodes and a second conductive type impurity region.
US07642136B2
A method (200) is provided for reducing stresses applied to one or more bonded interconnects (106) of a substrate (103) and a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) (104). The method comprises the steps of coupling (204) a compound (108) on a top surface of the substrate, wherein the compound has the property of expanding when a heat profile is applied thereto, coupling (206) a cover (102) to the PCB that overhangs at least a portion of the compound, and applying (208) the heat profile to the compound and optionally the cover and/or PCB. More than one apparatus implementing the method is also included.
US07642130B2
A bonding pad and flip chip pads in which the surfaces are formed by different metals are juxtaposed on a substrate. The substrate is immersion-treated with a first adhesive treatment liquid which contains an adhesive giving compound for reacting with only a metal surface and giving adhesion properties and is adjusted to a pH value for forming adhesive layers on both of the metal surfaces of the flip chip pads and the bonding pad. Solder powder is attached to the adhesive layers formed on each of the metal surfaces of the pads. Then, the substrate is again immersion-treated with a second adhesive treatment liquid which contains an adhesive giving compound for reacting with only a metal surface and giving adhesion properties and is adjusted to a pH value for forming the adhesive layers on the metal surfaces of the flip chip pads while peeling the adhesive layer of the metal surface of the bonding pad. Subsequently, the solder powder attached to only the flip chip pads is melted by performing reflow after the solder powder is attached to the adhesive layers formed on only the flip chip pads.
US07642129B2
A method of forming a packaging structure and the packages formed thereof are provided. The method includes providing a package having a top surface and placing solder balls on the top surface of the package. A coplanar surface is then placed against the solder balls, wherein the surface is non-adhesive. A reflow process is performed to the solder balls, so that top surfaces of the solder balls are substantially coplanar. The coplanar surface is then removed.
US07642127B2
A method of sealing a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device from ambient conditions is described, wherein the MEMS device is formed on a substrate and a substantially hermetic seal is formed as part of the MEMS device manufacturing process. The method comprises forming a metal seal on the substrate proximate a perimeter of the MEMS device using a method such as photolithography. The metal seal is formed on the substrate while the MEMS device retains a sacrificial layer between conductive members of MEMS elements, and the sacrificial layer is removed after formation of the seal and prior to attachment of a backplane.
US07642124B2
A low channel length organic field-effect transistor can be produced in high volume and at low cost. The transistor structure includes successively deposited patterned layers of a first conductor layer acting as a source terminal, a first dielectric layer, a second conductor layer acting as a drain terminal, a semiconductor layer, a second dielectric layer, and a third conductor layer acting as the gate terminal. In this structure, the transistor is formed on the edge of the first dielectric between the first conductor layer and the second conductor layer. The second conductor layer is deposited on the raised surfaces formed by the dielectric such that conductive ink does not flow into the trough between the dielectric raised surfaces. This is accomplished by coating a flat or rotary print plate with the conductive ink, and applying the appropriate pressure to deposit the materials only on the raised surfaces of the dielectric. The second metal is automatically aligned to the layer beneath it. Due to this self-alignment and the short channel formed by the thickness of the dielectric material, a high-performance FET is produced without the requirement of high-resolution lithography equipment.
US07642114B2
To manufacture a micro structure and an electric circuit included in a micro electro mechanical device over the same insulating surface in the same step. In the micro electro mechanical device, an electric circuit including a transistor and a micro structure are integrated over a substrate having an insulating surface. The micro structure includes a structural layer having the same stacked-layer structure as a layered product of a gate insulating layer of the transistor and a semiconductor layer provided over the gate insulating layer. That is, the structural layer includes a layer formed of the same insulating film as the gate insulating layer and a layer formed of the same semiconductor film as the semiconductor layer of the transistor. Further, the micro structure is manufactured by using each of conductive layers used for a gate electrode, a source electrode, and a drain electrode of the transistor as a sacrificial layer.
US07642113B2
An element is formed on the major surface of a semiconductor wafer, and a groove is formed in the back surface of the semiconductor wafer along a dicing line or chip dividing line by a mechanical or chemical method. A modified layer is formed by irradiating the groove with a laser, and the semiconductor wafer is divided by using the modified layer as a starting point. The back surface of the semiconductor wafer is removed to at least the depth of the groove.
US07642105B2
A manufacturing method makes memory modules from partially-good DRAM chips soldered to its substrate. The partially-good DRAM chips have a number of defective memory cells that is below a test threshold, such as 10%. Packaged DRAM chips are optionally pre-screened and considered to pass when the number of defects found is less than the test threshold. A defect table is created during testing and written to a serial-presence-detect electrically-erasable read-only memory (SPD-EEPROM) on the memory module. The memory module is finally tested on a target-system tester that reads the defect table during booting, and redirects memory access to defective memory locations identified by the defect table. The memory modules may be burned in or tested at various temperatures and voltages to increase reliability.
US07642103B2
Dicing lines extending longitudinally and transversely, and chip areas surrounded by the dicing lines are formed in a resist mask. Critical-dimension patterns are formed in the dicing lines so as to be paired while placing the center line thereof in between. The dimensional measurement of the resist film having these patterns formed therein is made under a CD-SEM, by specifying a measurement-target chip area out of a plurality of chip areas, and by specifying a position of a critical-dimension pattern on the left thereof. Then, the distance of two linear portions configuring the critical-dimension pattern is measured, wherein a portion at a point of measurement on the measurement-target chip area side as viewed from the center line of the dicing line is measured.
US07642077B2
This invention relates to a method of immobilizing biocatalysts including protein and cells by co-precipitation with silicate or organosilicate matrices through the action of an organic template molecule. The organic template molecule is in general a polyamine such as polyethylenimine (PEI), or polypeptide compound bearing at least two or three basic residues selected from the group consisting of lysine, arginine, histidine, proline, hydroxyproline, N-methylhistidine, ornithine, taurine, δ-hydroxylysine, and δ-hydroxy-ω-N,N,N trimethyllysine. The invention is also directed to a silica biocomposite comprising co-precipitates of active biocatalysts, silica or organosilicates, and an N-containing organic template molecule. Such silica biocomposites are useful in biocatalysis, and other applications requiring an immobilized biocatalyst. Preferred biocatalysts for this invention are enzymes and whole cells.
US07642076B2
An immobilized protein catalyst is prepared by applying an adhesive to a polymeric support, applying a layer of a globular protein over the layer of adhesive, binding a crosslinking agent to the protein layer, and binding the protein catalyst by reaction with the crosslinking agent.
US07642071B2
The present invention relates to a Gram-negative glycosaminoglycan gene and methods of making and using same. The present invention relates to recombinant Gram-positive host cells containing a Gram-negative glycosaminoglycan synthase gene, and methods of producing glycosaminoglycans using such recombinant host cells.
US07642055B2
The present invention is directed to methods, reagents, kits, and compositions for detecting target polynucleotide sequences, especially small target polynucleotides such as miRNAs, between two samples. A pair of linker probes can be employed in two different reactions to query a particular species of target polynucleotide. A pair of detector probes, a single forward primer specific for the target polynucleotide, and a reverse primer can be employed in an amplification reaction to query the difference in expression level of the target polynucleotide between the two samples. In some embodiments a plurality of small miRNAs are queried with a plurality of linker probes. The plurality of queried miRNAs can then be decoded in a plurality of amplification reactions.
US07642044B2
The present invention relates to the design of trimeric polypeptides using polypeptide structural elements derived from the tetranectin protein family, and their use in rational de novo design and production of multi-functional molecules including the application of the multi-functional molecules in protein library technology, such as phage display technology, diagnostic and therapeutic systems, such as human gene therapy and imaging. The trimeric polypeptides being constructed as a monomer polypeptide construct comprising at least one tetranectin trimerising structural element (TTSE) which is covalently linked to at least one heterologous moiety, said TTSE being capable of forming a stable complex with two other TTSEs; or as an oligomer which is comprised of two monomer polypeptide constructs as mentioned above, and which comprises three TTSEs or a multiplum of three TTSEs, or which is comprised of three monomer polypeptide constructs.
US07642041B2
A rotary apertured interferometric lithography (RAIL) system that includes interferometric lithography tools, a mask with a slit preferably with an arc shape, and a rotating stage is disclosed. The RAIL system could create a servo pattern of a recording-head trajectory of a hard disk drive in a master for magnetic-contact printing. The master can could be used to form arrays of sub-micron sized magnetic elements on a magnetic disk media for high-density magnetic recording applications.
US07642035B2
The present invention relates to photo-tunable dopant compositions comprising a photo-reactive chiral compound capable of undergoing a photochemical reaction resulting in the loss of chirality, and a triplet sensitizer. The present invention also relates to a display comprising a substrate, a liquid crystalline layer thereon, wherein the liquid crystalline layer comprises a nematic host, at least one chiral dopant, a photo-reacted compound, and a triplet sensitizer, and at least one transparent conductive layer. The present invention also relates to a method of tuning a cholesteric liquid crystal material comprising providing at least one mesogenic compound, at least one triplet sensitizer, and at least one photo-reactive chiral compound; combining the at least one mesogenic compound, at least one triplet sensitizer, and at least one photo-reactive chiral compound to form a mixture; and irradiating the mixture for a period of time.
US07642033B2
In a toner production method, a volatile solvent gas is jetted into a dispersion of aggregated resin particles where at least resin particles dispersed in a continuous phase are aggregated. A form of the aggregated resin particles is controlled by jetting the volatile solvent gas into the dispersion of aggregated resin particles. The volatile solvent is removed from the form-controlled aggregated resin particles.
US07642030B2
A toner including toner particles each containing a resin and a colorant, wherein the toner particle has: a region A which contains the colorant and a region B through which more electrons can pass than the region A; and the region A is covered by the region B being within 1 μm deep from a circumference of the toner particle, when the toner particle is observed in a state of a microscopic segment having a thickness of 80 to 200 nm through a transmission electron microscope at an acceleration voltage of 80 kV.
US07642023B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a color image forming method capable of forming full color images desired for a precise reproduction to the color tone of high resolution and a halftone in high-end apparatuses. Disclosed is a color image forming method employing 6 kinds of chromatic color toners and a black toner, each toner containing particles having a median particle diameter (D50) of 3-7 μm in terms of volume, a decline starting temperature of a storage elastic modulus of 10-40° C., a temperature of 70-130° C. in the storage elastic modulus range of 103-104 Pa, and a primary diameter of 40-800 nm.
US07642020B2
A methodology to improve the through-process model calibration accuracy of a semiconductor manufacturing process using lithographic methods by setting the correct defocus and image plane position in a patterning process model build. Separations of the optical model and the photoresist model are employed by separating out the adverse effects of the exposure tool from the effects of the photoresist. The exposure tool is adjusted to compensate for the errors. The methodology includes a determination of where the simulator best focus location is in comparison to the empirically derived best focus location.
US07642017B2
The reflective photomask may include a substrate, a reflective layer formed on the substrate, an absorption pattern formed on the reflective layer and over a first portion of the substrate. A compensatory portion may be formed over at least a second portion of the substrate. The second portion is adjacent to the first portion, and the compensatory portion is thinner than the absorption pattern.
US07641999B2
A fuel cell stack includes side plates of a casing. Flanges are provided on the side plates on the short sides for coupling the side plates on the short sides to the other side plates on the long sides. In each of the side plates, the center O of the coupling pin is offset from the neutral surface NS of the side plate in a direction away from a stack body by the distance “h”.
US07641998B2
An electrically conductive separator element and assembly for a fuel cell which comprises an electrically conductive substrate having a monoatomic layer coating overlying the substrate. The monatomic layer coating may comprise an electrically conductive material, for example, a noble metal, desirably Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Ir, Os and preferably Au. Methods of making such separator elements and assemblies are also provided.
US07641994B2
A fuel processing method for a solid oxide fuel cell stack comprising the steps of: (a) supplying a feed stream comprising methanol and/or dimethyl ether to a methanation reactor containing catalytic material for the methanation of methanol and/or dimethyl ether; (b) processing the feed stream in the methanation reactor under adiabatic conditions to produce an effluent fuel comprising methane; (c) transferring the effluent fuel comprising methane to the anode of a solid oxide fuel cell stack comprising at least one solid oxide fuel cell; (d) providing the cathode of the solid oxide fuel cell stack with an oxygen-containing gas; and (e) converting the fuel comprising methane and the oxygen-containing gas into electricity in the solid oxide fuel cell stack.
US07641989B2
Embodiments of the invention provide a medium which provides high media S/N and good corrosion resistance. According to one embodiment, in a perpendicular magnetic recording medium at least comprising a soft-magnetic underlayer, a seed layer, an intermediate layer, a magnetic recording layer and an overcoat layer which are stacked over a substrate in order, the magnetic recording layer has a granular structure which consists of many columnar grains of CoCrPt alloy and a grain boundary layer containing an oxide, the seed layer is made of TaNi alloy or TaTi alloy and the intermediate layer is made of Ru or Ru alloy which contains about 80 at. % Ru or more.
US07641985B2
A boron-free and silicon-free bonding alloy (16) for joining with a superalloy base material (12, 14). The bonding alloy includes aluminum in a concentration that is higher than the concentration of aluminum in the base material in order to depress the melting temperature for the bonding alloy to facilitate liquid phase diffusion bonding without melting the base material. The concentration of aluminum in the bonding alloy may be at least twice that of the concentration of aluminum in the base material. For joining cobalt-based superalloy materials that do no contain aluminum, the concentration of aluminum in the bonding alloy may be at least 5 wt. %.
US07641982B2
A composition includes at least one radiation curable (alkyl)acrylate-polyester oligomer, at least one photoinitiator, and at least one surfactant, wherein the composition has a viscosity of from about 50 cP to about 3000 cP at about 25° C., and a surface tension of from about 15 to about 40 dynes/cm at about 25° C.
US07641980B2
A liquid silicone rubber coating composition comprising (A) an organopolysiloxane containing silicon-bonded alkenyl radicals, (B) an organohydrogenpolysiloxane containing SiH radicals, (C) an addition reaction catalyst, (D) finely divided silica, (E) an organosilicon compound containing epoxy and alkoxy radicals, (F) an organic titanium, zirconium or aluminum compound, and (G) a silanol-containing silane or siloxane compound is coated on a surface of an airbag base fabric and cured to form a rubber coating layer thereon. The composition is suited for curtain airbags.
US07641974B2
Use for the preparation of paints for substrata coatings of aqueous dispersions of VDF-based polymers having an average particle size between 0.260 and 0.3 micrometers comprising a bifunctional surfactant of formula: A-Rf-B (I) wherein A=—O—CFX—COOM; B=—CFX—COOM with X=F, CF3;M=NH4, alkaline metal, H;Rf is a linear or branched perfluoroalkyl chain, or a (per)fluoropolyether chain such that the number average molecular weight of (I) is in the range 600-800.
US07641971B2
The invention relates to metal-treated particles, methods for their preparation and methods for using metal-treated particles for, e.g., remediation of process waste-water, sewage, contaminated groundwater aquifers, and soil containing harmful contaminants. Another aspect of the invention relates to a metal-treated particle comprising a ferrosoferric oxide core and a metal supported on the core, where the average diameter or other largest transverse dimension of the core is from about 75 nm to about 990 nm and the amount of metal supported on the core is from about 8% to about 22% by weight, based on the weight of the metal-treated particle.
US07641969B2
An optical fiber preform is assembled by inserting core rod segments axially end to end inside of a first glass overclad tube having a first, relatively low concentration of a given impurity that contributes to signal attenuation in an optical fiber to be drawn from the preform. The first overclad tube with the contained core rod segments are inserted in a second glass tube having a second concentration of the given impurity which is higher than the first concentration. The wall thickness of the first overclad tube is preferably less than that of the second overclad tube, thus reducing the amount of high purity glass needed to form the first overclad tube and attendant manufacturing costs. The core rod segments may include salvageable remnants from a single long core rod produced, for example, by vapor axial deposition (VAD).
US07641964B2
A roofing material includes a first layer including a fluoropolymer, a second layer directly bonded to and directly contacting the first layer, and a third layer underlying the second layer. The second layer includes an unfunctionalized olefinic polymer. The third layer includes a polymeric material and a filler.
US07641954B2
The invention provides a translucent glazing panel comprising: (a) a thermoplastic panel comprising (i) an outer wall having an inner surface defining an internal channel, the internal channel having an internal volume, and (ii) at least one inner wall protruding from the inner surface into the internal channel, and (b) hydrophobic aerogel particles, the hydrophobic aerogel particles being disposed within the channel. The invention also provides an insulated glazing system comprising: (a) a first U-shaped element, (b) a second U-shaped element, the first and second elements being disposed to define a cavity therebetween, and (c) an insulating panel disposed within the cavity. The insulated glazing system can further comprise hydrophobic aerogel particles disposed within the internal channel of the insulating panel. The insulating panel of the glazing system also can be the same as the translucent glazing panel described herein.
US07641953B2
A component for an interior of a vehicle including a substrate, a skin cooperating with the substrate to define a cavity, and foam disposed within the cavity. The skin includes first and second skin components cooperating to define an outer show surface and a hidden support portion that extends away from the show portion. The skin components matingly engage each other along the length of the support portion to substantially prevent the foam from leaking therebetween. Additionally, the support portion includes an deformable portion to improve the soft-touch feel of the component.
US07641938B2
A method for manufacturing the carbon nanotube composite material includes the steps of: providing a substrate, the substrate having a surface; forming a catalyst film in a special predetermined pattern on the surface of the substrate; forming a carbon nanotube array on the catalyst film to obtain the carbon nanotube array having a special predetermined pattern; providing a pair of protective layers, the protective layers being attached on a corresponding portion of ends of CNT array; filling clearances existing among CNTs of the CNT array and between the two protective layers with a matrix material; and removing the protective layers from CNT array.
US07641926B2
The present invention provides a chewing or bubble gum composition which includes a liquid fill composition and a gum region which includes a gum base surrounding the liquid fill, wherein the gum region includes a polyol composition including at least one polyol and having a water solubility of less than 72% by weight at 25° C. The composition may also include a coating region which surrounds the gum region.
US07641919B2
The invention provides a pharmaceutical composition which comprises a pharmaceutical carrier and at least one compound selected from the group consisting of cobaltocene-octamethyl, stigmastan- 3,5 -diene, galoxolide, benzyl salicylate, eucalyptol, and α-pinene. Also provided is a method of preparing a composition having antimicrobial activity comprising extracting a plant material in an organic solvent, contacting the extracted material to a chromatographic column, and eluting from the chromatographic column with a mobile polar phase to obtain a composition. The plant material is from Mammea Americana, Marchantaceae polymorpha, or Callistemon citrinus. Also provided is a method of inhibiting the growth of a mycobacterium, comprising administering a composition comprising a carrier and at least one compound selected from among cobaltocene-octamethyl, stigmastan, 3,5 -diene, friedelin, galoxolide, benzyl salicylate, eucalyptol, and α-pinene.
US07641915B2
The present invention relates to novel cationic lipids, transfection agents, microparticles, nanoparticles, and short interfering nucleic acid (siNA) molecules. The invention also features compositions, and methods of use for the study, diagnosis, and treatment of traits, diseases and conditions that respond to the modulation of gene expression and/or activity in a subject or organism. Specifically, the invention relates to novel cationic lipids, microparticles, nanoparticles and transfection agents that effectively transfect or deliver biologically active molecules, such as antibodies (e.g., monoclonal, chimeric, humanized etc.), cholesterol, hormones, antivirals, peptides, proteins, chemotherapeutics, small molecules, vitamins, co-factors, nucleosides, nucleotides, oligonucleotides, enzymatic nucleic acids, antisense nucleic acids, triplex forming oligonucleotides, 2,5-A chimeras, dsRNA, allozymes, aptamers, decoys and analogs thereof, and small nucleic acid molecules, such as short interfering nucleic acid (siNA), short interfering RNA (siRNA), double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), micro-RNA (miRNA), and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) molecules, to relevant cells and/or tissues, such as in a subject or organism. Such novel cationic lipids, microparticles, nanoparticles and transfection agents are useful, for example, in providing compositions to prevent, inhibit, or treat diseases, conditions, or traits in a cell, subject or organism. The compositions described herein are generally referred to as formulated molecular compositions (FMC) or lipid nanoparticles (LNP).
US07641912B1
Antimicrobial coatings to protect surfaces and a method of applying such a coating are disclosed. An antimicrobial coating may be applied to a surface, such as the interior surface of a building's exterior wall. The interior surface must be accessed, and then an antimicrobial coating is provided and applied. The antimicrobial coating includes an inorganic antimicrobial additive and a colloidal polymeric medium. The inorganic antimicrobial additive may be silver, platinum, gold, palladium, copper, zinc, boron, or a compound of any of those elements. By including an ultraviolet tracer or color dye additive in the coating, it is possible to detect the coating at any time, provided that the surface is accessed.
US07641903B2
Disclosed are CD70 binding agents, such as anti-CD70 antibodies and derivatives, that induce a cytotoxic, cytostatic or immunomodulatory without conjugation to a therapeutic agents as well as pharmaceutical compositions and kits comprising the antibody or derivative. Also disclosed are methods for the treatment and prevention of CD70-expressing cancers and immunological disorders comprising administering the CD70 binding agents to a subject.
US07641901B2
Antibodies that bind with a B-cell antigen provide an effective means to treat autoimmune disorders. Antibodies and fragments, which may be conjugated or naked, are used alone or in multimodal therapies. The antibodies may be bispecific antibodies which may be produced recombinantly as fusion proteins, or as hybrid, polyspecific antibodies.
US07641899B2
Cytokines and their receptors have proven usefulness in both basic research and as therapeutics. The present invention provides a new human cytokine receptor designated as “Zcytor16.”
US07641892B2
Stain-removing oral compositions, such as gum compositions are herein provided. The compositions include an orally acceptable carrier and a stain-removing anionic surfactant. The surfactant includes a fatty acid salt having at least one hydroxyl functionality. The fatty acid salt may be a salt of ricinoleic acid, and may be combined with a chelating agent and/or an abrasive. The chelating agent may be a polyphosphate and the abrasive may be a silica abrasive.
US07641891B2
The present invention provides humanized, chimeric and human anti-CSAp antibodies and anti-CSAp antibody fusion proteins that are useful for the treatment and diagnosis of various cancers, including colon cancer.
US07641889B1
An apparatus and method apply water to a hydrogen-containing composition, such as a hydride, in the presence of a catalyst that promotes hydrolysis to generate hydrogen in a controlled manner. The amount of catalyst used can be carefully tailored so that the reaction rate is limited by the amount of catalyst present (passive control) or it can be sufficiently large so that the reaction is controlled by the rate of water addition (active control).
US07641886B2
The present invention provides a process for obtaining fullerene-like metal chalcogenide nanoparticles, comprising feeding a metal precursor (INi) selected from metal halide, metal carbonyl, organo-metallic compound and metal oxyhalide vapor into a reaction chamber (12) towards a reaction zone to interact with a flow of at least one chalcogen material (IN2) in gas phase, the temperature conditions in said reaction zone being such to enable the formation of the fullerene-like metal chalcogenide nanoparticles product. The present invention further provides novel IF metal chalcogenides nanoparticles with spherical shape and optionally having a very small or no hollow core and also exhibiting excellent tribological behavior. The present invention further provides an apparatus for preparing various IF nanostructures.
US07641878B2
A system and method for beneficiation of fly ash particles which at least partially reduces sulfur emissions includes at least one mixing reactor with a chamber and at least one exhaust, at least one fly ash source connected to provide fly ash particles to the chamber, at least one sorbent source, and at least one fluid supply system. The sorbent source provides at least one type of sorbent particles to be mixed with the fly ash particles to reduce sulfur emissions. A mass of the fly ash particles in the chamber is greater than a mass of the sorbent particles in the chamber. The fluid supply system provides at least one fluid to the chamber during a beneficiation of at least a portion of the fly ash particles in the chamber.
US07641876B2
One aspect of the invention relates to a method for removing contaminants from a flue gas stream (22). The method includes: removing fly ash from a flue gas stream (22) utilizing a particle collector (24); contacting the flue gas stream with an alkaline reagent in a wet scrubber (26); discharging a purge liquid (30) from the wet scrubber (26); and, combining at least a portion of the purge liquid with at least a portion of fly ash circulating within a dry circulating fluid bed scrubber (48) to form moistened fly ash (60).
US07641870B2
Hydrocarbon feedstock containing resid is cracked by a process comprising: (a) heating the hydrocarbon feedstock; (b) mixing the heated hydrocarbon feedstock with steam and optionally water to form a mixture stream; (c) introducing the mixture stream to a flash/separation apparatus to form i) a vapor phase at its dew point which partially cracks and loses/or heat causing a temperature decrease and partial condensation of the vapor phase in the absence of added heat to provide coke precursors existing as uncoalesced condensate, and ii) a liquid phase; (d) removing the vapor phase as overhead and the liquid phase as bottoms from the flash/separation apparatus; (e) treating the overhead by contacting with a hydrocarbon-containing nucleating liquid substantially free of resid and comprising components boiling at a temperature of at least about 260° C. (500° F.) under conditions sufficient to at least partially coalesce the coke precursors to provide coke precursor liquid, in the form of hydrocarbon droplets or a continuous hydrocarbon liquid phase; (f) collecting and removing the droplets; (g) directing the treated overhead from which the droplets are removed, to a heater to provide a heated vapor phase; (h) cracking the heated vapor phase in a radiant section of a pyrolysis furnace to produce an effluent comprising olefins, the pyrolysis furnace comprising a radiant section and a convection section; and (i) quenching the effluent and recovering cracked product therefrom. An apparatus for carrying out the process is also provided.
US07641869B2
A process and apparatus are presented for obtaining inorganic fullerene-like nanostructures. A metal oxide is evaporated at predetermined temperature conditions, and is swept towards a reacting zone, to which first and second gas phase reacting agents are concurrently swept. The evaporated metal oxide thus interacts with the first reacting agent and is converted into metal suboxide nanoparticles in the gas phase. The condensing metal suboxide nanoparticles interact with the second reacting agent in the gas phase resulting in substantially pure phase of the inorganic fullerene-like nanoparticles.
US07641867B2
An exhaust gas containing a perfluoride component (PFC) and SiIF4 is conducted into a silicon remover and brought into contact with water. A reaction water supplied from a water supplying piping and air supplied from an air supplying piping are mixed with the exhaust gas exhausted from the silicon remover. The exhaust gas containing water, air, and CF4 is heated at 700° C. by a heater. The exhaust gas containing PFC is conducted to a catalyst layer filled with an alumina group catalyst. The PFC is decomposed to HF and CO2 at a high temperature exhausted from the catalyst layer is cooled in a cooling apparatus. Subsequently, the exhaust gas is conducted to an acidic gas removing apparatus to remove HF. In this way, the silicon component is removed from the exhaust gas before introducing the exhaust gas into the catalyst layer. Therefore, the surface of the catalyst can be utilized effectively, and the decomposition reaction of the perfluoride compound can be improved.
US07641858B2
An apparatus introducing a fluid using a centrifugal force includes an introduction member including a chip receiver and a fluid introduction reservoir, the chip receiver receiving a first part of a microfluidic chip, the first part including an inlet, the fluid introduction reservoir storing a fluid to be introduced to the microfluidic chip, the fluid introduction reservoir having an exit formed to correspond to the inlet of the microfluidic chip received in the chip receiver, and a support member supporting a second part of the microfluidic chip, wherein the microfluidic chip is disposed between the introduction member and the support member, the apparatus is rotatable in a state where the introduction member is closer to a center of rotation than the microfluidic chip, and the fluid is introducible from the fluid introduction reservoir through the inlet into the microfluidic chip due to a centrifugal force generated by rotation.
US07641857B2
A measuring apparatus for determining an analyte in a liquid sample includes the following apparatus components: a test element with a test field for applying the liquid sample, the test element experiencing a detectable modification due to the analyte to be determined, a detector which detects the modification and generates an electrical detector signal as a function of it, an evaluation circuit arranged downstream of the detector, which evaluates the detector signal to form a measurement result, a display device connected to the evaluation circuit for displaying the measurement result, and an electrical power supply for supplying electrical power to the electrical apparatus components. At least some of the electrical apparatus components are formed on the basis of polymer electronics so that the analyte can be determined straightforwardly, conveniently and inexpensively.
US07641851B2
An apparatus, system and method for verifying the achievement of a desired sterility assurance level (SAL) for components manipulated within a low-energy electron beam sterilization chamber. The components are preferably pre-sterilized and connected together in an assembly fashion which creates and maintains the sterility of the connection by subjecting the components to low-energy (less than 300 KeV) electron beam radiation. The verification is completed by measuring the sterilization dose delivered to a sensor, also known as a dosimeter, positioned within the sterilization process to simulate the components.
US07641850B2
A technique for net shaping gear teeth of a high performance power transmission gear from a powder metal workpiece includes heating a powder metal workpiece in the form of a near net shaped gear blank having gear teeth surfaces above its critical temperature to obtain an austenitic structure throughout its surfaces, isothermally quenching the workpiece at a rate greater than the critical cooling rate of its surfaces to a uniform metastable austenitic temperature just above the martensitic transformation temperature, rolling the gear teeth surfaces of the workpiece to a desired outer peripheral profiled shape between opposed dies, each die having an outer peripheral profiled surface, while holding the workpiece at the uniform metastable austenitic temperature, the gear teeth surfaces undergoing densification, plastic deformation, and strengthening as a result of the rolling operation, and cooling the workpiece through the martensitic range to thereby harden the surfaces of the gear teeth.
US07641837B2
A method for producing a roll film provided with a coat layer comprising the steps of: (i) producing a roll film; (ii) applying a first embossing treatment along a longitudinal direction of the roll film on a part of a lateral direction of the roll film; (iii) applying a coat layer on the roll film; (iv) applying a second embossing treatment along a longitudinal direction of the roll film on a part of a lateral direction of the roll film; (v) heat treating the roll film at a temperature of 50 to 150° C. for a duration of 1 to 30 days while the roll film is rolled in a roll.
US07641835B2
A trashcan includes a container having a base and a peripheral wall extending upwardly from the base forming an interior space for receipt of a trash bag therein; and a trash bag retention member disposed on the peripheral wall, the retention member defining a passageway into the interior space of the container and comprising a plurality of resilient, flexible fingers configured to receive and retain therebetween a portion of a trash bag. Each finger includes a portion thereof that extends away from the peripheral wall. Each finger is “bent” and extends away from the peripheral wall. A finger may extend away from the peripheral wall on the exterior of the container, away from the peripheral wall on the interior of the container, or both. A method of making the trashcan includes injection molding the container and the retention member separately or, alternatively, together.
US07641832B2
The process for the continuous production of a composition comprising rubber (20), a hydrocarbon resin (22) and a solvent (26) provides for the use of at least two two-screw extruders (10a, 10b) placed in series. These extruders may be of the contrarotating type or, preferably, co-rotating.
US07641831B2
A method for manufacturing plastic product includes the steps of: forming a work piece (30) in an injection molding apparatus, the work piece (30) including at least an original product (34), a butt end (36), and gate (32), the gate (32) connecting a corresponding original product (34) with the butt end (36); precutting the gate (32) in a mold before the work piece (30) has completely cooled; removing the work piece (30) from the injection molding apparatus; separating each original product (34).
US07641828B2
Methods of making a removable dental positioning appliance include forming a sheet of transparent crystalline polymeric material into a shell having cavities shaped to receive and reposition teeth from a first orientation to a successive orientation. The polymeric material may then be annealed at a temperature above its glass transition temperature or cured if a curable material to enhance characteristics of the polymeric material. The polymeric material may be coated with a second transparent material.
US07641827B2
The invention relates to a method for pressing a formed part, in which a ceramic and/or metallic material to be pressed, in particular powdery and/or granulated material (3) is being filled into the die cavity (2) of a die (1), in an axis of compaction (X) with at least one pressing punch (4, 5) the material (3) is being pressed, and in a direction, with a component of movement perpendicular to the first axis of compaction (X), a transverse punch (6) is being moved into the material (3) in a transverse axis (QX), with the movement of the transverse punch (6) being carried out during and/or after pressing of the material (3) in the axis of compaction (X), in particular during and/or after beginning of the compaction operation of the material (3). In particular there is carried out according to the method the actuation of pressing punches in the axis of compaction in such a way, that there act onto the transverse punch in the direction of the axis of compaction on both sides approximately equal forces. For reducing the installation space required at the side of the die, while nevertheless providing forces, which are sufficient for the transverse punch, it is of advantage to use an eccentric drive mechanism.
US07641823B2
The invention provides an apparatus for forming fine particles of a substance in a precipitation chamber, in which the apparatus has means to convey the fine particles from the precipitation chamber to at least one particle collection chamber, downstream of the precipitation chamber, the particle collection chamber having an inlet and an outlet separate from the inlet. The invention also provides a method of forming fine particles of a substance, the method comprising contacting a non-gaseous fluid containing the substance with a dense fluid to expand the non-gaseous fluid in a precipitation chamber, conveying a resulting mixture of fluid and the fine particles from the precipitation chamber to a collection chamber, the collection chamber having an inlet and an outlet separate from the inlet.
US07641817B2
There is provided a method for producing a silver powder having excellent dispersibility and capable of forming a paste which do not form suspended matters by phase separation and which is printed on a substrate to form a film having a uniform thickness. In this method, an alkali or a complexing agent is added to an aqueous silver salt containing solution to form a silver oxide containing slurry or an aqueous silver complex salt containing solution. After or before silver particles are deposited by reduction by adding a reducing agent to the silver oxide containing slurry or aqueous silver complex salt containing solution while stirring it, at least one chelating agent selected from the group consisting of compounds having an azole structure, dicarboxylic acids, hydroxy carboxylic acids and salts thereof is added to a silver power containing slurry solution as a dispersing agent.
US07641816B2
A semiconductive rubber composition contains copolymerized rubber containing ethylene oxide; chloroprene rubber; and acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber. A conductive rubber roller has a conductive rubber layer composed of the semiconductive rubber composition on an outermost layer thereof.
US07641808B2
The present invention relates to azeotropic or azeotrope-like compositions comprising a fluorinated olefin having the formula E- or Z-C3F7CH═CHC3F7, and at least one alcohol, halocarbon, hydrofluorocarbon, fluoroether, or alkanes and combinations thereof. In one embodiment, the one compound selected from the group consisting of alcohols, halocarbons, fluoroalkyl ethers, hydrofluorocarbons, alkanes is either methanol, ethanol, iso-propanol, n-propanol, trans-1,2-dichloroethylene, cis-1,2-dichloroethylene, n-propyl bromide, C4F9OCH3, C4F9OC2H5, HFC-43-10mee, HFC-365mfc, heptane, or combinations thereof. In another embodiment, these compositions are useful in cleaning applications as a degreasing agent or defluxing agent for removing oils and/or other residues from a surface.
US07641801B2
A method and system of removing or decreasing waste liquor manganese concentration to less than about 1 mg/L total manganese without the precipitation of significant amounts of magnesium. The method and system include steps for treating the waste liquor using three separate circuits in which in the first circuit, manganese is reduced, for example, from about 2 g/L to <500 mg/L using pH adjustment with a suitable neutralizing agent; and in the second circuit, the final target manganese level is achieved by oxidative precipitation using a suitable oxidizing agent. Part of the precipitated manganese product, e.g., MnO2, is recycled to the oxidative precipitation circuit as seed and the balance proceeds to a third circuit wherein the precipitated manganese product is re-dissolved, and then recycled to the first neutralization circuit. In the first neutralization circuit and the second oxidative precipitation circuit, the process conditions are selected to minimize the precipitation of magnesium, e.g., Mg(OH)2.
US07641799B2
A process in which isotopes of the same element belonging to the alkaline earth metals, transition elements and heavy metals having an atomic mass of less than 209, in particular lanthanide metals, are separated in an aqueous medium by treating an aqueous medium.
US07641790B2
A wearable or portable intermittently operable hydration system (10) includes a purification module (22, 50) that contains one or more solid state UV devices that are positioned in the path of hydrating fluid, or water, flow through the hydration system to a mouthpiece (18). The UV LEDs are instant on devices with essentially no ramp-up required, and a sensor (20) or the opening of a push-pull valve (53) controls the turning on of the UV LEDs. The fluid flow path may run from a bladder (12) in a backpack (19) worn by the user, a sports bottle (54) worn by or carried by the user or may be through a water filtration system that a user operates via a pump. The power for the purification module may come from batteries, solar cells, fuel cells, power converted from pumping or winding action or any combination thereof.
US07641789B2
Process to prepare a base oil having a viscosity index of between 80 and 140 starting from a distillate or a de-asphalted oil by (a) contacting the feedstock in the presence of hydrogen with a sulphided hydrodesulphurization catalyst comprising nickel and tungsten on an acid amorphous silica-alumina carrier and (b) performing a pour point reducing step on the effluent of step (a) to obtain the base oil.
US07641787B2
Compositions for reduction of NOx generated during a catalytic cracking process, preferably, a fluid catalytic cracking process, are disclosed. The compositions comprise a fluid catalytic cracking catalyst composition, preferably containing a Y-type zeolite, and a particulate NOx composition containing particles of a zeolite having a pore size ranging from about 3 to about 7.2 Angstroms and a SiO2 to Al2O3 molar ratio of less than about 500. Preferably, the NOx reduction composition contains NOx reduction zeolite particles bound with an inorganic binder. In the alternative, the NOx reduction zeolite particles are incorporated into the cracking catalyst as an integral component of the catalyst. Compositions in accordance with the invention are very effective for the reduction of NOx emissions released from the regenerator of a fluid catalytic cracking unit operating under FCC process conditions without a substantial change in conversion or yield of cracked products. Processes for the use of the compositions are also disclosed.
US07641785B2
A sensor for blood component analysis that can correct the effect of a hematocrit easily is provided. The sensor includes an analysis portion including a working electrode, a counter electrode, and a reagent portion. The reagent portion includes an oxidoreductase that reacts with the blood component and a mediator, and the blood component is measured by causing a redox reaction between the blood component and the oxidoreductase in the presence of the mediator and detecting a redox current generated by the redox reaction by the working electrode and the counter electrode. In this sensor, the reagent portion further includes a hemolyzing agent (e.g., sodium cholate) for hemolyzing an erythrocyte, and when detecting the redox current, the erythrocyte is hemolyzed with the hemolyzing agent so as to cause hemoglobin released to an outside of the erythrocyte to react with the mediator and a current generated by this reaction also is detected to correct an effect of a hematocrit.
US07641782B2
A method and apparatus for improving the corrosion resistance of chrome plated materials. After the materials to be chrome plated are mechanically abrasively polished, but before they are reverse etched, they are power washed with a high-pressure liquid. A sprayer with nozzles directed inwardly towards the materials directs water onto the material at pressures in the range of 1000 or 2500 to 3000 psi. After the materials are chrome plated, they are heated above the melting point of a buffing compound, and then the heated materials with the buffing compound applied are buffed. An induction heater is used, before or after the buffing compound is applied. Computer controls, responsive to operator input of the cross-sectional size, composition and/or speed of movement of the chrome plated materials, to in turn regulate the power to an induction coil heater.
US07641779B2
A method and apparatus for microfluidic processing by programmably manipulating a packet. A material is introduced onto a reaction surface and compartmentalized to form a packet. A position of the packet is sensed with a position sensor. A programmable manipulation force is applied to the packet at the position. The programmable manipulation force is adjustable according to packet position by a controller. The packet is programmably moved according to the programmable manipulation force along arbitrarily chosen paths.
US07641765B2
Paper coated with a coating slip containing at least one optical brightener is produced by a process in which base paper or precoated paper is treated, before application of the coating slip containing optical brightener, with at least one substance which enhances the efficiency of optical brighteners.
US07641764B2
The object of the present invention is to provide a non-woven fabric comprising a glass fiber which has a strength, flexibility and water resistance, has less skin irritancy and a good surface decoration property, and a process for producing the same, more specifically, to provide a non-woven fabric for a gypsum board which is used as a reinforcing material for a gypsum board placed on one side or both sides of the gypsum board, and a process for producing the same. A non-woven fabric for a gypsum board comprising 20 to 60% by weight of a glass fiber, 10 to 50% by weight of an organic fiber and 10 to 50% by weight of a fibrous binder, which contains the organic fiber at least on a gypsum core contact surface, is provided.
US07641755B2
An assembly for forming a hollow, ceramic arc discharge vessel for high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps is described wherein a means for self-alignment of two molded sections is provided. In particular, the sealing surface of one section of the arc discharge vessel is provided with a convex surface and the sealing surface of the other section is provided with a concave surface. The radius of the convex sealing surface is smaller than the radius of the concave sealing surface so that the sections may self-align during joining, preferably without gas entrapment in the seal.
US07641746B2
An integrated metal processing facility in which molten metal is poured into a series of molds at a pouring station to form metal castings, which are then transferred to a heat treatment line. Prior to introduction of the castings into a heat treatment station of the heat treatment line, the castings are subjected to heating sufficient to arrest cooling of the castings at or above a process control temperature for the metal thereof.
US07641742B2
There is provided a rolling bearing which has long life against rolling fatigue and exhibits no decrease in fracture strength and no increase in rate of dimensional change over time, even if the part size thereof is large, and which can obtain higher strength by crystal grains being further refined, if it has a size equal to or smaller than a prescribed size. The rolling bearing according to the present invention includes a race and a rolling element. At least one member of the race and the rolling element has a nitrogen-enriched layer in its surface layer, and a surface layer portion contains austenite crystal grains having a grain size number of at least 11. The member has hardenability allowing a position exhibiting HRC50 in a hardenability test method for steel to be apart from a quenched end by a distance of at least 12.7 mm ( 8/16 inch).
US07641741B2
A fixture includes an enlarged plate having slots in an upper surface, and support members are secured to the plate at the slots. The fixture is utilized to machine parts that are initially flame-cut from a large plate/sheet of hot-roll steel. A plurality of notches are flame-cut into the perimeter of the part. The support members engage the flame-cut slots to secure the part to the plate for machining a first side of the part. Precision notches are machined into the part, and precisely-shaped protrusions on the support members are closely received in the precision notches to precisely locate the part for further machining on a second side thereof.
US07641731B2
The invention relates to an ultra-high-performance, self-compacting light-colored concrete comprising: a cement; a mixture of calcined bauxite sands of different grain sizes, the finest sand having an average grain size of less than 1 mm and the thickest sand having an average grain size of less than 10 mm; optionally silica fume, whereby 90% of the particles thereof have a size of less than 1 ?m and the average diameter is approximately 0.5 ?m, said silica fume representing at most 15 parts by weight per 100 parts of cement; an antifoaming agent; water-reducing superplasticiser; optionally fibers; and water. The inventive concrete also comprises: ultrafine calcium carbonate particles having a specific surface area that is equal to or greater than 10 m2/g and a form factor (IF) that is equal to or greater than 0.3 and, preferably, equal to or greater than 0.4. The grain size distribution of the cements, sands, ultrafine calcium carbonate particles and silica fume is such that at least three, and at most five, different grain size ranges are present, the ratio between the average diameter of one grain size range and that of the range immediately above is approximately 10. The invention also relates to the method of preparing one such concrete and to the uses thereof.
US07641730B2
The present invention provides a glass flake having sufficiently high visible-light absorptivity. The glass flake of the present invention includes a glass composition that contains a transition metal oxide such as an iron oxide and that allows the glass flake to have a visible-light transmittance of 85% or lower measured with an A light source when the glass flake has a thickness of 15 μm. In this glass composition, it is preferable that the content of Fe2O3 (T−Fe2O3) in terms of the total iron satisfies the following formula, expressed in mass %: 10
US07641714B2
A method for recovering metal values from refractory sulfide ores is provided. The method includes the steps of separating clays and fines from crushed refractory sulfide ore, forming a heap from the refractory sulfide ore, producing a concentrate of refractory sulfide minerals from the separated fines and adding the concentrate to the heap, bioleaching the heap to thereby oxidize iron sulfides contained therein, and hydrometallurgically treating the bioleached ore to recover metal values contained therein.
US07641708B2
An air filter assembly for removing particulate matter from an incoming dirty air stream. The assembly includes a housing having an inlet, an outlet, a dirty air chamber and a clean air chamber and a non-cylindrical shaped elongated filter element arranged within the dirty air chamber constructed to remove particulate matter from an incoming air stream. A plurality of non-cylindrical filter elements are preferred. The non-cylindrical filter elements provide a decreased incoming air stream velocity when compared to conventional cylindrical filter elements having the same surface area. Alternately, the non-cylindrical filter elements allow an increase in the volume of incoming air when compared to conventional cylindrical filter elements having the same surface area.
US07641706B1
The present invention relates to the use of a naturally occurring group of biological compounds to produce a combustible fuel that may be used in either internal combustion engines or as a burnable heat source. These compounds are a set of biomolecules produced by some bacteria in nutrient limiting environmental conditions when storage of carbon is necessary. More specifically this invention envisions the use of polyhydroxy alkanoates (PHA), especially those ranging in size from C4 to C8, to produce the combustible fuel.
US07641688B2
Disclosed are implantable tissue augmentation devices, methods, and associated tools. The devices include an inflatable body, having an inner layer and an outer layer. A valve is provided for permitting the introduction of and retaining inflation media. At least one pull tab is provided on an end of the implant, to assist in positioning the implant. Kits and systems are also disclosed.
US07641687B2
A heart valve comprises a stent and a sewing cuff comprising a stiffening ring, wherein the stent and the stiffening ring are adapted to be snap-fitted. In one embodiment, the stent and the stiffening ring can together comprise one or more projections and one or more openings.
US07641685B2
A system and method for delivering and assembling a bifurcated stent in a bifurcated vessel having a first lumen and a second lumen. The system and method includes the use of three balloon catheters wherein at least one of the catheters is a fixed wire catheter. A first segment of the bifurcated stent having a stem portion, a first leg portion, a longitudinal bore extending therethrough and a branch aperture formed in the side wall is mounted on two of the balloon catheters and delivered to the treatment site where it is implanted into the first lumen. A second segment of the bifurcated stent having a proximal end, a distal end and a longitudinal bore extending therethrough is mounted on the third balloon catheter and is delivered to the treatment site such that the distal end extends into the second lumen and the proximal end extends into longitudinal bore of the first segment. The second segment is then implanted into the second lumen and secured to the branch aperture of the first segment to form a bifurcated stent.
US07641678B2
A tanning apparatus for radiation treatment for personal care includes at least one gas discharge UV lamp, at least one ballast connected in series with said at least one gas discharge lamp, and at least one incandescent lamp separate from the gas discharge lamp or lamps. The weight of the inductive ballast is reduced in that the incandescent lamp(s) is included in the ballast or ballasts(s).
US07641674B2
Devices and methods include an anchor assembly engageable to a vertebra and a connecting element positionable through a receiver of the anchor assembly. The assembly includes an engaging member for engaging the connecting element in the receiver. The engaging member includes a plurality of elongated arcuate projecting members extending about a rotational center of the engaging member and projecting from an end surface of the engaging member to positively engage the connecting element in the receiver.
US07641668B2
An apparatus and method for ejecting fluid from a fluid delivery system. The fluid delivery system has a pneumatic assembly that when triggered injects gas into a hydraulic assembly, which in turn ejects fluid through an external interface. An electronic interface displays various measurements, for example, how much fluid has been ejected and if the hydraulic system is closed the pressure of the system. The pneumatic assembly can also be depressurized such that fluid can reenter the hydraulic assembly through the external interface.
US07641662B2
The present invention relates to a femoral condyle cutting and shaping center (10), which comprises a main driving shaft (15) provided in a transmission gearbox (4), and a main driving gear (14) mounted on the main driving shaft (15). At least a first driven gear (12) is engaged with the main driving gear (14), said first driven gear (12) being mounted on a first driven shaft (13), said first driven shaft (13) being supported in the transmission gearbox (4). One end of the first driven shaft (13) extends towards the outside of the transmission gearbox (4), and a bone shaping mill (21) is mounted on an extending end (22) of the first driven shaft (13).
US07641656B2
A bone tapping kit for cutting an internal thread into bone defining a bore. The kit comprises 1) a guide component with a threaded aperture which, when in position, is aligned with the bore, and 2) a tap having a first portion with a first diameter and an external thread designed to engage with the threaded aperture of the guide component, and a second portion having a second diameter which is smaller than the first diameter and a helical cutting edge designed so that it can be received into the bore and cut an internal thread therein. The guide component and tap are dimensioned so that when the tap is introduced into the guide component the first portion engages with the threaded aperture in the guide component before the helical cutting edge of the second portion engages with the bore. Thus, the thread configuration that is cut into the bore forms a continuation of the same helix defined by the internal thread of the aperture of the guide member.
US07641649B2
An infusion media delivery device includes a durable housing portion and a separable disposable portion that selectively engage and disengage from each other. The disposable housing portion secures to the patient and may be disposed of after it has been in use for a prescribed period. The disposable housing portion supports an infusion media reservoir and a needle on a moveable platform. The platform is moveable between a first position in which a needle is disengaged with a patient and a second position in which the needle is engaged with the patient.
US07641636B2
A syringe with a closure is disclosed. The syringe comprises a needle projecting from a syringe body, the tip of the needle being enclosed by a closure cap when the syringe is in a closed position. A sealing element is provided for sealing the needle in the closed position. The sealing element has an annular, elastically deformable portion that can be sealingly pressed against the outer surface of the needle by means of the closure cap.
US07641635B2
A method of non-delaminably bonding a non-porous thermoplastic elastomer to a substrate by heating a bilayer of the elastomer and the substrate for a predetermined time and a product obtained by the method. Methods for producing non-delaminable conduits and non-delaminable kink-resistant conduits constructed of biocompatible elastomers and substrates, and products produced by these methods are taught. Methods, products, and articles of manufacture relating to non-delaminable monofilament supported kink-resistive conduits that may be used as inflow conduits in left ventricular assist devices for treatment of heart failure are also provided.
US07641632B2
A patient control system uses a patient-implanted catheter in thermal communication with a fluid bath via a circulating fluid circuit. A controller automatically controls the temperature of the fluid bath as required for selectively cooling or heating the patient in accordance with patient temperature measurements. The controller thermally decouples the catheter and patient from the fluid bath during changes in fluid bath temperatures in order to overcome the effects of system thermal mass.
US07641624B2
A femur traction device includes a brace adapted to be secured to a patient's leg, with one end secured above a break in the leg and a hitch end extending below the foot and providing a hitch for a tensioning harness. The tensioning harness is secured between the hitch and the patient's ankle, and straps of the harness may be lengthened or shortened to increase or decrease tension on the leg. The tensioning harness advantageously does not rely on hook-and-loop type fastening means, is color coded to facilitate proper use, and stores in a pouch that forms part of and is secured to the remainder of the tensioning harness.
US07641620B2
A sampling apparatus for taking a sample from the body of a patient is easily rotatable while the sample is being taken. This allows the physician to aspirate or draw the sample, rotating the sampling apparatus while holding stationary a syringe or other container for receiving the sample.
US07641619B2
The invention includes systems and methods for converting absolute pressure data acquired in anatomical environments to gauge pressure data using an implant configured to monitor pressure. The implant is configured to communicate with an external controller, which is configured to communicate with a remote microprocessor that includes real-time barometric pressure data for one or more geographic locations.
US07641614B2
Methods and apparatus for measuring arterial blood pressure at an extremity of a subject. Arterial blood pressure is derived from a circulatory measurement performed on an extremity of a subject and the circulatory measurement is normalized to account for the instantaneous vertical displacement of the extremity. The vertical displacement of the extremity relative to the heart of the subject is obtained using the angular orientation of the subject's extremity. An improved photoplethysmograph can discriminate light traversing the extremity from ambient light on the basis of differential response. The apparatus may have a conducting polymer actuator for applying pressure to the extremity of the subject. A pulsatile waveform from the photoplethysmographic signal may be obtained at a plurality of externally applied pressures to calibrate the photoplethysmograph.
US07641612B1
A blood loss detection device for a hemodialysis system having a blood intake line, a dialysis machine including a pump, with the dialysis machine in communication with the blood intake line, and a blood return line in communication with the dialysis machine. The detection device includes a patch having an exterior edge and an opening through the patch forming a target for receipt of the return blood line. A slit through the patch extends between the exterior edge and the opening. A primary loop circuit terminates at two ends at the slit. An early warning alarm circuit loop terminates at two ends at the slit. An emergency shut-down circuit loop terminates at two ends at the slit. A modular connector connects the patch to an alarm activated by the early warning alarm circuit and to a switch mechanism activated by the shut-down circuit in order to shut down the dialysis machine and the pump.
US07641602B2
A weightlifting system includes a weight arm system having a handle which may be mounted in one of a multitude of clocked positions. A handle engagement member extends radially from the handle adjacent the end section and includes a multitude of radially extending engagement male members to take the shape of a gear or multi-pointed star. The multitude of radially extending engagement members of the handle engagement member corresponds with a multitude of radially extending engagement members which defines an arm engagement member on the weight arm about an opening. The handle engagement member is the opposite of the handle engagement member such that the handle engagement member is received therein at a multitude of clocked positions as defined by the multitude of radially extending engagement handle members and the multitude of radially extending engagement arm members. The handle is clocked to a desired position relative the weight arm and an internal threaded section of a weight horn or knob is threaded to a threaded section of the handle to axially retain the handle within the weight arm.
US07641600B2
An exercise device including at least one positionable component configured to be positioned by a user. The exercise device includes a frame to which a collar is mounted. The positionable component includes a member that is slidably received within the collar and may be positioned by sliding the member to a selected position. A locking assembly is coupled to the collar and is operable to lock the member in a selected position within the collar, to release the member from the locked position, and when released, to allow the member to slide within the collar. The locking assembly includes a cam pivotably mounted to the collar and a cam follower assembly selectively biased by the cam against a portion of the member disposed inside the collar. The locking assembly also includes a pair of engagement members disposed inside the collar opposite the cam against which the cam biases the member.
US07641598B2
An exercise apparatus comprises: a frame; a crank system comprising first and second crank coupling locations, the crank system being supported by the frame; a right foot support member comprising a first right guide element; a left foot support member comprising a first left guide element; a right movable member comprising a second right guide element; a left movable member comprising a second left guide element; a first flexible support system comprising a first flexible element, the first flexible element coupled to the frame and the first and second right guide elements and operative to move the first crank coupling location when the right foot support member moves; and a second flexible support system comprising a second flexible element, the second flexible element coupled to the frame and the first and second left guide elements and operative to move the second crank coupling location when the left foot support member moves.
US07641596B2
In an illustrative embodiment of the invention, an exercise device comprises a support structure comprising a support member and a support arm having an upper support arm portion and a lower support arm portion. The support arm is mounted to the support member by a pivot assembly comprising a longitudinal pivot control mechanism and a lateral pivot control mechanism. The longitudinal pivot control mechanism is configured to allow the support arm to be selectively positioned at a first angular orientation in a longitudinal plane and the lateral pivot control mechanism is configured to allow the support arm to be selectively positioned at a second angular orientation in a lateral plane orthogonal to the longitudinal plane. The exercise device further comprises a yoke pivotably attached to the upper support arm by a yoke attachment member for rotation about a yoke rotation axis. The yoke is configured for engagement by a user in an exercise orientation and for selective rotation about the yoke rotation axis by the user.
US07641589B2
A motor vehicle with a parking brake (3) which, in addition to functioning as a parking brake (3), may also be used as an auxiliary brake for assisting the main brake (2) and/or a sustained-action brake. The parking brake (3) is preferably incorporated in the transmission (1) of the vehicle and designed as a rotary disk brake in an oil bath.
US07641584B1
A fuel-efficient automotive vehicle is provided having a power train including a primary internal combustion engine, an auxiliary engine, and a coupling system which selectively transfers power from the auxiliary engine to the primary engine when the speed of operation of the auxiliary engine equals the speed of the primary engine. The speeds of both engines are controlled by separate gas pedals conventionally located within the vehicle. The primary engine is of smaller power and better fuel efficiency than an engine which would generally be required by the vehicle. Although the primary engine can maintain the vehicle at a cruising speed, it relies upon the added power of the auxiliary engine for acceleration and hill-climbing.
US07641573B2
A fully articulated batting tee including a first support post with a telescoping stem for height-adjustable support of a baseball. The first support post extends downward from the ball to the ground to provide a first point of ground-support. A lateral support assembly comprises a plurality of lateral struts joined at one end to the first support post and extending laterally therefrom to a second support post. A pivoting coupling is mounted on the second support post, and the coupling includes a plurality of collars for insertion of corresponding struts (each of the collars slidably supports a corresponding one of the lateral struts therein). The second support post extends downward to a practice plate and is anchored thereto, thereby providing a second point of ground-support. The combination of height-adjustment, lateral adjustment and pivoting provide a fully articulating batting tee that can position the ball anywhere over or around the practice plate.
US07641571B2
The present invention provides high moment of inertia golf balls comprising a low specific gravity core layer formed from a moisture resistant composition. The moisture resistant composition has a moisture vapor transmission rate (MVTR) of 12.5 g·mil/100 in2/day or less and comprises a highly neutralized acid polymer. Golf balls of the invention have a moment of inertia of 85 g·cm2 or greater.
US07641568B2
Described herein are embodiments of a golf club head having at least one rib with an external portion. For example, according to one embodiment, a wood-type golf club head includes a body that has at least one wall defining an interior cavity. The golf club head further includes at least one rib projecting from the at least one wall. The at least one rib can include an internal portion located within the interior cavity and an external portion located without the interior cavity.
US07641567B2
Apparatus for training golfers in putting techniques and the method for its use are taught. The principle of the apparatus of the invention provides two reference points, one of which is adjustable and fixed relative to the head of a putter. By sliding the two reference points along a guidance surface, the putting head moves parallel to the guidance surface with the face of the putting head at a constant angle to the guidance surface. i.e. this is a putting stroke. One of the reference points may be a part of the putter head and the other is a member, removably attachable to the putter and adjustable so that a contact head touches, and is slidable along, the guidance surface.
US07641565B2
A novel method and apparatus for detecting the placement of a golf ball for a launch monitor is disclosed. The method comprises capturing an image of a scan zone that is adjacent to the launch monitor and in the field of view of the launch monitor's image sensor, analyzing the scan zone image for the placement of an object, and determining if the object is likely the golf ball. An apparatus is also disclosed that implements the golf ball detection method.
US07641561B2
A dust cover for a steering shaft includes a bush of low-frictional material, through which a steering shaft penetrates; a plurality of bellows made of rubber, provided in an axial direction of the steering shaft, and arranged between the bush and a panel for sealing the clearance; and an annular seal lip in contact with the outer periphery of the steering shaft.
US07641558B2
An annular member is installed on a circular cylinder section of a trunnion, and a roller member, in the inner periphery of which a needle bearing is held, is installed on the circular cylinder section. The needle bearing is held between a flange section formed on one end of the roller member and the annular member installed on the trunnion with a predetermined gap between them. Further, a gap (X) between the needle bearing and the annular member is set to satisfy the following relationship. X>R/2·(1/cos θ max−1) where R: Radius of rotation of the center of the roller member relative to the center axis of an outer member. θ max: Maximum inclination angle of an inner member.
US07641553B2
The disclosure describes a computer-implemented method of providing an event related game. The method includes receiving event data associated with a media broadcast at a computer, generating a printable game set, and providing the printable game set in an electronic format configured for printing by a user. The printable game set includes at least one game card and a set of trade tickets. The at least one game card includes a list of game events associated with the media broadcast. Each trade ticket of the set of trade tickets identifies a game event.
US07641552B2
An input device is movable between at least two positions. Movement of the input device results in generated of an least two inputs, such as two signals. When associated with a gaming machine, movement of the input device by a player is used to provide multiple inputs to a gaming controller for playing a game. The input device may be used to present a game, such as a Class II bingo type game where a player is required to provide multiple inputs over the course of the game in order to participate in the game.
US07641548B2
In accordance with some embodiments, methods, computer readable media and apparatus are provided for processing lottery ticket sales. In one example, a request by a player is received to purchase at least one hidden size multiplier. Play indicia are associated with the multiplier by storing data related to the at least one set of play indicia and the multiplier, and a price is determined for the multiplier.
US07641546B2
A cooling apparatus and a method for controlling the same are disclosed. The cooling apparatus is adapted to cool a system in which a heat source generating heat is arranged. The cooling apparatus includes an air stream forming unit which cools the heat source to a certain temperature, a sensing unit which includes a supplied-air temperature sensor for sensing a temperature of air supplied into the system, and a discharged-air temperature sensor for sensing a temperature of air discharged out of the system, an altitude detecting unit which detects an altitude of the system, based on the sensed supplied-air temperature and the sensed discharged-air temperature, and a cooling controller which controls the air stream forming unit, based on the detected altitude.
US07641542B2
An apparatus and a method for rucking netting onto a tube are described. The apparatus, in a first embodiment, comprises a frame having an axis, a passage along the axis, means for reciprocating movement along the axis, a netting tube releasably attachable to the means for reciprocating movement, a second tube comprising a frustum having a bore, the second tube being slidable co-axially to the netting tube, an annular space defined by the second tube and the netting tube, and spring-loaded fingers attached to the frame and extending into the passage. In another embodiment, a method for rucking netting onto a tube comprises attaching a netting tube to a moveable platform, mounting a second tube axially over the netting tube, the second tube comprising a frustum having a bore therethrough, placing an end of a netting over the second tube, forming an annular space between the netting tube and the second tube, and moving the second tube reciprocatingly through spring-loaded fingers. The second tube is a frusto-conical shape, a frusto-pyramidal shape, or another frustum shape
US07641534B2
In at least one embodiment, the invention includes a magnetic construction module having a body and at least one elastic limb extending from the body, the at least one limb having a first end portion including a first magnet disposed therein, the limb and the body comprising a gelatinous elastic material having sufficient stiffness to maintain its form under the force of gravity and having sufficient flexibility to easily bend such that the end portion is contiguous to the body.
US07641532B2
A lamp includes a reflector including a reflective portion, a heel, and a nose, wherein the nose includes an opening. A light source is disposed in the reflector. A pair of leads connects to the light source. An eyelet protrudes through the opening in the nose and receives one of the leads. A positioning member is disposed in the heel portion of the reflector. The positioning member includes an opening to receive the light source.
US07641521B2
A electrical connector includes a housing and a plurality of contacts within the housing configured for mating engagement with mating contacts of a mating connector. The electrical connector also includes a compensation component housed within the housing. The compensation component has a substrate with a first trace plane and a second trace plane, and the compensation component has a plurality of traces arranged on the first trace plane. The traces are electrically connected to selected ones of the contacts. At least one of the traces includes a compensation loop arranged on the first trace plane, and at least one of the traces includes a compensation loop arranged on the second trace plane. The compensation loop provides at least one of electrical and thermal compensation.
US07641516B1
A connector (200) is provided that comprises a dielectric body (DB), pins (302), and a plate (800). Each pin is captured within DB (404) so as to extend therethrough. Each pin is defined by a pair of nubs (410, 510) extending from DB's opposing faces (408, 604), respectively. Each nub is movable along an axis aligned with an elongated length of the pin. The plate is formed of a planar conductive material secured to DB adjacent to a first opposing face. The plate comprises apertures through which the pins extend in a first direction. At least one aperture is sized and shaped to form an electrical connection between the plate and selected pins. Resilient spring fingers (RSF) are formed on a periphery of the plate. Each RSF (1006) extends away from DB in a direction between a plane defined by the first opposing face and first direction of the pins.
US07641505B2
An electrical connector with a heat dissipating device adapted to physically in contact with an electrical package disposed on a socket connector comprises a load plate having a substantially rectangular configuration defining a central opening having a first length and a first width and a heat plate having longitudinal sides and traversal ends. A heat plate has a heat pipe attached thereon and arranged such that the heat plate is disposed under the load plate, while the heat pipe is arranged above the load plate when rotated.
US07641501B2
An upper panel section includes an inserting hole into which a tip of a longitudinal-type equipment-side connector that is mounted on a PCB board of an electrical device at right angles and includes a spring section formed on its lateral surface is inserted. A foot section supports the upper panel section on the PCB. An inner circumference of the inserting hole has a shape surrounding substantially an entire circumference of the tip of the equipment-side connector. The foot section is provided at a position that opens up the lateral surface of the longitudinal-type equipment-side connector on which the spring section of the equipment-side connector is formed.
US07641499B1
A high voltage and interlock loop assembly has first and second high voltage connector housings complementarily constructed for releasable engagement with each other and for having a high voltage circuit running therethrough. First and second connectors for an interlock loop circuit are complementarily constructed for releasable engagement with each other with one of the interlock loop connectors being mounted on one of the high voltage connector housings. The first and second interlock loop connectors have complementarily abutment shoulders with one abutment shoulder being on a flexible tab. The flexible tab is movable to misalign its abutment shoulder from the other abutment shoulder when the high voltage connector housings are properly engaged together to allow full engagement of the first and second interlock loop connectors.
US07641495B1
A mounting apparatus for fixing an expansion card includes a connector configured for engagingly receiving a bottom portion of the expansion card, and a latching member made by thin strip material. The latching member includes a top wall, and two sidewalls extending down from opposite sides of the top wall configured for sandwiching the expansion card therebetween. An elastic tab extends between the sidewalls from the top wall, configured for elastically resisting against a top of the expansion card. A clipping portion is formed on a bottom of each sidewall, to engage with the connector.
US07641491B2
A load control device has a modular assembly to allow for easy adjustment of the aesthetic and the color of the load control device after installation. The load control device comprises a user interface module and a base module. The user interface module includes an actuation member for receiving a user input and a visual display for providing feedback to the user. A connector of the base module is adapted to be coupled to a connector of the user interface module, such that the base module and the user interface module are electrically connected. The connector of the base module is adapted to move along a longitudinal axis and a lateral axis of the dimmer, such that the actuation member is easily aligned within an opening of a faceplate.
US07641490B2
An inverter assembly includes a housing and a substrate disposed in the housing. The substrate includes at least a first conductive layer patterned to include an alternating current (AC) path and a direct current (DC) path. A plurality of inverter switches is mounted on the substrate and electrically coupled to the AC path and the DC path.
US07641482B2
An electrical connector includes an insulating housing having a longitudinal and a lateral wall defining a top face and at least one contact. The lateral wall defines a slot thereon. The contact includes a main body located one the top face of the lateral wall and a contacting arm located above the longitudinal wall, a connecting portion extending from an inner edge of the main body and a retaining portion extending from an outer edge of the main body. The retaining portion is retained and received in the slot. A pressed portion laterally extends from the main body.
US07641474B2
One aspect of the present invention provides a method for systematically arranging paint color samples for convenient browsing and identification of desired colors by shoppers. Paint color sample cards are arranged on a two-dimensional display surface such that colors of similar hue are categorized or grouped together (e.g., along a column). Groups of paint color sample cards having different base hue or color are arranged such that there is a gradual transition between paint colors from one region to the next region. For instance, the colors of sample cards may gradually change from column to column across a two-dimensional display. Additionally, within each color group, paint color sample cards are arranged from most chromatic to least chromatic colors. Another aspect of the invention provides for accent color sample cards to be displayed adjacent to the various base color groups.
US07641473B2
A method and apparatus is provided for digitally checking the insertion quality of a target customized virtual arch wire designed during treatment planning prior to actually manufacturing the target arch wire. The method includes the steps of digitally simulating the insertion of the customized target virtual arch wire into the virtual brackets placed up on virtual teeth of a patient in an initial state of interest for checking if the arch wire could be inserted into the virtual brackets without conflicts or collisions. The initial state may be a malocclusion state or any intermediate treatment state of the patient. In the event the target virtual arch wire would cause conflicts, then the simulation optimizes the arch wire design in an attempt to eliminate the conflicts. In another aspect, a method is provided for selecting the recommended starting point for inserting the customized arch wire in the brackets placed on the dentition of the patient in the initial state.
US07641463B2
A detecting apparatus and method for detecting deformation of a fixed mold plate of an injection molding machine. The apparatus includes a mounting member and an elastic member that is received in the through hole of the mounting member and generally positioned at the center thereof. The apparatus also has a contacting member that is received in the through hole and positioned near or at the first end surface, and a sliding member that is slidably received in the through hole near or at the second end surface. A blocking member is attached to the second end surface of the mounting member. A pressure sensor is fixed between the blocking member and the contacting member.
US07641461B2
A robotic system may include a movable gantry robot, and a nozzle assembly movably coupled to the overhead beam of the gantry robot. The gantry robot may include an overhead beam extending between, and supported by, at least two side members slidably mounted on a pair of rails. The nozzle assembly may be coupled to the overhead beam of the gantry robot, and may be configured to extrude material through an outlet. The robotic system may further include a position controller configured to control position and movement of the gantry robot and the nozzle assembly.
US07641460B2
A device and method for continuous production of cotton candy and automated handling of the cotton candy in a way that collects and condenses the cotton candy into a continuous strand.
US07641457B2
The invention relates to an internal gear pump including: a rotor member including an outer rotor provided with inner teeth to which a torque supplied from a driving device is transmittable; an inner rotor provided with outer teeth engageable with the inner teeth of the outer rotor so to be driven by a rotation of the outer rotor, wherein a rotation axis of the inner rotor is eccentric with respect to a center of the rotor member; a pair of housings provided on opposite sides of the rotor member and the inner rotor to support the rotor member and the inner rotor; and at least one rolling bearing provided between at least one of the housings and the rotor member.
US07641454B2
A two-stage rotary compressor includes a sealed cylindrical compressor housing that includes first, second and third communication holes separately arranged sequentially in an axial direction on an outer peripheral wall, an accumulator held on an outer side of the housing, a low-pressure connecting pipe that connects a bottom communication hole of the accumulator and the second communication hole, and an intermediate connecting pipe that connects the first and third communication holes. The second and third communication holes are arranged at nearly the same circumferential direction position of the housing. The accumulator is held at nearly the same circumferential direction position as the second communication hole. The first communication hole is arranged at a circumferential direction position different from the second and third communication holes to ensure that the low-pressure connecting pipe and the intermediate connecting pipe two dimensionally bent in a circular arc shape do not interfere with each other.
US07641453B2
A pulsation reducing apparatus is used for an apparatus having a pump for circulating a liquid in a circulating line and a tank for storing the liquid circulating via the pump. The pulsation reducing apparatus includes a supplement tank for reserving the liquid such that a liquid surface height of the supplement tank is higher than that of the tank. The tank is connected to the supplement tank and the empty space portion of the tank is connected to the supplement tank via a gas exhaust line. When the empty space portion of the tank communicates with that of the supplement tank via the gas exhaust line due to a reduction of the liquid in the tank, the gas in the tank is exhausted to the empty space portion of the supplement tank via the gas exhaust line and the liquid in the supplement tank is supplemented into the tank.
US07641451B2
A turbo pump for evacuating a process chamber minimizes the amount time necessary to reduce the speed of the rotor in preparation for performing maintenance in the process chamber or the like. The turbo pump includes a housing communicating with the reaction chamber, a plurality of fixed stator rings spaced from one another along an inner peripheral surface of the housing, a shaft supported for rotation in the housing, a stator base surrounding the shaft and having an electric coil, a plurality of rotor blades each extending between an adjacent pair of the stator rings, and an electrode disposed at an outer peripheral surface of the housing. The electrode can receive an electric charge opposite to that applied to the rotor to forcibly stop the rotation of the rotor. Also, an electrical contact can be conductively connected to the rotor. Thus, opposite charges can be applied to the blades of the rotor and the stator to prevent the blades from contacting the stator when, for example, air backflows into the housing through a discharge port.
US07641446B2
A turbine blade 29 for a gas turbine engine 10 having an axis 20, the turbine blade 29 comprising: an aerofoil 30 including a high pressure surface 36, a low pressure surface 34, a root portion 38 and a tip surface 40 extending transverse from the high and low pressure surfaces 36 and 34, the high and low pressure surfaces 36 and 34 curve from the root portion 38 to the tip surface 40 in a direction that is substantially tangential to the axis 20 of the engine 10; and an air leakage restricting member 32 on the tip surface 40, the air leakage restricting member 32 being configured to substantially prevent leakage of air over the tip surface 40.
US07641439B2
A flow passage structure can be disposed in a multi-stage centrifugal refrigerant compressor having a deswirl vane and a return channel bend. The flow passage structure includes a two-way flow passage having a first outlet and a second outlet, for diverging externally injected refrigerant; a first side discharge flow passage connected to the first outlet of the two-way flow passage and having a first side outlet disposed below the deswirl vane, such that the diverged refrigerant can be discharged into the return channel bend and uniformly mixed with the refrigerant in the return channel bend; and a second side discharge flow passage connected to the second outlet of the two-way flow passage and having a second side outlet disposed below the deswirl, vane, such that the diverged refrigerant can be injected into the return channel bend and uniformly mixed with the refrigerant in the return channel bend.
US07641433B2
A method of trimming a plurality of sheets bound together, in which each of the plurality of sheets defines a first edge and a second edge opposite the first edge that collectively define a fore edge of the closed bound document, comprising selecting a first portion of the plurality of sheets, folding the first portion of the plurality of sheets at a first fold angle and in a first fold direction, and trimming the folded first portion of the plurality of sheets near the first portion edges included in the first portion to partially achieve the desired edge effect for the bound document. The first portion of the plurality of sheets is greater than one sheet of the plurality of sheets. The first fold angle and the first fold direction are configured to achieve a desired fore edge effect.
US07641430B2
This disclosure relates to a pre-assembled fastener assembly having a retainer, a nut member, and a cold expansion mandrel that is forcibly removable after the assembly is installed into an opening of a structural workpiece. The mandrel is captured between a portion of a retainer and a portion of a nut member. The forced removal of the mandrel expands the retainer into the opening, securing the fastener assembly therein. The assembly may also include a cap coupled to the retainer to seal the opening in the structural workpiece. The nut member can be fixed or free-floating with respect to the retainer. In addition, the nut member can be threaded to receive a fastener. The mandrel is recyclable or disposable.
US07641406B2
A substrate processing apparatus includes an indexer block, an anti-reflection film processing block, a resist film processing block, a development processing block, a resist cover film processing block, a resist cover film removal block, and an interface block. The interface block includes a bevel portion inspection unit. The bevel portion inspection unit inspects a bevel portion of a substrate to determine whether or not the bevel portion of the substrate is contaminated. The substrate whose bevel portion is determined to be contaminated and the substrate whose bevel portion is determined that it is not contaminated are respectively subjected to different types of processing.
US07641404B2
A substrate processing apparatus comprises an interface block. An exposure device is arranged adjacent to the interface block. The interface block includes a placement/bake unit. A substrate that has been subjected to exposure processing in the exposure device is subjected to cleaning and drying processing in a second cleaning/drying processing unit, and is then transported to a placement/heating unit. In the placement/heating unit, the substrate is subjected to post-exposure bake processing.
US07641402B2
A system transports a device into a piece of industrial equipment for the purpose of collecting data inside of the industrial equipment. In an embodiment, the industrial equipment is a furnace and the device is an IR camera. The system opens a door covering an opening on the furnace, moves the IR camera inside of the furnace for a short time, the IR camera captures images, and the system removes the camera from the furnace and closes the door.
US07641399B2
A method and apparatus are disclosed that permit multi-directional fiber optic connections to a device. The multi-directional aspect of the fiber optic connections permit the connections to be aligned closely with the direction of travel of the fiber optic cables that interface with the device. Closely aligning the fiber optic connections on the device with the fiber optic cables' direction of travel maximizes the bend radius of the fiber optic cable near the point of connection or eliminates the bend altogether and reduces the likelihood of a broken fiber or signal attenuation.
US07641390B2
A method for digitally controlling the resistive output of a temperature probe is disclosed. The system is comprised of a temperature sensor, a processor and a means under the control of the processor for modifying the resistive output such as a digital potentiometer. In one embodiment, the processor reads the temperature sensor and adjusts the potentiometer based on a correlative or predictive technique so as to provide a modified output that matches that of a standard resistive temperature probe and is compatible for display on a multi-parameter monitor.
US07641389B2
A sensor comprises a reference sample arranged to be subject to at least one variable physical parameter such that a variation in the value of the at least one variable physical parameter causes a change in the magnetisation of the reference sample, means for measuring the magnetisation of the reference sample, and means for determining in dependence upon the measured magnetisation whether there has been a variation in the value of the at least one variable physical parameter, wherein the reference sample comprises a Heusler alloy.
US07641380B2
A blade assembly suited for both blending and food processing in small throat blender jars is provided. The blade assembly comprises a plurality of blade forms each designed to perform a specific blending or processing task while simultaneously working together and with the geometric restrictions of the jar to optimize the assembly's capability to crush ice, blend or mix liquids and/or semi-solid materials, and to chop, cut, or slice solid food items without the need for user interaction to clear compacted items from the blades and/or the walls or bottom of the jar during its operation. The improved performance also serves the beneficial side effect of improved bearing and motor life in the blender/food processor.
US07641373B2
Disclosed is a backlight unit which illuminates a display panel from a rear surface thereof, including at least: tubular lamps arranged in parallel to the panel; and a reflecting member which reflects light from the lamps toward the panel, wherein the reflecting member is divided into a first region opposed to an area near an electrode provided in an end portion of the lamp and a second region nearer to a middle area than the first region, the first region having a higher reflectance than the second region. In another backlight unit, a reflecting member is divided, with respect to the arrangement direction of the lamps, into an end lamp near region which is opposed to a lamp arranged in end portion and a middle region which is nearer to a middle area than the end lamp region, the end lamp region having a higher reflectance than the middle region.
US07641367B2
A horticulture light fixture having a secure glass aperture and glass retention frame that is swingably hinged to provide easy and safe maintenance of the fixture and helps facilitate cleaning of the glass. The hinge portion is constructed from sheet metal that is formed during the fabrication of the fixture. The method of construction eliminates the need to install a separate hinge saving manufacturing time and expense. In a preferred embodiment, the glass retention frame is constructed from a single continuous sheet of metal, that is punched or cut into desired dimension and shape, formed or folded to hold a flat piece of glass, and installed using common pins that provide rotational motion for swingably opening and closing of the glass simplifying maintenance of the horticulture light fixture.
US07641357B2
Disclosed is a light-emitting module wherein light entering into a solar cell is not attenuated, thereby preventing power output decrease of the solar cell. In addition, this light-emitting module can be produced by a simple process. Specifically disclosed is a light-emitting module wherein at least (a) a solar cell unit (b) a first adhesive layer, (c) a light-emitting unit composed of a second light-transmitting insulating substrate (transparent PET), a second metal layer (circuit pattern) and a light-emitting element (chip LED), (d) a second adhesive layer and (e) a third light-transmitting insulating substrate are sequentially stacked. The transparent PET having a thickness about 50-500 μm which is provided with the circuit pattern in advance is used for producing the light-emitting unit. A silver paste which can be cured by 30-minute heating at 150° C. is used as a circuit pattern material, and the circuit pattern is formed on the transparent PET by screen printing, and then thermally cured.
US07641355B2
The decorative light device has a stylized shape of a Christmas tree, or a snow flake. It comprises a transparent or translucent solid plastic member having an elongated solid plastic main body and a plurality of side branches extending outward therefrom at an angle at a plurality of junctions. A light refraction opening is formed at the main body and located adjacent to each one of those junctions. An LED light source is located at a bottom end of the main body and is operative to provide a single or a series of flashing lights of various sequential colors for illuminating the main body and the side branches. A stylized snow flake can be made with a plurality of these solid plastic members mounted in an evenly spaced manner around the periphery of a center mounting member.
US07641345B2
A projection apparatus for generating a moving star field and a cloud-like effect comprises a means for generating a cloud-like effect using at least one non-coherent light source, a means for generating a moving star field using at least one coherent light source and a means for regulating and supplying electric power. The means for generating cloud-like effect using at least one non-coherent light source comprises at least one pair of condenser lenses and an interferential filter wheel rotated by a motor, disposed between at least one pair of condenser lenses. The means for generating the moving star field using a coherent light source comprises a grating wheel rotated by a motor and a diffractive optical element disposed between the at least one coherent light source and the grating wheel.
US07641328B2
An ink for ink jet recording includes water, a water-soluble organic solvent, a water-insoluble color material, a dispersant, and a compound expressed by the following chemical formula: R—O—(CH2CH2O)n—H (I) where R is an alkyl group having a carbon number of 25 to 150 and n is from 2 to 100. The ink not only can maintain performances such as storage stability and high-quality recording images, but also can effectively prevent nozzle clogging, exhibit good dispersion stability, and achieve a high redispersion property that ensures stable ejection both during long continuous operation and after stopping the operation for a long time.
US07641327B2
A removable ink stick support for use in an ink loader of a phase change ink imaging device having a first end for ink stick support proximate a melt end of an ink loader and a second end for ink stick support proximate an insertion end of an ink loader. A longitudinal member extends between the first and second ends, the longitudinal member being configured to provide a contact surface for contacting at least a portion of an ink stick as the ink stick is fed along the feed channel.
US07641322B2
A printing apparatus includes: a common liquid chamber that stores electrically conductive liquid; plural liquid transfer paths extending from the common liquid chamber to a print medium; a liquid deriving and transferring unit that selectively derives liquid from the common liquid chamber to the plural liquid transfer paths and transfers liquid to the print medium; and a liquid transfer controlling unit that controls the liquid deriving and transferring unit. The liquid deriving and transferring unit has: plural electrodes respectively provided along the plural liquid transfer paths; a voltage applying unit that selectively applies a voltage to the plural electrodes; and an insulating film provided on surfaces of the plural electrodes and adapted to reduce, when the voltage applying unit applies a voltage to one of the electrodes, liquid repellency of a part corresponding to the one of the electrodes.
US07641317B2
A liquid discharge recording head includes a substrate having a liquid supply opening facilitating supplying liquid and heating resistors for generating energy for discharging the liquid, a flow path member having discharge openings and flow paths including first and second flow paths that are adjacent each other, the second flow path being longer than the first flow path, and a first resister corresponding to the first flow path and a second resistor corresponding to the second flow path, each of the first and second resistors being disposed at an area of the flow path member which is situated in correspondence with the liquid supply opening, wherein an amount of protrusion of the first resister at a side of the first flow path is greater than an amount of protrusion of the second resister at a side of the second flow path.
US07641316B2
An ink jet head circuit board is provided which has heaters to generate thermal energy for ink ejection as they are energized. This circuit board reduces areas of the heaters to achieve higher printing resolution and image quality. This board also prevents a degradation of thermal energy efficiency and reduces power consumption. The protective insulation layer for the electrode wire layer is formed of two layers and one of the two layers is removed from above the heater to improve the heat energy efficiency. The resistor layer is deposited over the electrode wire layer. The patterning for removing the protective insulation layer is done in a wider range than a gap of the electrode wire layer, the gap being used to form the heater. Further, by forming the electrode wires in two layers, a possible reduction in an effective bubble generation area of the heater can be prevented.
US07641310B2
Lattice point data of each lattice point on W-C line in a color separation table reproducing primary color C is determined so that C ink monotonically increases from W point to C point. Also, particular color G for toning is used to monotonically increase from the halfway of W point to C point and lattice point data is determined so that the basic color C ink and the particular color G ink are mixed at C point. In a case where the reflection characteristics is made such that the basic color C ink thus produces the coloring closer to a blue color, the particular color G ink having high chroma and many portions overlapped in the zone of the C ink and the green color is used at a high density portion of the device primary color C. This realizes control of the hue shift and the high chroma both.
US07641305B2
A printer includes a cleaning mechanism that reliably performs an operation of cleaning a liquid ejecting head with a small amount of driving energy. The cleaning mechanism includes a cap manufactured by coinjection molding of a core part and an elastic part. The cap includes a bottom surface, an outer wall, and a partition wall dividing a cap inner space surrounded by the outer wall into two. A ratio of the elastic part in the partition wall is higher than that in the outer wall. With this structure, the partition wall is more elastically deformable than the outer wall. When the cap comes into contact with a nozzle surface of a recording head and covers nozzle rows, the outer wall comes into contact with the nozzle surface with a larger stress compared with the partition wall, and seals chambers where the nozzle rows on the nozzle surface are exposed.
US07641294B1
A shop desk with a desk body sized to define a volume bounded by a top, front, rear and side walls. A hutch is configured to fit within the volume when disassembled. The desk body is wider, longer and deeper than the hutch. The hutch secures to a top surface of the desk body when assembled. Legs support the desk body and a leg stabilizer platform connects to the legs at a location spaced from an underside of the desk body.
US07641293B2
An offset track forms a pattern perpendicular to the centerline of the track which enables tracks to be formed with even or odd number of metal inserts and thus accommodate virtually any tracked vehicle. The offset track uses variations in body thickness and lug width to provide a high performance offset track with improved ride, minimum vibration and longer wear. Use of full size and mini-inserts in a single track minimizes the weight and further enhances the performance of an offset track.
US07641289B2
The drive away axle assembly comprises at least an axle shaft having a proximal end seated within an axle housing and a distal terminal flange and a hub having a distal end land and a sidewall. The distal terminal flange of the axle shaft has bores therein which align with threaded bores in the distal end land of the hub, and axle shaft/hub connectors engage through the bores to removably connect the hub to the axle shaft. Further, an axle shaft retaining bolt extends through the sidewall of the hub for engagement with the axle shaft structures to maintain the axle shaft within the axle housing when the axle shaft/hub connectors are removed. Upon removal of such connectors, the hub rotates freely without imparting rotation to the axle shaft. Still further, an accessory spring may be provided for assisting in disengagement of the axle shaft flange from the hub.
US07641284B2
A slideable armrest, which may form a lid of a vehicle console compartment, comprises a cover and a base slideably connected to each other by slideable engagement between at least one guide and at least one guide groove.
US07641283B2
An insert for protecting the breathing airway of an infant conforms to the incline angle of an infant seat, such as a car seat, high chair, stroller, or jogger. Preferably the insert is hinged so it can be used in an infant seat or laid flat for use on a changing table or other flat surface. In use, two side rolls contact the infant to prevent it from moving sideways. A bottom roll prevents slouching in the seat and supports the infant's legs when laid flat. Preferably, the bottom roll is removable so the insert may be used with larger infants who do not need the provided support. An adjustable shoulder roll extends between the side rolls and can be moved up or down for proper placement behind the infant's shoulders. The shoulder roll compensates for the infant's rearward-elongated head, keeping it in a natural position to avoid compromising the airway. The rolls are preferably made of memory foam and covered by machine-washable fabric.
US07641282B2
A locking device for a seat back includes a release preventing mechanism for preventing the locking device from being unintendedly released by the fact that a second arm portion of a lift lever abuts on a side edge portion of a guide hole of a lock plate to cause the lift lever to rotate positively when a base plate rotates forward along a horizontal direction about a lock pin in a state where the lock pin engages with a lock hole of the lock plate and the second arm portion of the lift lever is located in the guide hole of the lock plate when the seat back is held at a rising position.
US07641279B1
A storage compartment and method of locking the storage compartment to an arm rest of a chair are provided. The storage compartment may include a housing having a cavity for receiving articles and a cover movable relative to the housing between a closed position and an open position. Openings may be defined in opposing sides of at least one of the housing and the cover for receiving an arm rest of a chair. The storage compartment may also include a locking mechanism moveable between a locked condition and an unlocked condition such that the housing and cover can be positioned around an arm rest of a chair and the locking mechanism can prevent removal of the storage compartment from the arm rest.
US07641275B2
A wind deflector noise reduction system is provided. The wind deflector noise reduction system particularly reduces or eliminates wind throb in a moving vehicle having a rear side window in an open position. The system includes a panel attached to the B-pillar of a motor vehicle and operable to move between a closed position and an open position. When the panel is in the open position, wind is deflected from entering the moving vehicle. An actuator associated with the panel and operable to move the panel between the closed and the open position can be energized by a controller. The controller can be activated by the user of the motor vehicle and/or by a sensor that detects the position of the rear side window.
US07641273B2
Vehicle headliners and methods of installation include headliners with a substrate layer having at least one handling component formed within the substrate layer, the handling component having a perforation between the handling component and the surrounding substrate layer, wherein the handling component aids in the handling of the headliner during installation.
US07641272B2
A vehicle body structure includes a roof panel, a front structural support member and an optional extension member. The front structural support member includes a first A-pillar attachment end, a second A-pillar attachment end, a front edge extending between the first and second A-pillar attachment ends and a rear edge extending between the first and second A-pillar attachment ends. In a first configuration, the roof panel attaches to the front edge and also to another region of the front structural support member. In a second vehicle configuration, the extension member is attached a rear edge of the front structural support member and extends to a position on the roof panel that is located vertically above the front structural support member when the front structural support member is in an installed orientation.
US07641258B2
A top for a convertible has a linkage with which a plurality of roof sections can be displaced between a closed position and an open position. The rearmost roof section is configured as a rear window frame, and the linkage has a control link which is mounted pivotally on a bracket which can be fastened or is fastened to the vehicle. The linkage has a clamping hoop and a coupling linkage for controlling the kinematics of the rear window frame, said coupling linkage having a front coupling link and a rear coupling link which are mounted pivotally on the clamping hoop and on the rear window frame. In order to stabilize the top in its end positions, for the rear coupling link, there is formed on the clamping hoop a front stop against which the rear coupling link bears when the top is closed, and a rear stop against which the rear coupling link bears when the top is open.
US07641247B2
Generally, an end effector assembly for a substrate transfer robot is provided. In one embodiment, an end effector assembly for supporting a quadrilateral substrate during substrate transfer includes an end effector having an inner edge support disposed on a first end and a first outer edge support disposed on a distal end. The first end of the end effector is adapted for coupling to a robot linkage. The first inner edge support has a face that is oriented parallel to and facing the face of the first outer edge support. This configuration of edge supports captures the substrate to the end effector thereby minimizing substrate slippage during transfer. In another embodiment, lateral guides may be utilized to further enhance capturing the substrate along the edges of the substrate open between the inner and outer edge supports.
US07641244B2
A fire door lock includes a base assembly including first and second slide blocks, a locking control assembly including a movable seat forming a groove and a tongue control plate movably mounted to one side of the locking control assembly, and a winglet assembly including first and second winglets both having a boss movably received in the groove of the movable seat and both being respectively and rotatably coupled to the first and second slide blocks. Thus, when the movable seat is driven by a handle, the movable seat moves the first and second slide blocks to withdraw first and second latch bars to unlock the fire door and when the fire door is closed, the tongue control plate is actuated to allow the movable seat to return to the locked condition and the first and second latches and a tongue are stretched out to realize three-directional locking.
US07641234B1
A ride-on turf mowing machine rollover protection assembly consisting of a mower chassis having left: and right main rails and having a plurality of cross rails spanning between the left and right main rails; left and right upwardly opening quills; a first plurality of welds rigidly interconnecting the left main rail and the left upwardly opening quill; a second plurality of welds rigidly interconnecting the right main rail and the right upwardly opening quill; a roll bar having left and right legs, each leg having a lower end, the lower ends of the left and right legs being respectively closely fitted for nesting extension into the left and right upwardly opening quills; and a plurality of helically threaded bolt, nut, and double shear eye combinations removably mounting the lower ends of the left and right legs of the roll bar within the left and right upwardly opening quills.
US07641229B2
An occupant classification system is provided based upon the use of an array of electrical switches arranged between a seat trim and a reactive surface. The switches produce selective outputs signals as an engaging surface makes contact with one or more of the switches when an occupant occupies the seat. The output signals are interpreted into a control signal to distinguish between occupants for controlling an inflatable restraint system. The occupant classification system also includes a control structure which defines a distance between the array of switches and the engaging surface that is greater than zero when the seat is unoccupied so that the switches are insensitive to the initial forces applied to the seat through the seat trim. The distance between one or more of the switches and the engaging surface decreases to zero when the occupant occupies the seat to produce the selective output signals.
US07641217B2
A detachable mobile seat includes a first part connected to a motor; a second part attached to the seat; and two links, each connected to the first part, the second part, and a wheel. The links transfer movement of the first part to the wheels. The first part includes a shaft connected to the motor, and two nuts disposed around the shaft that have screw threads in opposite directions and move along the shaft in response to operation of the motor. Each link includes a first link connected to the second part and to the nut, and a second link connected to the nut and to the wheel. The end of each second link that is nearest the wheel is rotatably connected to a connecting arm that has a rotating bar that rotates the wheel in response to operation of the links.
US07641214B2
An energy-absorbing trailer hitch assembly is provided that includes a receiver tube and an insertion tube. The receiver tube is typically fixedly attached to a motor vehicle and has a set of apertures that affords for a pin to pass therethrough. The tube also has a set of slots adjacent to the apertures, with protrusions between each aperture and its adjacent slot. The insertion tube serves as a trailer hitch and has a set of apertures that align with the set of apertures in the receiver tube. Placement of the insertion tube within the receiver tube affords for a pin to pass through and be held within said apertures. In this manner a trailer may be attached to the trailer hitch and pulled by the motor vehicle. When the trailer is impacted, for example by a rear-end collision, deformation of the pin and/or the protrusions of the receiver tube allow the pin to travel in a forward direction, thereby absorbing energy from the collision. A second embodiment of the invention provides for an energy-absorbing trailer hitch assembly wherein the apertures, slots and protrusions therebetween are located within the insertion tube instead of the receiver tube.
US07641205B2
A cart is described for use in transporting and loading kayaks and similar watercraft. The cart includes first and second side frame members having forward and rear ends; a support member extending between the frame members adjacent the frame member rear ends; a bracing member extending between the frame members adjacent the frame member forward ends; a wheel assembly adjacent the rear ends of the frame members, the assembly including first and second axle ends and wheels carried on the axle ends; and an anti-reverse braking means preventing rearward movement of the cart upon tilting of the cart upward. The braking means may include a first component attached to a frame member and a second component attached to a rotatable component of the wheel assembly, the first and second components being moved into locking engagement upon upward tilting of the cart.
US07641204B2
A wheelbarrow for transporting materials includes an undercarriage, a wheel rotatably mounted to the undercarriage, a pan mounted to and supported by the undercarriage and a fastening mechanism having a head. The pan includes a base wall and an upright wall extending upwardly from the base wall. The base wall and upright wall define a carrying space and a carrying surface facing the carrying space. A depression is formed in the pan defining a depression plane that is generally continuous with the carrying surface. The fastening mechanism mounts the pan to the undercarriage such that the head is positioned within the depression between the undercarriage and the depression plane.
US07641197B2
A player places an ante wager to participate in the play of the underlying card game. An initial deal of at least one communal partial hand of poker consisting of at least one card is dealt from a single (or multiple) standard deck(s) of cards, standard deck(s) of cards with certain cards removed, or standard deck(s) of cards that is augmented by wild cards or jokers, especially with a partial communal hand consisting of two face-up cards. The player is directed to consider the partial hand and is then directed to choose to play the partial hand as either a 5-card stud game, a 6-card stud game, or a 7-card stud game by placing an additional Play wager on a particular Play Bet circle (i.e., the 5-card game, the 6-card game or the 7-card stud game. Three additional community cards are then dealt face up to complete the 5-card stud hand, and subsequently a 4th and 5th community card. Each wagered hand would then be compared to a predetermined pay table (for the specific game play selected by the player) and winnings would be awarded for certain predetermined combinations or ranks.
US07641193B2
Various apparatus and methods for bending a sheet of media are disclosed.
US07641190B2
A medium tray (101) comprises a medium support (1) connected to a medium feeding section (100) of an image recording apparatus (200) and receiving record medium (P), and a medium guide (5) extending from the medium support (1) and supporting the record medium (P) such that an angle of a rear portion of the record medium (P) is changed. A lengthy record medium (P) having a length greater than the medium support (1) is supported by the medium guide (5) with the rear portion thereof directed at a different angle so that the length record medium (P) is loaded in the medium tray (101) without enlarging an area projecting from the image recording apparatus (200).
US07641189B2
A sheet feeder feeds a sheet to an image forming unit. The sheet feeder can include a supply tray that holds a stack of sheets, a separation element disposed at an end of the supply tray, and configured to contact and apply a resistive force to a sheet in the stack, and a separation roller disposed facing the separation element, and configured to rotate, contact and apply a feeding force to an uppermost sheet in the stack. The sheet feeder may also include a pressing plate pivotally attached to the supply tray at an end remote from the separation element, and configured to move toward the separation element as a number of sheets in the stack decreases, and a pressure applying element that increases a contact surface pressure between the separation element and the uppermost sheet in response to the pressing plate moving toward the separation element.
US07641184B2
In the image reading and recording apparatus, a separating and feeding unit, a paper end detecting unit, a reading unit, a conveying unit, and a recording unit are arranged in this order from the upstream of the conveying direction. The separating and feeding unit has a switching unit for selectively switching between a separating function of separating the uppermost one of stacked sheets and a feeding function of feeding each separated sheet at a predetermined speed. After a sheet is separated, switching from the separating function to the feeding function is carried out before the paper end detecting unit detects the top end of the sheet.
US07641178B2
A system of blocks is configured to be compatible with each other in the construction of a columnar structure. Each block has four faces and all four faces may generally have the same dimensions. The width of the blocks may generally be about twice their height. The faces of the block also may contain a slot to add an aesthetic appearance to the column. The blocks have certain constructions features that mate with specially constructed brackets in attaching a fence panel to the completed column.The blocks have interlocking elements or projections that permit positive connection between courses of blocks. Projections of one block extend into the core another block. Adjacent blocks can be rotated 90 degrees relative to each other about a vertical axis of each block with each course. The blocks can be used to construct a column that is easy to install and structurally sound.
US07641175B1
A valve body substantially symmetrical about a longitudinal axis has at least one internal space and comprises guide means and two separately formed portions joined by at least one cylindrical web. One or more passages spaced apart from the longitudinal axis allow fluid communication between at least one internal space and space external to the valve body. At least one internal space may be substantially filled with a substantially incompressible flowable substance to facilitate pressure equalization across the valve body. Forging or casting valve body portions to near-net-shape prior to joining minimizes machining necessary to achieve a final desired shape. Increased valve durability and reduced metal wear arise from reduced valve body weight and correspondingly reduced impact loading as the valve body moves to seal against a valve seat. Valve sealing may be aided by an elastomeric seal in a peripheral integral seal retention groove of the valve body.
US07641174B2
A valve comprising an inlet housing, an outlet housing, an elastomeric valve element having a generally dome-shaped configuration with a central integral stem positioned substantially concentrically therewith, the inlet housing and outlet housing being fastened together at a joint with the elastomeric valve element positioned therein and the valve element including a plurality of longitudinal ribs formed along an outer annular periphery of a lower end of the dome-shaped configuration that define flow channels that allow fluid flow from across an upper surface of the dome-shaped configuration through the flow channels.
US07641171B2
An object of the present invention is to obtain a quick-response fluid control valve.A fluid control valve includes a pressure chamber including an output port; an air supply nozzle and an air exhaust nozzle which are communicatively connected to the pressure chamber and positioned on a common straight line; a flapper assembly which is movable between the air supply nozzle and the air exhaust nozzle and includes a pair of opening/closing control surfaces that face an opening end of the air supply nozzle and an opening end of the air exhaust nozzle, respectively; and a flapper-assembly moving mechanism which moves the flapper assembly so that a distance between the opening end of the air supply nozzle and one of the pair of opening/closing control surfaces increases while a distance between the opening end of the air exhaust nozzle and the other of the pair of opening/closing control surfaces decreases.
US07641170B2
The present invention provides a faucet for tapping a liquid stored under pressure of a gas in a container that has less moving parts subject to wear or breakage, and has a housing made of multiple parts which can be disassembled so the faucet mechanism can be easily cleaned, repaired, or replaced. The faucet mechanism contains a piece of flexible tubing and an arrangement of a pinch roller valve mechanism that compresses the flexible tubing to shut off flow of liquid through the tubing. In one arrangement of the present invention, since the housing does not move and does not come in contact with the beverage being poured, the housing is made of a non-metallic material, such as a plastic or petroleum-based material, which is less expensive than the previous brass or stainless steel housing.
US07641168B2
This present invention concerns a mold for the aluminothermic welding of railway rails. The compressible lining (58) used to seal the molding die in relation to leakages of the weld metal in the liquid state is limited to the parts of the contact surfaces (52) of the parts (19) of the mold on the rails to be welded, corresponding to the bottom, the sides and the top of the foot, to the sides of the web and below the head. The rigid refractory material of the parts (19) is exposed in the parts (67, 71) of the contact surfaces corresponding to the sides and the top of the head, and suitable to be removed selectively from the latter. This makes it easy to adapt the mold to rails with different degrees of wear.
US07641164B2
A power seat slide apparatus for a vehicle includes a first rail adapted to be fixed to a vehicle floor, a second rail adapted to be fixed to a vehicle seat and slidably supported relative to the first rail, a screw shaft screwed to a nut member which is fixed to the first rail, the screw shaft including an end portion and a stepped portion, a washer engaged with the stepped portion of the screw shaft, a gear member to which the end portion of the screw shaft is inserted, a fastening member provided at the end portion of the screw shaft, and a gear box fixed to an end of the second rail. The gear box includes a support bracket, a gear housing, and a plate. The stepped portion of the screw shaft is arranged in such a manner that the washer is connected thereto in the gear housing.
US07641160B2
An apparatus that is adapted to reduce wobble in a tripod that is used to hold an optical instrument, includes a triangular shaped base plate that includes an attachment to each leg of the tripod. The base plate includes slots at each corner or apex thereof that provides for an adjustment range sufficient for most types of tripods. A member that is attached to each leg of the tripod is attached to each corner of the base plate. A lighted carousel that includes a battery operated light and is adapted to hold a plurality of lenses is disposed above the base plate. According to a modification, the slots are eliminated from the base plate and an adjustment bar having a slot therein is attached at one end to a modified base plate and, at a remaining end, to a member that is attached to each of the legs of the tripod.
US07641152B2
The movable surfaces affecting the camber of a wing are dynamically adjusted to optimize wing camber for optimum lift/drag ratios under changing conditions during a given flight phase. In a preferred embodiment, an add-on dynamic adjustment control module provides command signals for optimum positioning of trailing edge movable surfaces, i.e., inboard flaps, outboard flaps, ailerons, and flaperons, which are used in place of the predetermined positions of the standard flight control system. The dynamic adjustment control module utilizes inputs of changing aircraft conditions such as altitude, Mach number, weight, center of gravity, vertical speed and flight phase. The dynamic adjustment control module's commands for repositioning the movable surfaces of the wing are transmitted through the standard flight control system to actuators for moving the flight control surfaces.
US07641141B2
A coreless roll (12) of a plastic film (10) is directly wound onto a tubular spindle (11); the spindle (11) is provided with an air chamber (11P) having a perforated side wall (11W), which communicate with a pressurised air source (27). At the removal of the roll (12), the inner turns of the roll (12) are radially expanded by feeding a pressurised airflow into the winding spindle (11) and the roll (12); the pressurised air is fed for a length of time required for the removal of the roll (12).
US07641140B2
A paper, board or material web is wound in a winder of the two-drum type. Winding core (10) ends placed against each other are coupled to be on the same axis of rotation during winding by severing cuts (12U, 12N) which are formed in the ends (11A, 11B) of the winding cores (10) and which deviate from a perpendicular cutting line.
US07641138B1
An auxiliary unit of paper shredder cutting tools is installed on cutting tools of a paper shredder. The auxiliary unit is formed by two L-shape plates located between two neighboring blades, an arc-shape hole at an end of each L-shape plate is hooked on a cutting bar of the cutting tool, and a through-hole of each L-shape plate provides for a support rod to be transfixed, so as to stably fix paper guides, the cutting bars and the blades. Therefore, the paper guides, the cutting bars and the blades can be prevented from getting loose or stretched open to damage the paper shredder or result in noise or even an imperfect shredding effect.
US07641137B2
In a dispersing apparatus comprising a container (10) for a dispersion material, a dissolve disc (22) drivable by a shaft (21) and a grinding device which contains a grinding medium and which has a perforated housing (34) through which dispersion material can pass by virtue of a flow generated by the dissolve disc (22), and an agitator tool which is drillable by a drive element and which is arranged in the housing (34) and is rotatable relative thereto, wherein the housing (34) surrounds the shaft (21), wherein the housing (34) is displaceable relative to the shaft (21) from a raised position into a lowered position and wherein the shaft (21) and the drive element can be coupled together by way of a coupling which has a first element (47) and a corresponding second element (53), which elements are in operative connection in the lowered position, in order to design same in such a way than a dispersing apparatus comprising a container (10) for a dispersion material, a dissolve disc (22) drivable by a shaft (21) and a grinding device which contains a grinding medium and which has a perforated housing (34) through which dispersion material can pass by virtue of a flow generated by the dissolve disc (22), and an agitator tool which is drivable by a drive element and which is arranged in the housing (34) and is rotatable relative thereto, wherein the housing (34) surrounds the shaft (21), wherein the housing (34) is displaceable relative to the shaft (21) from a raised position into a lowered position and wherein the shaft (21) and the drive element can be coupled together by way of a coupling which has a first element and a corresponding second element, which elements are in operative connection in the lowered position, in order to design same in such a way that it complies with coming anti-explosion regulations and is of a simple structure, it is proposed that the first element of the coupling is arranged at the lower end of the housing (34) and that the second element of the coupling is arranged in the region of a lower end of the shaft (21).
US07641128B2
A rail brace assembly is adapted to buttress the head of a stock rail selected from one of two different stock rail groups mounted on the top surface of a brace plate. The assembly includes a stop block assembly also is affixed to the brace plate top surface. A rail brace moveable between a first brace position in which it buttresses the head of a rail from a first stock rail group and a second brace position in which it buttresses the head of a rail from a second stock rail group, has a pair of spaced side walls, a upwardly facing top surface, first rail group head and base fishing surface contact areas, second rail group head and base fishing surface contact areas, a first rail group brace plate contact surface and a second rail group brace plate contact surface. An elastic fastener cooperates with a clip housing to clamp the rail brace against the stock rail. When the rail brace is in the first brace position the first rail group head and base fishing surface contact areas engage the rail head and base fishing surface areas, the first rail group brace plate contact surface contacts the brace plate and the second rail group head fishing surface contact area engages the stop block assembly. When the rail brace is in the second brace position the second rail group head and base fishing surface contact areas engage the head and base fishing surfaces of the stock rail, the second rail group brace plate contact surface contacts the brace plate and the first rail group head fishing surface contact area engages the stop block assembly.
US07641120B2
Disclosed is a system for embedding and recovering machine readable information on a substrate, including an image forming device containing at least two fluorescent marking materials, wherein the image forming device receives data representative of the machine readable information, and forms an image corresponding to the data in a machine readable code format with the at least two fluorescent marking materials on the substrate, and a document reading device including a radiation emitting unit that emits radiation effecting fluorescence of a first fluorescent marking material and/or second fluorescent marking material, and a reader that detects the data in the image on the image receiving substrate while the first fluorescent marking material and/or second fluorescent marking material is fluorescing.
US07641116B2
An envelope for use in containing and authenticating a ballot is presented. The envelope has a containment region dimensioned to receive a ballot or other desired document in accordance with the particular application with which the envelope is used and has a pre-defined area on the back to carry the signature of a person such as a voter using the envelope to vote by mail. A flap portion outside the pre-defined area is used to seal the containment region. A window cover is substantially in registration with the pre-defined signature area to obscure the signature in a first operative configuration and to reveal the pre-defined signature area in a second operative and to re-obscure the signature area after the signature area has been revealed whereby the ballot remains sealed during the pre-defined signature area obscured, revealed and re-obscured configurations. The window cover is arranged for automatic removal by mechanical opening means for automated processing.
US07641115B2
A method of generating an association between a sticker and an object of an object type, the sticker having disposed therein or thereon coded data at least partially indicative of a sticker identity and the object type, the method including, in a computer system: receiving indicating data from a sensing device, the indicating data being at least partially indicative of the identity of the sticker and the object type, the sensing device, when placed in an operative position relative to the sticker, being responsive to sense at least some of the coded data and generate the indicating data using the sensed coded data; identifying, using the indicating data, the identity of the sticker, the object type and the object of the object type; and, generating an association based at least partially on the sticker identity and the object.
US07641112B2
A financial transaction card includes a substantially biodegradable substrate, a plurality of seeds, and an account identifier. The plurality of seeds is coupled with the substantially biodegradable substrate such that the plurality of seeds is embedded within and substantially surrounded by the substantially biodegradable substrate. When the financial transaction card is inserted into a planting composition, the substantially biodegradable substrate decomposes leaving the plurality of seeds planted in the planting composition. The account identifier is securely connected to the substrate and links the substantially biodegradable substrate to a financial account. The account identifier is machine readable by a point-of-sale terminal. Stored-value card assemblies, methods of encouraging purchase and facilitating use of a stored-value card, and other embodiments are also disclosed.
US07641099B2
A solder joint determination method is disclosed that is able to inspect a joint portion between an electrode and a soldered portion and determine a soldering condition of the joint portion reliably with high precision. The method includes the steps of: scanning a surface of the electrode with the light beam; detecting a height of the electrode relative to the circuit board from data of the scanning of the electrode; scanning a surface of the solder near the electrode with the light beam; detecting a height of the solder relative to the circuit board from data of the scanning of the solder; and determining the solder joint condition between the electronic part and the solder based on the height of the electrode and the height of the solder relative to the circuit board.
US07641096B2
A friction stir welding apparatus has a novel tool-in-tool construction where a friction stir welding pin tool extends through a center bore of a friction stir welding shoulder tool and is moveable axially and rotationally relative to the shoulder tool. The pin tool and shoulder tool both have their own dedicated tool holders and spindles that enable the tools to rotate and move axially relative to each other and enable easy replacement of each of the tools.
US07641089B2
A cordless nailer is provided having a magazine assembly with improved features. A pusher assembly is provided having a simplified and efficient construction. A nail retention feature is provided to allow easy loading and unloading of nails into the nailer.
US07641086B2
A motorcycle rack for supporting a motorcycle in a generally upright position on the bed of a truck or trailer has a main support member transversing the bed to connect to and be supported by a first and second support assembly. The motorcycle rack has one or more wheel chock assemblies on the main support member for receiving a motorcycle wheel and supporting the motorcycle while the user places restraints, when necessary, around the motorcycle. The support assemblies and/or wheel chock assemblies can include loops for securing the motorcycle. One or more moveable tie-down holds can also be placed on main support member. The support assemblies can be removably mounted on the sidewall of the vehicle using a side member and clamp or mounted to the bed using a leg and receiver combination. Cradling or clamping wheel chock assemblies can be utilized to cradle or clamp the motorcycle's wheel.
US07641081B2
Disclosed is an immersion nozzle, which comprises a vertically-extending pipe-shaped straight nozzle body 10 adapted to allow molten steel to pass downwardly from an inlet port 9 provided at an upper end thereof, and a pair of discharge portions each including a respective one of a pair of outlet ports 12 provided in a lower portion of the straight nozzle body 10 in a bilaterally symmetrical arrangement and adapted to discharge molten steel laterally from a lateral side of the straight nozzle body. Each of the discharge portions has an inner surface defining the outlet port 12 and extending parallel to an axis of the outlet port 12 to define a length of the discharge portion at 45 mm or more. A ratio of S1/S2 is in the range of 0.8 to 1.8, wherein S1 is a total transverse vertical cross-sectional area of the outlet ports, and S2 is a cross-sectional area of an inner hole of the straight nozzle body taken along a plane including a line connecting respective inwardmost and uppermost positions of the outlet ports and extends perpendicularly to an axis of the straight nozzle body. The axis of the outlet port extends laterally outwardly and downwardly at the following angle θt with respect to a horizontal direction: 0°≦θt≦20°. The immersion nozzle of the present invention can suppress deceleration of a molten steel flow discharged from the outlet port to obtain a flow speed in an intended direction over a maximized distance.
US07641079B2
A cover and trigger assembly is provided that includes having a valve that can be actuated for dispensing the contents of the can through an outlet of the valve. The assembly includes an annular component having a helical surface is secured to the can, and a cover coupled to the annular component. The cover has an opening through which a trigger extends, and the cover is rotatable relative to the helical surface on the annular component for rotatably raising or lowering the cover relative to the annular component. The raising or lowering of the cover respectively prohibits or permits movement of the trigger member to actuate the valve, thereby controlling dispensing operation of the valve.
US07641078B2
Device forming packaging for viscous products, which can be fully emptied by means of manual pumping
A packaging which enables a compressible container to be fully emptied by pressing the fingers against the body thereof. The packaging has four parts, namely: a body having a vent hole, a container with a discharge hole, a flexible pouch and a cap. The aforementioned flexible pouch retracts and moves back completely until it is applied against the inner wall of the container. When the user exerts pressure on the body of the packaging while blocking the vent hole with a finger, all of the contents are discharged from the flexible pouch gradually and without effort, by compressing the air contained in the body. The device can be adapted to all compressible packaging for liquid, viscous or pasty products.
US07641076B2
A liquid dispensing system for dispensing liquid from a container to be consumed includes a base being positionable on a support surface. The base includes a perimeter wall defining an interior space of the base. The interior space receives and stores the liquid to be dispensed. A spigot is coupled to the perimeter wall and in fluid communication with the interior space. A container is positioned on the base. The container contains the liquid to be supplied to the interior space of the base. A pump assembly is coupled to the base and in fluid communication with the container and the interior space of the base. The pump assembly is actuated to transfer liquid from the container and into the interior space of the base.
US07641067B2
A trash container that can conform a trash bag to the trash container's interior comprising a container having an interior surface for receiving a trash bag; a suction opening disposed in the container for allowing fluid communication between an interior and an exterior of the container when a suction force is applied to the suction opening; a conduit carried by the container's interior surface in fluid communication with the suction opening; a plurality of air channels extending between an interior air passage and an exterior of the conduit to allow air to flow into the interior air passage of the conduit; whereby, air may be drawn through the plurality of air channels into the interior air passage and evacuated through the suction opening, thereby causing the trash bag to conform to the interior surface when a suction force is applied to the suction opening.
US07641060B2
The window hardware system of the invention comprises a variety of different types of poles in different finishes, colors and styles. A variety of different types of finials are also provided in different colors, materials, styles and shapes. A variety of different types of separate collars are also provided where certain types of collars may match the color, style and finish of the poles. A connection mechanism is provided to connect the finial, collar and pole to one another such that any combination of finial, collar and pole can be assembled. The body of the finial can have a modular construction such that the finial can be assembled from a variety of components to create a custom look.
US07641054B2
A composite semipermeable membrane, which comprises a separating functional layer comprising a reactant of polyfunctional amine with polyfunctional acid halide, wherein a water-soluble organic material is in contact with the separating functional layer, and the separating functional layer has a boron removal ratio of 95% or more, when seawater at 25° C. having a pH of 6.5, a boron concentration of 5 ppm and a TDS concentration of 3.5% by weight is permeated under an operation pressure of 5.5 MPa.
US07641050B2
The present invention relates to a novel type of medicine pack comprising a plurality of blister units (1), said blister units (1) each having a protective case (6), with a blister strip (4) located therein, the blister strip (4) being fixedly connected to the protective case (6), and the protective case being able to be unfolded or opened out, and also, if appropriate, an outer package (5, 5a) for receiving the blister units (1).
US07641044B2
A conveyor chain for a travel way on which an operator and/or a work carriage are reliably moved in a nonskid manner. The conveyor chain has a series of modules, each with a nonskid material loaded upper surface with front and rear hinge portions for connecting the modules to each other by connecting pins. The nonskid material loaded upper surface has hollows with the hollow surfaces recessed below the upper surface. The upper surface includes a number of supporting ribs project upwardly from the hollow surfaces and terminate flush with the upper surface, so that the transfer of the work carriage is easy and a back bend radius is decreased. Miniaturization and simplification of the conveyor are attained.
US07641036B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides for a method comprising determining sales data associated with a sales device (e.g., a vending machine) and adjusting a level of sensitivity of a currency validator based on the sales data.
US07641024B2
An elevator for transporting a person between two floors of a building includes at least one carriage and a lifting system. The elevator includes a control system and door sensors detecting the opening and closing of doors covering a hoist way. The control system detects a first opening and closing of a door in front of the carriage and activates the lift system to move the carriage to an opposite floor. Upon detecting a second opening and closing of a door in front of the carriage, the control system places the lift system in a standby state. Upon detecting a third opening and closing of a door in front of the carriage, the control system again activates the lift system to move the carriage to an opposite floor.
US07641018B2
A control system for a hybrid-vehicle equipped with power takeoff equipment provides control over primary and redundant, relatively low output systems so that the redundant system is not damaged by concurrent operation of the primary system.
US07641015B2
A motorcycle includes a rear swing arm which has upper and lower arms and an arm body. The upper and lower arms are vertically swingably attached to either a body frame or an engine via pivot shafts that are disposed in vertically spaced relation to each other and extend parallel to each other toward a rear wheel. The arm body is swingably connected to a rear end of the upper and lower arms via support shafts for supporting the rear wheel.
US07641012B2
A method of mounting a battery box (10) on a frame rail (12). Fasteners and elements (36, 38; or 54, 56) provide spaced apart, axially tapered outer surfaces (46; 62) proximate a vertical side of the rail with the tapers narrowing toward the side of the rail. The box has tabs (28) having downwardly open throats (30). The box is hung on the rail by positioning the box so as to place each tab over a respective element (38 or 56) on the fastener (36 or 54) with the tab throat aligned with the element, and then lowering the box to cause the elements to enter the tab throats and the throats to come to rest on the elements so that at least some of the weight of the box is borne by the rail through the throats resting on the elements. With the throats resting on the elements, the tapered outer surfaces present axial interference to the tabs beyond the tabs relative to the rail. After the box has been hung, the box is fastened to the rail by additional fasteners.
US07641004B2
A bit for drilling a hole. The bit includes a support member, the support member having a passageway extending substantially longitudinally therethrough; a substantially annular crown defining a crown distal end and a crown proximal end, a radially inwardly located crown inner surface and a radially outwardly located crown outer surface, the crown extending from the support member; a slot extending between the crown inner and outer surfaces from the crown distal end substantially longitudinally towards the crown proximal end, the slot defining a slot first side wall, a substantially circumferentially opposed slot second side wall and a slot proximal wall extending therebetween substantially opposed the crown distal end; and a reinforcing member extending substantially circumferentially across the slot between the slot first and second walls; wherein the slot includes a slot proximal segment extending between the reinforcing member and the slot proximal wall and a slot distal segment extending between the reinforcing member and the crown distal end.
US07641002B2
In one aspect of the present invention, a rotary drag drill bit has a body intermediate a shank and a working face. The working face has a plurality of blades converging towards a center of the working face and diverging towards a gauge of the working face. A carbide section is fixed to the working face and positioned within a pocket disposed within an inverted cone of the working face. The carbide section has a distal end exposed within the working face.
US07640997B2
A breaker tool has a chassis carrying a motor, an impact mechanism operating in a certain working direction, an enclosure rigidly connected to the chassis and surrounding at least the motor, and a handle device including two handles protruding from opposite sides of the enclosure and are vibration damped relative to the chassis via swing arms, where the swing arms are arranged to accomplish a flexible parallel movement providing coupling between the chassis and the handle device. The handle device includes a bridge to which the handles are secured. The swing arms are pivotally connected to the bridge via first pivots and to the chassis via second pivots, where at least one of the first and second pivots is a torsion pivot that provides a limited torsion damped oscillation of the bridge relative to the chassis in a direction substantially parallel with the working direction.
US07640993B2
A system for installing a powered device in a downhole tube has a power line extending down a production tube and terminating in a power connector or contact. The powered device toolstring is down the tube and has a corresponding power connector or contact. The two connectors or contacts are aligned as the connector or contact of the line approaches the connector or contact of the tool. Then the two contacts are fitted together such that they make electrical connection when the powered device toolstring is located adjacent to the power connector or contact of the production tube.
US07640989B2
Electrically operated well tools. A well system includes a well tool positioned in a wellbore. The well tool includes an actuator and an operating member displaceable to operate the well tool. The actuator includes a series of longitudinally distributed electromagnets, in which current is controllable in a predetermined pattern to thereby variably control longitudinal displacement of the operating member. In another well system, the operating member is displaceable between opposite maximum limits of displacement to operate the well tool, and an electromagnet is operative to displace the operating member to at least one position between the opposite maximum limits of displacement. In a method of operating a well tool, the well tool is operated by controlling current in a series of longitudinally distributed electromagnets of an actuator in a predetermined pattern, thereby causing corresponding longitudinal displacement of an operating member.
US07640977B2
A technique is provided to facilitate connection of multiple stage completions. A first completion stage is deployed at a wellbore location. Subsequently, the next completion stage is moved downhole into engagement with the first completion stage. The completion stages each have communication lines that are coupled together downhole via movement of the completion stages into engagement.
US07640974B1
Spool apparatus for use in an underground well having casing, comprising a body sized for travel in the well casing, the body defining a well fluid flow duct having a downward facing entrance and a sidewardly facing exit, there being a lower connection for coupling the body to lower well pipe to pass fluid into the body via the entrance, and an upper connection for coupling the body to upper carrier structure used for raising and lowering the body in the well casing, and there being means to latch connect the body to the well casing in a position for well fluid delivery from the body via the exit.
US07640970B2
An evaporator utilizes micro-channel tubes, and more particularly, has a structure of a heat exchanger using micro-channel tubes, which is applied to an evaporator of a household air conditioner. The evaporator, using micro-channel tubes, includes a first heat exchanging unit including a pair of upper and lower headers, and a plurality of the micro-channel tubes erected vertically between the headers so that condensed water flows downward, and a second heat exchanging unit, installed adjacent to the first heat exchanging unit, includes a pair of upper and lower headers, and a plurality of the micro-channel tubes erected vertically between the headers so that condensed water flows downward. A plurality of return pipes connect upper headers of neighboring heat exchanging units to transmit refrigerant between the neighboring heat exchanging units.
US07640966B2
An object of the invention is to provide a heat exchanger (radiator) or a cooling module having the radiator and a condenser, which has a higher rigidity against vibration in the vertical direction. To the end, the radiator or the cooling module is mounted to a vehicle by mounting brackets, which are fixed to the radiator tanks at their vertical ends. The mounting brackets have mounting pins, with which the radiator or the cooling module is mounted to the vehicle.
US07640960B2
An apparatus for attaching two substrates to one another includes a lower chamber that holds a first substrate and an upper chamber that holds a second substrate. The upper and lower chambers are brought together to provide a space in which an attaching process is performed. Chamber transportation mechanisms are located at corners of the lower chamber and serve to move the lower chamber up toward the upper chamber so that it can be coupled with the upper chamber. Guide parts are also formed on side surfaces of the lower chamber to guide movement, and to reduce deformation of the chamber when pressure differentials act to deform the sides of the chamber.
US07640959B2
An improved device for gluing the end flap of a log and a gluing method which can be implemented in a machine for producing logs, in which the logs (14), which come from a re-reeling machine, are fed to a gluing device (11) comprising in succession a bottom unwinding roller (16) and a top feed belt (17), and, immediately downstream of the unwinding roller (16), at least one stretch of inclined surface (21), of a pre-set length, followed by a vacuum-suction roller (24), set on top of which is a top roller (25), and then by a glue dispenser (27), there being provided on top of the unwinding roller (16) a blower element (19) for blowing an end flap (29) of the log (14) and, underneath, a photo-electric cell (20) for detecting the end flap (29), in which the log fed to the unwinding roller (16) is set with a position of the free end staggered by an angle (α), which is a function of the diameter of the log and of the pre-set length of the stretch of inclined surface (21), in such a way that, when the log thus positioned rolls on the inclined surface, it sets itself on the suction roller (24), with the free portion of the end flap (29) set exactly corresponding to the area of contact with the suction roller (24).
US07640957B2
This invention relates to high performance tires designed for high vehicular speeds having thin treads with a maximum thickness of about three centimeters with a running surface which is comprised of a rubber composition which is highly loaded with a combination of reinforcing filler and rubber processing oil. The combination of reinforcing filler is comprised of conductive carbon black and optionally at least one of classical rubber reinforcing carbon black and precipitated silica and their mixtures. This high level of a combination of selective reinforcing filler together with rubber processing oil in the tread rubber is provided to promote a reduction in internal heat generation within the thin tread during high vehicular speeds, particularly for vehicles intended to be used as race cars. The carbon black reinforcement is provided as being comprised of a conductive carbon black, which may optionally be combined with a classical rubber reinforcing carbon black, and which may optionally be combined with an amorphous synthetic silica, namely a precipitated silica, to aid in providing a path for thermal conductivity through the thin, high reinforcing filler and rubber processing oil loaded tire tread to its running surface and thence to the ground in order to therefore promote a reduction in internal heat build up within the tread during high speed operation of the tire.
US07640947B2
Microfabricated fluidic devices of the present invention include switches that can be opened and closed to allow or block the flow of fluid through a channel in response to the pressure level in a gate of the switch. The microfabricated fluidic switches may be coupled together to perform logic functions and Boolean algebra, such as inverters, AND gates, NAND, gates, NOR gates, and OR gates. The logic gates may be coupled together to form flip-flops that latch signals. The present invention also includes microfabricated fluidic pressure multipliers that increase the pressure in a second chamber relative to a first chamber. Microfabricated fluidic devices of the present invention also include high or low pressure sources. A pressure source of the present includes a pump coupled to a reservoir through unidirectional valves. Microfabricated fluidic devices of the present invention may also include devices that perform analog functions such as switching regulator.
US07640933B1
A seal for a respiratory mask that includes a first end portion adapted to be coupled to a mask shell, a second end portion for sealing engagement with a face of a patient, and a sidewall extending between the first end portion and the second end portion. At least a portion of the second end portion includes a textured area having a first rms surface roughness that is greater than a second rms surface roughness of a non-textured area of the seal. The area of increased surface roughness provides the patient contacting portion of the seal with a silky feeling to maximize patient comfort and the effectiveness of the seal without impairing the sealing ability.
US07640932B2
A method of monitoring breathing of a patient with a nasal cannula. The method comprising the steps of forming the nasal cannula with at least one nare, and at least one nare having a primary inlet/outlet opening formed in a remote end thereof. Coupling the nasal cannula to a detection device for monitoring breathing characteristics of the patient while the patient is sleeping. Detecting breathing characteristics of the patient, while the patient is sleeping, via at least the primary inlet/outlet opening of the nare and sending the detected breathing characteristics of the patient to detection device for evaluation.
US07640920B2
The present invention includes a first canister disposed within an intake air passage. The first canister communicates with a fuel tank via a second canister, so that a fuel vapor produced within the fuel tank can be purged by the second canister and further by the first canister. The second canister communicates with the intake air passage via a purge passage. The negative pressure within the intake air passage may be applied to the first and second canisters via the purge passage, so that the fuel vapor adsorbed by the first and second canisters can be desorbed or purged and can then be returned into the intake air passage.
US07640917B2
A fuel injector tip seal is provided including improved resistance to the heat and pressures of combustion gas. According to one aspect, the tip seal is formed from polytetrafluoroethylene and between 10 and 35 percent carbon fiber. The material offers improved surface finish and deformation resistance as well as improved thermal conduction and keeps thermal expansion low as compared to conventional fuel injector tip seal designs. According to a further aspect, a revised seal groove design is provided that allows for expansion and deformation of the tip seal and creates more pressure to the outside diameter face when pressure is applied at the tip. According to another aspect, the tip seal is formed of a flat disk-shaped seal body that can be assembled on the fuel injector by an assembly cone device that allows the disk-shaped seal body to be flipped to a ring-shaped configuration in its assembled position.
US07640915B2
Fuel management system for efficient operation of a spark ignition gasoline engine. Injectors inject an anti-knock agent such as ethanol directly into a cylinder of the engine. A fuel management microprocessor system controls injection of the anti-knock agent so as to control knock and minimize that amount of the anti-knock agent that is used in a drive cycle. It is preferred that the anti-knock agent is ethanol. The use of ethanol can be further minimized by injection in a non-uniform manner within a cylinder. The ethanol injection suppresses knock so that higher compression ratio and/or engine downsizing from increased turbocharging or supercharging can be used to increase the efficiency of the engine.
US07640910B2
An opposed piston, internal-combustion engine including a cylinder with a bore and opposed pistons disposed within the bore is provided with one or more hypocycloidal drives that convert the linear motion of a piston to rotary output motion. An electrical generator includes an opposed piston, internal-combustion engine with a coil mounted to the skirt of a piston and a hypocycloidal drive connected by a rod to the piston. The construction of the hypocycloidal drive imposes a sinusoidal period on the linear motion of the piston. As the piston transports the coil though a magnetic field, a sinusoidal voltage is induced in the windings of the coil.
US07640898B2
A water-cooled internal combustion engine has a cylinder head 21 provided with a cylinder head water jacket Jh through which cooling water flows. The cylinder head water jacket Jh includes a combustion chamber water jacket 70 surrounding combustion chambers 26 and an exhaust passage water jacket 71 around an exhaust manifold passage 38. The exhaust gas discharged from the combustion chambers 26 through exhaust ports 28 flows through the exhaust manifold passage. The exhaust passage water jacket 71 is divided into an upstream water jacket 72a and a downstream water jacket 72b by a partition wall 75. The cooling water flows from both the upstream water jacket 72a and the downstream water jacket 72a into the combustion chamber water jacket 70. Equality in temperature between a combustion chamber wall and an exhaust passage wall is improved and the cylinder head 21 is heated in a uniform temperature distribution.
US07640890B1
A pet door protection apparatus for movable placement adjacent to an existing pet door, the collapsible apparatus having a first end and an open second end, the base having an adjustment plate and mechanism for adjusting the height of the interior floor, which is fitted atop the adjustment plate. The apparatus further provides a transparent side panel removably and vertically fitted within each groove of the interior base, each of an opposed pair of transparent roof panels hingedly attached to one of the side panels, respectively, the roof panels further hingedly attached to each other, a pair of opposed transparent triangular roof end panels vertically fitted between the roof panels, a protective cap fitted atop the hinged attachment of the roof panels, and a strip anchor with a plurality of weighted flexible transparent strips selectively fitted to the first end of the side panels.
US07640877B1
A branch for distributing granular material includes an inlet portion, a transition portion downstream of the inlet portion, and an outlet portion downstream of the transition portion. Each portion has a critical air flow rate that is required to cause the granular material to flow through the respective portion. The branching that occurs at the transition portion results in the critical air flow rate of the transition portion being greater than the critical air flow rate of the inlet portion, typically requiring an amount of air at least equal to the critical air flow rate of the transition portion to flow granular material through the branch. In the disclosed branch, the inlet portion is oriented relative to the outlet portion such that applying air to substantially equal the critical air flow rate of the inlet portion results in granular material being urged by gravity to move through the transition portion and into the outlet portion.
US07640864B2
A non-magnetic concrete structure having no magnetism or a very small magnetic permeability without reinforcing steel bars arranged, a sidewall for a guideway, and a method for installing the sidewall for the guideway are provided.The reinforcing steel bars-free sidewall 11 for the guideway 10 is constructed by using a non-magnetic concrete structure constructed by using a fiber-reinforced cement-based mixed material and having no reinforcing steel bars therein. The fiber-reinforced cement-based mixed material is produced by mixing non-metallic fibers or non-magnetic metal fibers into a cement-based matrix in a mixing amount of 1 to 4% for an entire volume of the cement-based matrix. The cement-based matrix is obtained by mixing a composition with water. The above composition is composed of cement, aggregate grains having a maximum grain diameter of not more than 2.5 mm, pozzolanic reaction particles having particle diameters of not more than 15 μm and supper plasticizer. The fiber-reinforced cement-based mixed material has mechanical properties: a compressive strength of not less than 150 N/mm2 and a tensile strength of not less than 5 N/mm2.
US07640863B2
A track system for storage and retrieval of materials for use with warehousing vehicle that rides upon tracks in horizontal configuration for storage locations, and that is capable of switching to and riding a sloped track to ascend or descend vertically. A set of transition exchanges allows the vehicle to access multiple levels of storage “flooring” or shelving. The exchanges use ramps, or movable sections of railway, that may be moved out of the way of a set of wheels of the vehicle, while other ramps are set in place to provide support to some wheels of the vehicle, whereby the vehicle may selectively either travel along the elevator track, or to move between elevator track and level storage locations.
US07640861B2
Medium- and high-density articles are formed from alloys containing tungsten, iron, nickel and optionally manganese and/or steel. In some embodiments, the articles have densities in the range of 8-10.5 g/cm3, and in other embodiments, the articles have densities in the range of 10.5-15 g/cm3. In some embodiments, the articles are ferromagnetic, and in others the articles are not ferromagnetic. In some embodiments, tungsten forms the largest weight percent of the alloy, and in other embodiments the alloy contains no more than 50 wt % tungsten. In some embodiments, the articles are shell shot.
US07640853B2
A rotary cage press provided internally with a deformable flexible membrane having the form of a half of the cage, this press being characterized in that the elements of recovering theliquid part of the matter include on the cage, at least one external racking device, and a connection unit through which opens out the outlet orifice of the racking device; and on the chassis, a liquid taking device including a telescopic tubular unit allowing a retracted position in which the telescopic unit presents no obstacle to the rotation of the cage and an extended position in which the telescopic unit is adapted, when the cage is in a predetermined pressing angular position, to come against the connection unit bearing in a seal-tight manner around the outlet orifice of the racking device.
US07640847B2
A method and device for assessing end point of cooking of dhal and rice with good reproducibility are disclosed. Pulses are generally consumed as dhals after cooking to soft texture. Measurement of end point of cooking of dhals, rice etc is very subjective and current methods are not very satisfactory. An innovative device and an objective method for carrying out the same were developed. This works on the principle of determining the “spread area” during progressive cooking for dhals as well as rice, and reading the cooking time form a graph plotted. The device developed for the purpose can be used to exert the desired force for pressing the cooked grain and the area to which the grain spreads is determined by counting the number of squares from an appropriate graph sheet as “spread area” is plotted against the period of cooking a progressive increase was observed. The time at which, there was a sudden increase in the spread area or when a change in the slope of the curve (sudden deflection/steadiness) occurred was considered as cooking time of the sample (dhal/rice) being cooked. The method now reported corroborated well with the standard instrumental methods. This invention provides an objective and reliable method for assessing end point of cooking of dhal and rice with good reproducibility.
US07640844B2
A coffee machine includes: a base, a basal body locating above the base, a coffee pot located above the basal body, a first coffee exit located in the bottom of the coffee pot, a coffee outlet located under the first coffee exit, the coffee outlet includes a receiving water base, a top lid; a first pin joint part and a second pin joint part respectively located at both sides of the first coffee exit, one end of the receiving water base pivotally joins the first pin joint part, another end of the receiving water base extends to the second pin joint part and outside of the bottom of the coffee pot, a second coffee exit is beside the another end of the receiving water base, a third pin joint part is between the second coffee exit and the second pin joint part.
US07640843B2
A cartridge for use in a beverage preparation machine, the cartridge containing one or more beverage ingredients and being formed from substantially air- and water-impermeable materials, the cartridge comprising an inlet for the introduction of an aqueous medium into the cartridge and an outlet for discharge of a beverage produced from the one or more beverage ingredients, wherein the one or more beverage ingredients is a liquid chocolate ingredient.
US07640830B2
A locking adjustment turret for rifle scopes includes a stationary portion mounted on an outer tube of the scope, a rotating adjustment portion supported in the stationary portion and including an adjustment knob such that rotation of the knob results in axial motion of a shaft toward and away from an inner tube of the scope, and a locking mechanism on the rotating adjustment portion that locks the shaft in a desired position. The locking mechanism includes a pin that engages a detent mechanism in the rotating adjustment portion, preventing rotation of the rotating adjustment portion. The locking mechanism is operated with a lock knob that sits atop the adjustment knob and is accommodated by a recess in the top of the adjustment knob.
US07640825B2
A tension compensation assembly for a mechanical control cable. The tension compensation device has a housing with opposing ends. First and second sections of the control cable pass through but are attached at each end of the housing such that the sheaths of each section are coupled to the housing and reciprocable cable coaxially disposed in each control cable section extend into the housing. The cables are attached to opposing ends of a reciprocably disposed capsule or spring caps generally enclosing a spring. In operation, the capsule moves slidably within the housing over a predetermined travel and tension for the cables. However, if an over-tension condition is experienced, the capsule may bottom out at an end of the housing and the spring will either compress or extend, depending upon its design, thus allowing the effective length of the control cable assembly to increase, thus preventing the stretching or breaking of the cables or damage to cable end fittings.
US07640824B2
An adjustable steering column assembly of a vehicle has a central lock device for selectably locking an adjustable steering housing and co-extending steering shaft to a stationary bracket or chassis. For driver convenience and comfort, the steering housing and shaft are together adjustable with respect to the bracket. The lock device has a roller actuator preferably having inner outer members with a lever supported operably in between by a guide feature for movement along a first centerline substantially parallel to the steering shaft. Preferably, cam couplers are located between the outer member and the lever and the inner member and the lever for converting movement of the lever along the centerline to longitudinal movement of a carrier that traverses the centerline.
US07640814B2
A magnetometer for a force sensor assembly includes first inner and outer coils that are spaced axially apart from second inner and outer coils. Between the inner and outer coils is a plurality of magnetic strips. These magnetic strips are disposed at axially distinct portions within the inner and outer coils to detect magnetic field asymmetry. A drive circuit is connected to the inner coils and the outer coils generate an alternating magnetic field. The magnetometer of this invention creates an artificially enhanced demagnetization field reducing hysteresis within the sensor assembly.
US07640812B2
A cap is provided on a diaphragm, and a first end of a flexible board is connected to the cap. A cover is attached to the cap. The cover directs a second end of the flexible board in a direction away from the diaphragm held by a joint so that the flexible board is supported while being curved. Since the flexible board is not locally bent at an acute angle, a crack is not generated on a copper pattern provided on the flexible board.
US07640808B2
A method of manufacturing an assembly including a strip inserted between two substrates, the strip being formed from at least one damping material, includes providing the two substrates; providing the strip; evaluating equivalent real stiffness per unit length K′eq of the strip and of the equivalent loss factor tan δeq; and manufacturing the assembly by inserting a strip having an equivalent real stiffness per unit length of at least equal to 25 MPa and the equivalent loss factor of at least 0.25 between the two substrates.
US07640804B2
An activity measuring device (1) is used for recording the activity of a test subject, where the device (1) is attachable so as to be carried on the body of the test subject. According to the invention it is planned that the activity measuring device is located on a buckle (2) of a belt (3) which can be fitted to the body of the test subject, and that it has acceleration sensors (10, 10′) for detection of acceleration in all three spatial directions at right angles to each other. Furthermore, the activity measuring device (1) telemeters the recorded measurement data via a radio link to a central server (7), by virtue of the fact that the measurement data recorded by the activity measuring device (1) can be transmitted by means of a connecting cable (5) to a mobile telephone (4) via a device interface of the mobile telephone (4), which is arranged so as to be carried on the belt, and can be sent from there to the external server (7) via a radio link.
US07640797B2
This invention relates to a method and system for increasing safety in chemical application from an aircraft. Wind speed, wind direction and other critical flight parameters are measured, calculated, recorded, and visually or audibly announced during the aircraft flight via onboard equipment, which parameters provide a means for the aircraft pilot to control chemical spray application and for unassisted automatic chemical spray cutoff and for limiting spray application outside an application zone or target area. Such parameters also provide a means for indicating the lift reserve of the aircraft and a means for determining atmospheric stability near the ground and providing the pilot with a record of the meteorological conditions at a particular location. The method and system of the present invention also provide a means for predicting appropriate aircraft upwind offset distance to compensate for predicted chemical spray drift.
US07640796B2
The invention relates to closed-circuit tunnels used for aerodynamic researches, sportsmen-parachutists training and other purposes. The inventive closed-circuit tunnel comprises a confuser, a working area, a diffuser, one or several return channels, a blower unit and turning bends having different flow deflection angle, wherein the bend having the smaller flow deflection angle is placed in a high-speed flow cross-section, whereas the bend having the greater flow deflection angle is arranged in a low flow speed cross-section. In a preferred embodiment, the tunnel comprises a first turning bend containing one turning gut for turning the airflow at 60 degrees, a second turning bend containing two turning guts for turning the airflow at 120 degrees, and a third turning bend containing three turning guts for turning the airflow at 180 degrees. The invention makes it possible to reduce air pressure losses, the drive power and a specific amount of metal per structure.
US07640790B2
For operating a hydrogen test leak unit including a chamber defined by a membrane, a test gas mixture of hydrogen and an added gas is used. The added gas has a permeation coefficient relative to the material of the membrane ranging between 50% and 200% of that of hydrogen. In this manner, demixing of the test gas mixture is limited and significant concentration variations in the chamber are prevented. Preferably, helium is used as added gas.
US07640787B2
Pipettes, widely used in clinical and pharmaceutical laboratories to transfer small volumes of liquid, may be subject to hidden performance degradation and operator error. Pipette performance cannot be accepted without monitoring. The present disclosure concerns a verification device for a pipette with a piston for aspirating then dispensing, using a shaft, a determined volume of liquid. This device may include: a first assembly for supplying a displaced volume measurement, comparing this measurement to a desired value and generating an indication of the difference between the measured volume and the desired value; and a second assembly, responding to the first assembly, for delivering information relating to the indication.
US07640785B2
A device for test running of power nut runners comprises a main body (10;50) with a nut (11;54), a screw (12;52) with a nut runner engaging head (13;55), a clamping element (14;56) co-operating with the screw (12;52), and spring unit (17;59) to be clamped between the clamping element (14;56) and the main body (10;50) to generate a torque resistance on the screw (12;52), wherein a one-way clutch (24;64) is provided between the nut (11;54) and the main body (10;50) to prevent rotation of the nut (11;54) at rotation of the screw (12;52) in the tightening direction and to permit rotation of the nut (11) when rotating the screw (12;52) in the loosening direction, a friction clutch (30;72,73) between the nut (11;54) and the main body (10;50) is arranged to prevent rotation of the nut (11;54) during loosening of the screw (12;52), and a lock element (34;70) secured to the screw (12;52) is arranged to rotationally lock the screw (12:52) to the nut (11;54) at continued rotation of the screw (12;52) in the loosening direction.
US07640783B2
A portable, calibratible gas detector includes a multi-position gas inflow limiting orifice. When this orifice is in a calibrating position, a source of calibrating gas can be activated to provide a quantity of gas that diffuses into ambient atmosphere flowing through the orifice. The calibration gas can then be sensed.
US07640780B2
A compression tool including a ram; a drive system, a battery and a user selectable retraction control. The drive system is connected to the ram to extend the ram and allow retraction of the ram. The battery is connected to the drive system to at least partially power the drive system. The user selectable retraction control is connected to the drive system. The user selectable retraction control includes a plurality of ram retraction settings which are adapted to be selected by a user to at least partially control respective different retraction stopping locations of the ram.
US07640775B2
A sheet of material formed for folding into a three-dimensional structure. The sheet has edges formed with joinder structures, such as dovetails, and a plurality of folding structures, such as slits, grooves or displacements, that control folding of the sheet in a manner causing the joinder structures to be folded into interlocking interengagement. The folding structures are configured for very precise folding of the sheet so that the folding structures will be in precise registered juxtaposition. Additionally, the sheet of material includes a retention structure, such as a retention fold or a retention deformation, which will prevent unfolding of the sheet. A method for fastener-free joining of sheet edges together also is disclosed, as are the resulting three-dimensional structures.
US07640773B2
According to one exemplary embodiment, a portion of a lock may include a stationary member having a bore, where the stationary member can be mountable to an object. The portion of the lock can also include a movable member positioned at least partially within the bore and movable relative to the bore in an unlocking direction during a normal unlocking operation. A deformable portion can be positioned adjacent an interface between the stationary member and the movable member. The deformable portion permits the movable member to move in the unlocking direction during a normal unlocking operation and is deformable to prevent movement of the movable member relative to the stationary member when subjected to excessive force applied in an attempt to move the movable member in the unlocking direction in other than a normal unlocking operation.
US07640771B2
A suds container for a washing machine includes a cylindrical vessel surrounding a drum of the washing machine, the cylindrical vessel including a cylindrical wall and a front wall. A metallic hub for a drive shaft for the drum is integrated into a plastic compound of the front wall. Reinforcing plastic fiber strands are integrated into the plastic compound. The fiber strands extend from the hub outward toward the outer circumference of the front wall.
US07640770B2
In one embodiment of the present application, a knitting method is disclosed for a knitting fabric capable of eliminating the need of stitch transfer during knitting and easily knitting even a thick and less stretchable knitting fabric. Three types of stitching including knits marked with “O,” tacks marked with “V,” and missings marked with “-” are knitted repeatedly in a course direction and a wale direction. The thickness of the clothing fabric of a knitted product is 1.5 times that by plain knitting or thicker which is equal to a thickness obtained by rib knitting. The elongation of the knitted product in the course direction is approximately 1.5 times that by the other methods which is approximately half an elongation obtained by plain knitting which is approximately three times that by the other methods. The elongation of the knitted product in the wale direction is approximately 1.7 to 1.8 times that obtained by the other methods which is equal to an elongation obtained by plain knitting. Since the three types of stitches including the knits, tacks, and missings may be repeatedly knitted in each course for knitting the knitting fabric, the stitch transfer is not required during the knitting, and the thick and laterally less stretchable knitting fabric can be easily knitted.
US07640768B2
A cooling system for an indwelling heat exchange catheter includes a heat exchange bath that is configured to receive a conduit that carries saline to and from the catheter. A heating/cooling fluid is in the bath and exchanges heat with the saline. The heating/cooling fluid flows through a heat exchanger that includes a refrigerant and two variable speed DC compressor for removing heat from the refrigerant. A gear pump circulates the working fluid to and from the catheter and is removably engaged with a pump support platform.
US07640759B2
An air conditioning system condensate collection pan or water leak containment pan electrical control switch includes a housing or frame for supporting a switch unit which includes an elongated actuator arm. The housing includes a slot disposed adjacent a distal end of the actuator arm for receiving a water soluble tablet engageable with the actuator arm to bias the arm into a predetermined position of the switch. Abnormal accumulation of condensate or leaking water dissolves the tablet and allows the actuator arm to move to a position to effect actuation of the switch. The switch may be connected to a control unit, a thermostat and/or to an alarm generator including a self-contained unit having battery powered audio and/or visual alarm devices, an on-off switch and a circuit test switch.
US07640752B2
Device for guiding an element in an orifice in a wall of a turbomachine combustion chamber, including a ring and a bush, the ring being traversed axially by the element and including an external annular rim guided transversely in an internal annular channel of the bush, the ring and the bush delimiting around the element a cylindrical annular passage opening into the chamber, air circulation being provided in the ring and/or in the bush and distributed about their axis so as to establish an air circulation in the cylindrical passage from the outside of the combustion chamber toward the inside.
US07640747B2
A method for providing the interaction of the working medium with the heat energy source and also the interaction of the working medium with the additional low-temperature energy source, wherein the positron state of the Dirac's matter is used as said additional low-temperature energy source, and the interaction of the working medium with the additional low-temperature energy source is performed by bringing the working medium into the quantum-mechanical resonance with said state of matter. That is, in order to convert the heat energy into useful work, the capabilities of the quantum-mechanical resonances of the system ‘working medium—additional low-temperature energy source’ are used, i.e. in this case capabilities of the system ‘working medium—positron state of the Dirac's matter’ are used.
US07640735B2
An auxiliary pump assembly for a hydrostatic transmission that operates at a reduced pressure when the auxiliary circuit is not in use, and operates at an increased pressure when the auxiliary circuit is in use, thereby reducing the heat generated by the auxiliary pump. The auxiliary pump assembly can be used to supply low pressure makeup flow to a closed loop of a hydrostatic transmission. A combination valve including a bypass valve and a relief valve is also provided.
US07640733B2
A structural part, especially a shielding component, has structural parts (10, 12, 14, 16) at least in part differently configured with respect to their surface extent and/or the directional pattern. At least one structural part (10) of a first type is provided with a curvature at least partially increasing in the direction of at least one edge area (20). Structural parts (12) of a second type at least in part follow the curvature (18) of the first structural part. In each curved edge area (20), at least one structural part (14) of a third type is provided, according to the position in which the structural parts (12) of the second type are oriented and extend continuously at least in the area of the change in the curvature toward the edge area (20) along the first structural part (10). The edge area is strengthened by an additional structural part which, in addition to low-vibration behavior, leads to a clear reduction of acoustic propagation of noisy engine components.
US07640732B2
A highly porous ceramic filter consisting essentially of bonded ceramic fibers forms a part of an exhaust filtration system for a gasoline two-stroke engine. The porosity of the substrate permits accumulation of particulate constituents of the exhaust stream without detracting from the engine performance due to backpressure. Embodiments of the porous ceramic filter are disposed with a catalyst to facilitate reduction of gaseous and particulate byproducts of combustion from the two-stroke engine, so that emission of harmful pollutants is minimized.
US07640727B2
A combustion control apparatus for an internal combustion engine, includes an exhaust purifier in an exhaust passage, and a combustion controlling actuator such as a fuel injector to cause main combustion, and to cause preliminary combustion prior to the main combustion. A controller controls fuel injection to produce the preliminary combustion at or near top dead center, and controls fuel injection to start the main combustion after an end of the preliminary combustion.
US07640725B2
A method and system for controlling combustion in a gas turbine combustor (18) includes adjusting an amount of a premix fuel portion (30) of a pilot fuel (28) provided to a premix burner stage (48) of a pilot (46) of the gas turbine combustor. The amount of the premix fuel portion is adjusted from a preset premix fuel portion amount to an adjusted premix fuel portion amount to achieve a desired first operating condition of the combustor. An amount of a diffusion fuel portion (34) of the pilot fuel provided to a diffusion burner stage (50) of the pilot is then adjusted from a preset diffusion fuel portion amount to an adjusted diffusion fuel portion amount to achieve a desired second operating condition of the combustor.
US07640722B2
A cable protection and guide device is disclosed in which connection strength of the side plate portions is improved. The strength of connecting portions is improved and large scale assembly of the device is possible. Side plate portions (110) each have a link module (120) with integrally molded side plates (122) of a predetermined number interconnected by coupling portions (124). Each coupling portion includes flexible coupling arms (126) extended from the coupling portions (124). Stopper links (130) each being engaged between the adjacent side plates from a cable accommodating space side and are assembled to the coupling portion by a snap-fit mechanism. The link module has a male connecting plate (127) and a female connecting plate (128), which are respectively connected to link modules, which are reside at respective ends of the male connecting plate and the female connecting plate. The male connecting plate and the female connecting plate are each formed in the same outer shape as that of the side plate when connected to a female connecting plate and a male connecting plate of the adjacent link module.
US07640718B2
An attachment for agricultural harvesting machines for cutting, picking up and further conveying of stalk-like goods that flow into an intake gap of an intake housing of the harvesting machine for further processing, having in each case at least two cutting and conveying elements, which are spaced apart on both sides of a vertical longitudinal center plane and are driven rotationally about vertical axes, wherein the rotational direction of at least one cutting and conveying element can be changed independently of the other cutting and conveying elements of the attachment.
US07640714B2
Methods of packaging a medical device to orient at least a portion of the medical device and a medical device packaging assembly are provided. A method includes providing an elongate holder having a lumen extending through at least a portion of the holder and providing the medical device including an elongate shaft where the shaft includes a first cross-sectional area having a rotational orientation and a second cross-sectional area having a second rotational orientation. The method further includes aligning the first and second areas so that the first and second rotational orientations are aligned along a longitudinal region of the shaft and inserting at least a portion of the medical device into the lumen of the holder Radial rotation of the first area with respect to the second area is substantially prevented.
US07640713B2
Methods, devices and computer program products automatically package an object in a covering material such as casing and/or netting by: (a) automatically pushing at least one object through a product chute; (b) pulling a covering material upstream of the product chute off an exterior surface of the product chute to automatically enclose the object in the covering material as the object exits the product chute; and (c) applying a clip to the covering material to secure the object in the packing material.
US07640712B1
The invention is a window glazing assembly having a series of segmented and non-segmented intersecting muntins for supporting glass panes. The non-segmented muntins incorporate a continuous carbon fiber insert that is disposed interior of the non-segmented muntin which rests directly against a perimeter edge of the glass panes. The glazing assembly safely disperses wind load or other forces acting against the glass panes.
US07640710B1
A replacement ventilation cover and its method of installation in place of an old damaged ventilation cover. The replacement ventilation cover has a peripheral frame and an air permeable structure contained within the interior of the peripheral frame. Guides are prefabricated in the peripheral frame. The Guides hold nails or screws at acute angles relative to the plane of the opening being covered. To utilize the replacement ventilation cover, a central portion of the damaged ventilation cover is removed. This creates an opening without having to remove the nailing flange of the damaged ventilation cover. Consequently, the siding and trim around the vent opening does not have to be disturbed. The replacement ventilation cover is inserted into the remnants of the damaged ventilation cover. Nails or screws are then driven through the guides and into the construction under the old ventilation cover.
US07640706B2
The invention is a joint cover assembly for covering a gap adjacent an edge of a panel that covers a sub-surface, and a method of covering such a gap. The assembly includes a molding having a foot, a first arm, and a second arm. The foot is positioned along a longitudinal axis, and the first arm extends generally perpendicularly from the foot. The second arm extends generally perpendicularly from the foot. A tab depends generally perpendicularly from the first panel engaging surface. At least one of the tab and the foot engage the edge in order to tightly fit within the gap. The method includes the steps of placing the foot in the gap, pressing the respective panel engaging surfaces into contact with respective panels, and configuring at least one of the tab and the foot to cooperate to retain the molding in the gap when the assembly is in an installed condition.
US07640701B2
A deflection clip for erection of partitions in office space and commercial use is disclosed. A deflection clip in accordance with the present invention has a flat base with a left and right clasp that are substantially parallel to the base. The right and left clasps are used to secure the deflection clip to a leg of an open channel track attached to the floor and ceiling. The left and right clasp each have a left and right stud extension tab extending substantially perpendicular from an inside edge of the left and right clasps. The left and right stud extension tabs are used to secure a stud in relation to the open channel track, allowing the ceiling and floor to deflect relative to each other without transferring load to the stud.
US07640695B2
A planter box for transplanting or removing trees, shrubs, or plant material. The planter box includes four corner members and a first and second channel arranged on each corner member. The box has a plurality of wall members arranged within the channels. A plurality of fastening members are arranged between the corner members.
US07640693B2
The Snake Fence (1), especially for catching snakes. The netting is attached to upright staking material (2) which is hammered into the ground. The netting follows the staking material and is attached to the staking material (3) and then secured to the ground by fasteners (4). It is the single, double, or multiple layering of netting that catches the snakes and holds the snakes. The snakes cannot extricate themselves from the netting. The netting is proportional in size to the snake being caught; the staking material is proportional in size to the netting; the fasteners are proportional in size to the staking material.
US07640689B2
A hand guard system for use with a firearm is described. A holding unit for releasably coupling the hand guard system to a firearm includes a coupling element having an opening, a flange, and at least one coupling portion. The flange and the coupling portion form the opening so that the coupling element is slidably removable about the barrel of the firearm, and an inner surface of the coupling portion engages an outer surface of the barrel nut. The holding unit further includes a sleeve operatively coupled to the coupling element having an inner surface defining an opening so that the sleeve is slidably removable about the barrel of the firearm and the inner surface forms a shoulder and defines a groove distally located from the shoulder and sized to receive a snap ring. The snap ring retains the sleeve to the coupling element such that the shoulder and snap ring are located on opposite sides of the flange of the coupling element. The holding unit further includes a biasing member disposed between the flange and the shoulder of the sleeve to bias the sleeve away from the flange along a longitudinal axis of the barrel. The biasing member enables the sleeve to move between a first position and a second position relative to the coupling element.
US07640681B2
An electric massage shoe assembly includes a shoe with a conductive unit received therein which has a receptacle, a first wire and at least one conductive rod which extends through an insole unit and is in contact with wearer's foot. A frequency current generating unit is electrically connected to the receptacle of the conductive unit so as to transfer frequency current to the wearer's foot and stimulate the wearer's foot.
US07640678B2
Provided is a laundry dryer. The laundry dryer includes a drying drum for inserting laundry in, a base, and a cabinet enclosing the drying drum and the base. The base includes an outside air intake port that suctions indoor air, an air passage for moist air from the drying drum to pass through, and an impurity descending slot recessed a predetermined depth at a front of the outside air intake port for impurities to fall into.
US07640674B2
An articulated arm portable coordinate measurement machine (PCMM) can be calibrated or recalibrated using a coordinate measurement machine (CMM). In one method for PCMM calibration, the CMM can be moved to one position, and the PCMM moved to a contact position where a probe head of the PCMM contacts a probe head of the PCMM. The PCMM and the CMM can be operatively coupled, for example, by a synchronizing cable such that position data from the PCMM and the CMM can be obtained at the contact position. The PCMM can be repositioned one or more times to obtain position data at multiple PCMM positions. The CMM can be repositioned as desired and additional contact position data sets obtained by subsequent positioning and repositioning of the PCMM. Various probe head types such as touch trigger probes, hard probes, and contact probes can be used in the calibration systems and methods.
US07640672B2
The laser reference tool of the invention consists of a base that can be releasably mounted to a surface. A housing is mounted on the base such that it can be repositioned relative to the base in a direction parallel to the surface. A turret carrying the laser module is rotatable about first and second orthogonal axes. The laser module is also rotatable relative to the turret about a third axis orthogonal to the first and second axes.
US07640651B2
Embodiments of the invention provide fabrication processes for the co-fabrication of microprobe arrays along with one or more space transformers wherein the fabrication processes include the forming and adhering of a plurality of layers to previously formed layers and wherein at least a portion of the plurality of layers are formed from at least one structural material and at least one sacrificial material that is at least in part released from the plurality of layers after formation and wherein the space transformer includes a plurality of interconnect elements that connect one side to the array of probes that has a first spacing to another side that has a second spacing where the second spacing is greater than the first spacing. In some embodiments, the fabrication process includes a plurality of electrodeposition operations.
US07640649B2
A method which enables easy removal of a magnetic head slider soldered to a suspension and easy reuse of the removed parts. In the method for removing the magnetic head slider, heat is applied to a suspension to which at least a part of the magnetic head slider is joined by solder so as to remove the magnetic head slider from the suspension. The heating is locally applied to the junction area of the magnetic head slider and the suspension, which is joined by the solder.
US07640644B2
A method for manufacturing an exhaust gas treatment component having at least one structured piece of sheet metal, includes shaping the at least one piece of sheet metal with at least one fluid stream. A device for producing a structured piece of sheet metal is also provided.
US07640642B2
To provide a machine tool of which the operation rate can be increased by reducing time for suspending an operation for machining an object to be machined during the object-machining operation using the machine tool. A jig includes at least a first jig (5) disposed in a casing (2) and a second jig (14) by which an object (8) is detachably held. The jigger has attaching/detaching structure (17) for detachably mounting the second jig (14) onto the first jig (5). The second jig (14) is provided with grip parts (32) for gripping the second jig (14) during its movement. The casing (2) is provided with an opening (S) for taking in and out the second jig (14) relatively to the position where the object is to be machined from the outside of the casing (2), and guide passages (18), (22) for guiding generally horizontal movement of the second jigs (14) are provided at least between the above-said position and the opening (S) so that the second jig (14) gripped by the grip parts (32) can be moved along the guide passages (18), (22).
US07640640B1
A shoelace containment device for securing shoelaces after tying on a sports shoe. A flexible body member defines a lace retainment pocket with a closure flap thereover. Multiple shoe engagement straps adjustably secure the retainment pocket over the lace portion of a sports shoe.
US07640632B2
An article for holding currency and credit cards is disclosed which comprises (a) a first length of substantially non-stretchable material having a first end and a second end configured to form a closed flat loop when the first end is retained on or near the second end, a lumen in the first length, a flat length of bendable metal within the lumen in the first length which allows the closed flat loop to retain a desired shape, the closed flat loop having a length which is slightly longer than half the length of U.S. currency; (b) a second length of substantially non-stretchable material having a middle, a first end, a second end, and a lumen, the first end and the second end secured to the first length of substantially non-stretchable material, thereby forming a second flat loop slightly wider than the width of U.S. currency, the middle secured to a point on the first length (a) to maintain the first flat loop perpendicular to the second flat loop, the lumen in the second length containing a flat strip of bendable metal.
US07640625B2
A vacuum cleaner includes a cyclone dust separating unit which includes a cyclone part to separate dust from a dust-laden air drawn from a surface being cleaned using a centrifugal force, a dust collecting part comprising a dust chamber to accommodate the dust separated at the cyclone part, and a compressing part to compress the dust accommodated in the dust chamber. The compressing part includes a driving part to rotatably drive a driving axis, and a compressing plate driven in a substantially perpendicular direction with respect to the driving axis according to the rotation of the driving axis, and to compress the dust accommodated in the dust chamber. As a result, a vacuum cleaner is provided, which requires a minimum space for the installation of a compressing part to compress dust inside the dust collecting part, and provides maximum compressing force of the compressing part.
US07640619B2
The invention relates to a wiper system with a wiper drive (1), which is comprised of a wiper motor (2) and a gear (3). A wiper arm shaft (14) for a wiper arm (19) can be driven via the output shaft (5) of the gear (3). Linking points (31, 32, 33) for accommodating the wiper drive (1) on a surface (24, 40) are arranged in the housing area (7) of the wiper drive (1). The linking points (31, 32, 33) of the wiper drive (1) each feature a decoupling element (41, 42, 43), in which fastening elements (55) to mount the wiper drive (1) either on a vehicle body (24) or on a screw-down surface (40) are accommodated.
US07640614B2
An electric toothbrush is disclosed. The electric toothbrush includes a body having an interior hollow region for retaining one or more motors, batteries, and drive mechanisms. The toothbrush includes multiple bristle carriers. Each of the bristle carriers undergoes some type of movement and is driven by the one or more motors and drive mechanisms. Various combinations of movement of the bristle carriers are described. And, numerous drive train mechanisms are disclosed for achieving the noted motions.
US07640610B2
A support for use with the upper extremity of a patient is disclosed. An upper extremity support including a wedge for supporting the upper extremity is provided. The upper extremity support may include a block for supporting the wedge. The upper extremity support may also include straps and may define apertures and grooves for fastening and positioning the upper extremity in relation to the upper extremity support, the patient or another support. The upper extremity support may position the upper extremity in a substantially scaption position.
US07640609B2
A headrest assembly (212) for supporting a face of a user (16) of a massage device (10) includes a support frame (226) and a resilient assembly (220). The support frame (226) is coupled to the massage device (11). The resilient assembly (220) includes a first resilient subassembly (256) that is coupled to the support frame (226), and a second resilient subassembly (258) that engages the first resilient subassembly (256). The first resilient subassembly (256) and the second resilient subassembly (258) cooperate and act in parallel to support the face of the user (16). The first resilient subassembly (256) can include a plurality of spaced apart resilient members (360).
US07640608B2
A medical examination table which is movable between a lowered patient entry/exit position and a raised patient examination position. A scissor-lift assembly is provided to raise and lower the examination table. The examination table includes a drawer having a pivotal front panel which is adapted to support instruments or other items thereon when the drawer is folded to a downward position. The examination table further includes a storage pocket located beneath the backrest. The storage pocket and its contents are concealed when the backrest is lowered and are accessible when the backrest is inclined.
US07640604B2
A waste removal system that includes a toilet pan (28) for a ultra-low flushing volume toilet (20). The pan (28) includes a rearward end (28a) adapted for positioning substantially adjacent a cistern (22) and a frontward end (28b) adapted for positioning substantially remote the cistern (22). The pan (28) also includes a flushing water outlet having a primary outlet nozzle arrangement (42) disposed substantially adjacent the pan frontward end (28b) and adapted to direct flushing water (62) downwards and towards the pan rearward end (28a). The system also includes a related flushing method and drainline (90).
US07640603B2
Cistern outlet valve mounting bracket assembly and a method of installing an outlet valve in cistern
A cistern outlet valve mounting bracket assembly (10). The assembly includes first and second bracket members (12, 14) adapted for positioning about an outlet valve (20) in engagement with each other and the valve (20). The members (12, 14) also have means (28, 32) to allow fixing of the engaged members (12, 14) to a cistern (38). A method of installing an outlet valve (20) in a cistern (38) is also disclosed.
US07640600B2
What is described is a sash-style apparatus that can be comprised of two strips of material. The two strips of material can be configured such that in one configuration the first strip of material lies substantially behind the second strip of material and in a second configuration, the two strips of material can be minimally parted to reveal the mother's nipple and allow an infant to breastfeed. The mother can feed and bond with her infant, without exposing her breast.
US07640599B2
A bib for illustrating an infant's last feeding time, including a cover member for covering a predetermined portion of at least one of an infant and an infant's clothing. The cover member being manufactured from a first predetermined material and having a first predetermined size and first predetermined shape. A securing mechanism is operably connected to such cover member at predetermined location thereon for securing such cover member at least one of around such infant's neck, to such infant and to such infant's clothing. Indicia is formed on such cover member illustrating predetermined information relating to a last feeding time of such infant. An indicator mechanism is disposed on such cover member for indicating such infant's last feeding time.
US07644447B2
Provided is a scanning probe microscope capable of precisely analyzing characteristics of samples having an overhang surface structure. The scanning probe microscope comprises a first probe, a first scanner changing a position of the first probe along a straight line, and a second scanner changing a position of a sample in a plane, wherein the straight line in which the position of the first probe is changed by using the first scanner is non-perpendicular to the plane in which the position of the sample is changed by using the second scanner.
US07644445B2
Key management is performed to generate a single key allowing of the decoding of all authorized levels of a plurality of access types within a scalable codestream. An access node set is derived from sets representing access types having hierarchies representable by fully ordered sets, such as resolution and layer levels, and hierarchies representable by partially ordered sets, such as tile and precinct levels. The access node set derived is a partially ordered set representing the combinations of levels of the access types included within the codestream. A hierarchical key management system is applied to the access node set to assign a key to each of the access nodes, generate content encryption keys, and encrypt the codestream. A client receiving the codestream, access node set, and other public information uses the key to derive additional keys to decrypt the codestream.
US07644443B2
A content distribution is performed by a secure container including a content encrypted by a content key and container information set for a content transaction. The container information includes a person identification certificate identifiers list. Usage control status information including the list is generated and stored in a device during a secondary distribution among user devices after a primary distribution of the content. In the distribution among the user devices, identifying an identification certificate in reference to the list and performing a person authentication based on the identification certificate allows each of the user devices to use the transmitted content, when the authentication is affirmative.
US07644438B1
A network security system can have a plurality of distributed software agents configured to collect security events from network devices. In one embodiment, the agents are configured to aggregate the security events. In one embodiment of the present invention, an agent includes a device interface to receive a security event from a network device, a plurality of aggregation profiles, and an agent aggregate module to select one of the plurality of aggregation profiles, and increment an event count of an aggregate event representing the received security event using the selected aggregation profile.
US07644428B2
The present invention provides an easy-to-search program guide having efficient display contents of program information when receiving digital broadcasting from plural transmission media. A program information extracting unit extracts program information for channels receivable from a first and a second transmission media, and stores the extracted program information of individual channels in a storing unit. A program information integrating unit, when integrating program information of the first transmission media and program information of the second transmission media, compares program information stored in the storing unit, and integrates duplicate program information of a same channel, if any, into one piece of program information. A display contents creating unit creates a program guide based on the integrated program information, and displays it in a display unit.
US07644426B2
A method for implementing a help function in a digital television receiver is disclosed, wherein main help items including titles of external elements such as a rear panel and a front panel are displayed on a screen if a user pushes a help button of a remote controller or main body. When one of the main help items is selected, a configuration (or figure) of the selected main help item is displayed, and the user can indicate a desired part of the configuration by manipulating buttons of the remote controller and the main body. A help description of the indicated part is displayed on the screen together with it's configuration.
US07644419B2
The heat dissipation of a pickup is improved in an optical disc apparatus of a slot-in type.A unit cover 16 on a disc-facing side of a unit mechanism 6 includes a circumferential plate 21, a lever supporting plate 22, a disc guiding plate 23, a flexible printed circuit board holding plate 24, a reinforcing plate 25, a driving part covering plate 27, ventilating openings near sub guiding shaft 28, an extended notch near sub guiding shaft 30, an outer extended notch 31, and an extended notch near main guiding shaft 32. With this configuration, plenty of air flow induced by the rotation of a disc 5 can be introduced to a pickup 9 also through the unit cover 16, greatly improving heat dissipation capability.
US07644406B2
Disclosed herein is a mobile services network including an electronic device with an update agent that may be capable of updating firmware and application software stored in non-volatile memory and employing multiple FLASH memory chips. The update agent may employ an update package generated to update firmware/software data segments and code segments. In an embodiment according to the present invention, the update agent may also employ a flash library supporting multiple FLASH memory chips from the same or different manufacturers. In an embodiment according to the present invention, the FLASH memory chips may be grouped. The update agent may also be capable of updating code in the multiple FLASH memory chips in the non-volatile memory of the electronic device.
US07644400B2
The illustrative embodiment of the present invention provides a platform that enables a content developer to distribute uniform content to multiple types of requesting mobile devices. By authoring content in a generic markup language and using the technologies included in the Mobile Content Framework(MCF), the content developer is able to provide content to multiple types devices without providing different versions of the content. The content may be authored originally in the generic markup language or translated from other languages into the generic markup language by the MCF. The MCF exploits the capabilities and accommodates the limitations of different types of wireless devices by converting generic markup language content to device-specific content. The MCF interacts with device registries holding records of the device attributes in order to provide the device-specific content. The MCF handles these issues for current mobile devices while also being extensible for future mobile devices.
US07644395B1
A system and method for employing bytecode modification techniques for tracing services within an application server. Application servers, such as those based on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (“J2EE”) standard, include a variety of different services. In one embodiment of the invention, a group of services executed on an application server are identified for tracing. For each service in the group, a group of entry and/or exit methods to be traced are identified. The group of entry/exit methods may represent entry and/or exit points to and from the service, respectively. Once the service's method are identified, the service's bytecode is modified based on the particular group of entry/exit methods specified. The service is then executed and method invocations of the bytecode modified entry/exit methods are registered.
US07644394B2
A computer system, program product and method debug an object-oriented computer program by tracking the creation of objects by a plurality of creators (e.g., constructor methods) of a selected class. A user need not separately track each creator. Instead, a debugger identifies each creator and associates breakpoints with all or a user-specified subset of creators to facilitate tracking. Any of the breakpoints may then trigger a halting of execution during debugging. Moreover, in some instances it may be desirable to track the number of creations by all or the subset of the creators for the selected class during program execution until a user-specified condition is satisfied, whereupon program execution is terminated and debugging information is provided to the user.
US07644384B2
The present invention introduces methods, systems, and architectures for routing clock signals in an integrated circuit layout. The introduced clock signal clock signal structures are rendered with non Manhattan routing. In a first embodiment, the traditional recursive H clock signal structure is rendered after transforming the coordinates system such that a rotated recursive H clock signal structure is rendered. In another embodiment, a recursive Y structure is used to create a clock signal structure. The recursive Y structure may also be implemented in a rotated alignment. For clock signal redundancy, non Manhattan wiring may be used to create a clock signal mesh network.
US07644380B1
Method for analyzing a circuit composed of MOS devices. The method can be used to direct MOS devices in static and dynamic circuits and involves identifying an undirected MOS device that connects nets. Functions of the nets that cause each net to be logic values are defined as a function of inputs to the circuit. The defined functions can include pulldown functions or both pullup and pulldown functions. A set of rules is used to determine the direction of a signal that flows through a device and applies defined functions. The rules for analyzing static devices may differ from the rules for analyzing dynamic devices. Devices that are determined to have uni-directional signal flow can be directed. Additionally, devices having bi-directional signal flow and uni-directional observability can be directed.
US07644378B2
A characterized cell library for EDA tools includes one or more mathematical models for each cell, and one or more preconditioning functions (and/or inverse preconditioning functions) for each mathematical model. Each mathematical model represents a performance parameter (e.g., delay, power consumption, noise) or a preconditioned performance parameter of the cell. The preconditioning functions convert an operating parameter (e.g., input slew, output capacitance) associated with the performance parameter into a preconditioned input variable for the mathematical models. In doing so, the preconditioning functions allow for more accurate modeling of complex data relationships without increasing the complexity (e.g., order and number of coefficients) of the mathematical models. Also, because the cell library can be substantially similar to conventional polynomial-based cell libraries except for the inclusion of preconditioning functions, preconditioning does not significantly increase storage requirements and conventional EDA tools can be readily adapted to use the preconditioned cell library.
US07644375B1
A report shows website visitation statistics including page visits before and after a path that can include one or more pages. The report responds to user selection of a page by adding the selected page to the path and regenerating the report. The user can click on pages to add them to the path, or to replace existing pages in the path. The user can also request and receive additional information about any page represented in the report.
US07644364B2
A media editing application for creating and displaying video effect clips. A detection component detects video files stored in a memory of a computer. A user interface displays the detected video files and various video effects that can be applied to video files. The user interface is responsive to a user selecting one or more of the detected video files to apply a selected video effect to the selected video files to create the video effect clip. The user interface is further responsive to user input to display the video effect clip.
US07644350B2
Techniques for creating and processing electronic forms that include at least one field that is configured to accept multimedia information as input. Techniques are provided for creating an electronic form comprising at least one field that is configured to accept multimedia information. Techniques are provided for specifying and associating a set of constraints (or predicates) with fields of a multimedia form, including specifying and associating one or more constraints with fields configured to accept multimedia information. Techniques for validating the electronic form based upon the constraints, if any, associated with the fields of the form. Various actions may be performed depending upon the results of the validation.
US07644342B2
An ECC circuit (103) is located between I/O terminals (1040-1047) and page buffers (1020-1027). The ECC circuit (103) includes a coder configured to generate check bits (ECC) for error correcting and attach the check bits to data to be written into a plurality of memory cell areas (1010-1017), and a decoder configured to employ the generated check bits (ECC) for error correcting the data read out from the memory cell areas (1010-1017). The ECC circuit (103) allocates a set of 40 check bits (ECC) to an information bit length of 4224=528×8 to execute coding and decoding by parallel processing 8-bit data, where data of 528 bits is defined as a unit to be written into and read out from one memory cell area (101j).
US07644339B2
Novel decoding approach is presented, by which, updated bit edge messages corresponding to a sub-matrix of an LDPC matrix are immediately employed for updating of the check edge messages corresponding to that sub-matrix without requiring storing the bit edge messages; also updated check edge messages corresponding to a sub-matrix of the LDPC matrix are immediately employed for updating of the bit edge messages corresponding to that sub-matrix without requiring storing the check edge messages. Using this approach, twice as many decoding iterations can be performed in a given time period when compared to a system that performs updating of all check edge messages for the entire LDPC matrix, then updating of all bit edge messages for the entire LDPC matrix, and so on. When performing this overlapping approach in conjunction with min-sum processing, significant memory savings can also be achieved.
US07644331B2
A method and apparatus is presented for debugging and testing a memory controller. In one embodiment, a testing interface is presented for performing stuck-at testing. In a second embodiment, a testing interface is presented for observing clock timing in a memory controller.
US07644325B2
A semiconductor integrated circuit device includes a control circuit configured to generate a control code to control a parameter of a predetermined circuit and outputs the control code to the predetermined circuit; and a latch circuit connected with an output of the control circuit to latch the control code in response to a control signal. The latch circuit may be provided between the control circuit and the predetermined circuit to latch the control code or transfer the control code to the predetermined circuit, in response to the control signal.
US07644323B2
Disclosed is a build-in self-diagnosis and repair method and apparatus in a memory with syndrome identification. It applies a fail-pattern identification and a syndrome-format structure to identify at least one type of faulty syndrome in the memory during a memory testing, then generates and exports fault syndrome information associated with the corresponding faulty syndrome. According to the fault syndrome information, the method applies a redundancy analysis algorithm, allocates spare memory elements and repairs the faulty cells in the memory. The syndrome-format structure respectively applies single-faulty-word-syndrome format, faulty-row-segment-syndrome format, and faulty-column-segment-syndrome format for different faulty syndromes, such as faulty row segments and single faulty words, faulty column segments and single faulty words, all of single faulty words, faulty row segments and faulty column segments, and so on.
US07644313B2
A method for detecting a failure in a computing system and for restoring the system is provided. The method comprises providing a system connected to a network communications channel, creating, using a configured backup automation tool, a full system backup image and incremental archive logs of the system before attempting to remotely install software on the system and executing a point-in-time detection and restoration tool configured to detect a system failure when attempting to remotely install software on the system and, if the system failure is detected, to restore the system to a desired restoration point before the system failure occurred, using the full system backup image and incremental archive logs created of the system.
US07644311B2
A process and system for estimating the soft error rate of an integrated circuit. The process involves determining the surface area of and charge stored on each logic node on the integrated circuit. Then a response curve is used to estimate the soft error rate for a logic node using the charge stored on the logic node. Different response curves exist for integrated circuits of different technologies and products. Finally, the soft error rate of the integrated circuit can be estimated using the soft error rates for each logic node.
US07644310B2
A semiconductor IC capable of debugging two or more processors at the same time by means of a single debugger and a semiconductor IC test system. The semiconductor IC includes processors operating at different frequencies, a trigger circuit which causes all of the processors to be in a debugging state when one of the processors is in the debugging state, and a JTAG circuit applying a boundary scan operation to the processors connected to a JTAG pin in series.
US07644309B2
The invention relates to a recovery of a hardware module of an electronic device from a malfunction state. The hardware module is connected via a signal line to a recovery component of the device, a state of the signal line being controlled by the hardware module. The recovery component monitors a state of the signal line. Whenever the signal line is detected not to assume a predetermined state during a predetermined period of time, the recovery component causes a hardware reset of the hardware module.
US07644290B2
A system and method for detecting and responding to device tampering in an Energy Management (“EM”) device is disclosed. The EM device is provided with mechanisms to detect and indicate unauthorized tampering with the device. Further, in response to detected unauthorized tampering, the device may take actions to protect the integrity of data generated by the device as well as protect any confidential data stored within the device. Such actions may include preventing further device operation, generating warnings to the device owner/user, marking subsequently generated data as suspect, destroying stored confidential data, etc.
US07644289B2
A cryptographic device may include a cryptographic module and a communications module coupled thereto. The cryptographic module may include a user network interface, a host network processor coupled to the user network interface, and a cryptographic processor coupled to the host network processor. Additionally, the communications module may include a network communications interface coupled to the cryptographic processor. The host processor may generate cryptographic processor command packets for the cryptographic processor each having an address portion and a data portion, and it may also encapsulate command packets for the communications module in the data portions of the cryptographic processor command packets. The cryptographic processor may pass the communications module command packets to the without performing cryptographic processing thereon.
US07644288B2
An image forming apparatus is disclosed, the image forming apparatus including a storing unit that stores a program in accordance with which the image forming apparatus operates, an acquiring unit that acquires an update program from an external source, and an updating unit. Before updating the program stored in the storing unit, the updating unit determines whether the update program acquired by the acquiring unit is authentic by checking the electronic signature of the update unit. If the updating unit determines that the update program acquired by the acquiring unit is authentic, the updating unit updates the program stored in the storing unit. Accordingly, the image forming apparatus can improve the reliability of the update program.
US07644281B2
The present invention is a method and apparatus for watermarking text or vector graphics documents. It is based on character-wise or vector graphics element-wise grayscale or color modulation. At high resolution, halftone or dither modulation can also be used in addition or in place of grayscale/color modulation, for printed representation of electronic document. For the detection, the document is acquired through an acquisition device, document segmentation is performed, characters/elements are segmented, the watermark signal is estimated and the information is decoded. Although the proposed scheme mostly addresses the watermarking of hard-copy documents, it can easily be integrated into electronic document editing and acquisition tools, and the watermark is attached to the document electronic version.The invention is applicable either using expensive high-resolution printing and acquisition devices, either using common cheap low-resolution devices, depending on the application needs. The proposed scheme is suitable for example to the protection of security documents, contracts, technical and commercial documentation; it can use any physical support like paper, cellulose, or plastic; it can be used for copy protection, authentication, or tamper proofing; finally it can also be applied to other non security-related applications, such as document tracking, as well as document embedded annotation and watermarked-assisted automatic processing.
US07644280B2
A method for processing a file having an existing filename. A private key associated with a digital certificate and a certificate address from which the digital certificate may be accessed are received from a certification authority (CA) who issued the digital certificate. A digital signature is generated based on the file and the received private key. The digital certificate includes a public key associated with the private key such that the generated digital signature can be verified through use of the public key. The file is signed with the generated digital signature The received certificate address is encoded to generate an encoded address. The existing filename and the encoded address are merged to generate a new filename. The file is renamed with the new filename. The renamed file may be authenticated by verifying the digital signature via execution of an authentication algorithm in conjunction with the public key.
US07644279B2
Aspects for consumer product distribution in the embedded system market are described. The aspects include forming a secure network for distributing product digitation files capable of configuring operations of an adaptive computing engine (ACE), and providing an agent server within the secure network for controlling licenses of the product digitation files, wherein a separation of responsibility and control of the distributing and licensing exists.
US07644275B2
This disclosure pertains generally to client authentication. One aspect of the disclosure relates to a first server for presenting evidence to a Domain Controller (DC) of a first authentication context being submitted from a client to the first server to obtain a delegable credential, wherein the credential can be used to request a second authentication context from that client to a second server. Another aspect relates to the first server providing a pass-thru with evidence to a DC. The evidence relates to a first authentication context being submitted from a client to the first server that it obtained a delegable credential. The pass-thru is used in combination with the credential to request a second authentication context from the client to a second server.
US07644258B2
Various embodiments are described relating to processors, branch predictors, branch prediction systems, and computing systems. In an example embodiment, a processor includes a plurality of branch predictors. Each branch predictor is adapted to provide a prediction and an override signal. In the example embodiment, the processor futher includs a branch prediction control circuit. The branch prediction circuit is adapted to generate a branch prediction based on the prediction and the override signal from each predictor.
US07644252B2
A multiprocessor system includes a plurality of microprocessors configured to operate on a plurality of operating systems, respectively, and a memory section configured to have a plurality of memory spaces respectively allocated to the plurality of microprocessors. Each of the plurality of microprocessors may include a translation look-aside buffer (TLB) and a page table register. The TLB stores a copy of at least a part of data of one of the plurality of memory spaces corresponding to the microprocessor, and the copy includes a relation of each of virtual addresses of a virtual address space and a corresponding physical address of a physical address space as the memory space. The page table register refers to the TLB in response to an execution virtual address generated based on an application program to be executed by the microprocessor to determine an execution physical address corresponding to the execution virtual address. The microprocessor accesses the memory space based on the execution physical address.
US07644251B2
A controller includes a volatile random access memory and translation hardware. The volatile random access memory includes a table having at least one entry. The at least one entry includes a portion of a physical address of a memory location at a NAND flash non-volatile solid-state memory. The volatile random access memory is accessible to the translation hardware. The translation hardware is configured to sum binary data bits of a portion of a logical address and a pointer value to determine a random access memory address of the at least one entry and is configured to determine the portion of the physical address of the memory location at the NAND flash non-volatile solid-state memory based at least in part on the random access memory address of the at least one entry.
US07644242B2
The control device acquires the archive deadline of archive target data and acquires, for storage devices of a plurality of types, a warranty deadline for the quality of data stored by the storage device and the unit cost which is the cost for each predetermined storage size of the storage device. The storage control device is a storage device which acquires a data migration cost and which obtains a storage destination for the archive target data from storage devices of a plurality of types on the basis of the archive deadline, warranty deadline, unit cost and data migration cost thus acquired. The storage control device selects a storage device for which the total cost is minimum when the archive target data is archived until the archive deadline.
US07644241B2
History information of storage destinations designated for storing data input to an image processing device is managed. The priorities of a plurality of storage areas which are storage destination candidates are determined based on the managed history information. To assist a user designate a storage destination, a display unit displays information indicating the plurality of storage areas arranged based on the determined priorities. Based on the displayed information, the user designates one of the storage areas as the storage destination. A control unit effects control so as to store the data in the storage area designated by the user.
US07644240B2
A controller for a memory device and methods are provided. The controller has an updateable register bank adapted to send a first signal to an analog/memory core of the memory device for controlling operation of the analog/memory core. The analog/memory core has an array of flash memory cells and supporting analog access circuitry. A bus controller is coupled to the register bank. The bus controller is adapted to receive a second signal from the register bank and to send a third signal to the register bank for updating the register bank. A select register is coupled to the register bank. A processor is coupled to the bus controller and the select register.
US07644237B1
A method and apparatus is described for insuring coherency between memories in a multi-agent system where the agents are interconnected by one or more fabrics. A global arbiter is used to segment coherency into three phases: request; snoop; and response, and to apply global ordering to the requests. A bus interface having request, snoop, and response logic is provided for each agent. A bus interface having request, snoop and response logic is provided for the global arbiter, and a bus interface is provided to couple the global arbiter to each type of fabric it is responsible for. Global ordering and arbitration logic tags incoming requests from the multiple agents and insures that snoops are responded to according to the global order, without regard to latency differences in the fabrics.
US07644226B1
According to one exemplary embodiment, a RAM employing system includes a RAM and a RAM controller coupled to the RAM. The RAM employing system further includes a command queue, which is configured to receive time encoded RAM commands from the RAM controller. The RAM is configured to retrieve, decode, and execute each of the time encoded RAM commands in the command queue.
US07644224B2
A flash memory device includes an array of memory cells for storing data pages, one or more buffers for retrieving the data pages and a logic mechanism that, responsive to a plurality of commands, transfers the data pages between the buffers and a host. Each command subsequent to a first command instructs retrieval of a data page whose address either precedes, or exceeds by more than 1, the address of the data page retrieved by the immediately preceding command, and at least one command does not explicitly specify the address of its retrieved data page. Another similar flash memory device uses two buffers to implement cache reads of data pages whose addresses are specified arbitrarily in the commands subsequent to the first command.
US07644219B2
A system and method is disclosed for initializing PCI devices in a computer system or information handling system. Upon initialization of the system, each operating system instance of the system attempts to access a PCI bridge device. The first operating system to access the bridge device is granted ownership of the bridge device and the authority to initialize each PCI device coupled to the bridge device. The bridge device assigns each operating system to at least one context included in at least one of the PCI devices. After each of the PCI devices has been initialized, a configuration event is issued with respect to each operating system instance and each assigned PCI device, thereby causing each operating system to recognize each PCI device assigned to each respective operating system instance.
US07644214B2
An even-driven interrupt processing is efficiently carried out in a multiprocessor system. A main control unit 112 executes a main process as a processing for controlling an apparatus in a unified manner. A sub-control unit 116 executes a task assigned by the main control unit 112 during the execution of the main process, as a sub-process. An event detector 162 detects an event occurrence upon which an interrupt task is to be preferentially executed during the execution of the main process. An interrupt notification unit 164 notifies the sub-control unit 116 of interrupt information indicative of an interrupt task in response to the detected event. The sub-control unit 116 notified of the interrupt information executes the interrupt task specified by the interrupt information, as a sub-process.
US07644213B2
Methods and devices utilizing operating system semaphores are described for managing access to limited-access resources by clients.
US07644206B2
A data storage system is provided with command queue controller circuitry for positionally pushing pending access commands from a command queue to a selected target zone of a storage space. A method is provided for dividing a storage space into a plurality of LBA zones, selecting a target zone in relation to a number of pending access commands for each of the plurality of LBA zones, and pushing access commands to the target zone.
US07644196B2
The present invention provides a USB function apparatus which supports a plurality of USB descriptors and which is connected to a host apparatus via a USB to operate as a USB function, the USB function apparatus comprising a descriptor switching device which switches one of the plurality of USB descriptors to be transmitted to the host apparatus, a bus reset generating device which generates a bus reset to initialize communications with the host apparatus, and a control device which, when a descriptor request from the host apparatus is responded with a current USB description but if the host apparatus does not start communications in accordance with the USB descriptor, causes the descriptor switching device to switch the USB descriptor and causes the bus reset generating device to generate a bus reset.
US07644161B1
Information from control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy is received. The control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for an application. Relationships between the control plug-ins are determined based on the received information, and a topology of the control plug-ins is generated.
US07644160B2
A system and method of mapping remote ports so that they appear as local ports. One or more accounts is created, including a first and a second account, wherein the first account is assigned to a first user and the second account is assigned to a first computer. A plurality of first ports are assigned to the first account. A plurality of second ports are assigned to the second account. One of the second ports is mapped to a local port on the first computer. Another of the second ports is mapped to a remote port such that the remote port appears as a local port on the second computer. The first user is logged into a second computer and, while the first user is logged into the second computer, one of the first ports is mapped to a local port on the second computer and another of the first ports is mapped to a remote port such that the remote port appears as a local port on the second computer.
US07644154B2
When a management PC (as an address information display device in an address information display system) displays IPv6 addresses that have been assigned to a device in the system, the addresses may be displayed in a pull-down menu, for example. The display order in the pull-down menu may be determined according to a priority order which can be set arbitrarily by the user. Further, addresses judged to be important (according to settings by the user) may be displayed using a bold font, local addresses are displayed in italic, addresses close to the expiration of term of validity may be grayed out) and invalid addresses (addresses already expired) may be grayed out with strikethroughs. As a result, an address information display system may be realized that is capable of displaying addresses assigned to a device in a style easy for the user to understand.
US07644153B2
A method and system for the resource allocation for an interactive session on a grid computing system. When a user-request for an interactive session is received, the particular applications needed to be launched in the interactive session are identified, as are resource requirements for the interactive session including processor, network bandwidth, executables and files requirements. A contract is then generated for the interactive session specifying resource allocations and authorizations, and resources for the interactive session are allocated in accordance with the contract. The system includes a distributed resource management node, a contract generation engine, and a contract repository.
US07644151B2
A zone locking system detects unauthorized network usage internal to a firewall. The system determines unauthorized network usage by classifying internal hosts inside a firewall into zones. Certain specified zones are unauthorized to initiate client communications with other selected zones. However, zone override services can be designated for each associated internal zone, and thus, authorizing selected network services. An alarm or other appropriate action is taken upon the detection of unauthorized network usage.
US07644148B2
In a method of allocating workload among servers based upon historical data, a requested workload profile is received and is compared with a plurality of historical workload profiles. A historical workload profile that is within a predefined range of the requested workload profile and that corresponds to a substantially minimized resource usage for power and cooling is selected. In addition, workload among the servers is allocated according to the selected historical workload profile to thereby substantially minimize resource usage for power and cooling.
US07644142B2
Methods and apparatus to perform process placement for distributed applications are disclosed. An example method comprises determining a mapping between a communication graph representative of communications of a distributed application and a topology graph representative of communication costs associated with a computing network, and executing the distributed application with the processes of the distributed application assigned to the processing entities of the computing network based upon the mapping.
US07644137B2
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for workload balancing in environments with multiple clusters of servers. A process for sharing resources from a pool of servers among a first cluster of servers and a second cluster of servers includes determining a current workload of the first cluster and determining a current workload of the second cluster. The process calculates a combined workload of the first and second clusters, and allocates a first number of servers from the pool to the first cluster, the first number equal to a product of a total number of servers in the pool and the first server's workload divided by the combined workload.
US07644136B2
A virtual file system including multiple storage processor nodes including a management node, a backbone switch, a disk drive array, and a virtual file manager executing on the management node. The backbone switch enables communication between the storage processor nodes. The disk drive array is coupled to and distributed across the storage processor nodes and stores multiple titles. Each title is divided into data subchunks which are distributed across the disk drive array in which each subchunk is stored on a disk drive of the disk drive array. The virtual file manager manages storage and access of each subchunk, and manages multiple directory entries including a directory entry for each title. Each directory entry is a list of subchunk location entries in which each subchunk location entry includes a storage processor node identifier, a disk drive identifier, and a logical address for locating and accessing each subchunk of each title.
US07644134B2
A method of analysis of the performance of defined visitor tasks at a host's web site. Tasks are defined a sequence of web pages with which the host wishes the visitor to view or interact. The method allows a given task to be provided, compares the desired task to current visitor behavior to determine frequency, manner and completion of the task and analyzes the task-related information for anomalies and trends in the completion, or lack thereof, of the desired tasks.
US07644123B2
An announcement thread addressing format which comprises a first sub-part concatenated with a second sub-part is described. The first sub-part is preferably the address of the party which generates the addressing identifier, whereas the second sub-part may be random data. An announcer apparatus may then use these address formats by including only those parts of an announcement thread address which render the address unique within the particular index message in which it is to be included, but not necessarily globally unique.
US07644112B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for initializing a synchronized remote database. A creation module creates a first backup table of a backup database from a schema for a primary table of a primary database. A read module reads each row from the primary table with an application server configured to manage access to the primary database by a database application. A construction module constructs a SQL command for each row of the primary table. Each SQL command inserts data of a primary table row in the first backup table. An application module applies each SQL command to the first backup table to mirror the primary table at the first backup table.
US07644109B2
A system and method for conforming a metadata file associated with qtree of a storage system to a version used by a file system kernel of the storage system, where the version indicates a format of the metadata file. The metadata file stores state information with respect to each qtree, and may be located outside of the qtree structure. Major and minor versions are compared with latest known major and minor versions associated with the file system kernel. In response to such comparisons, the metadata file may be updated to a newer version, rolled back to an older version, and/or the system may enter a corrective state where further operations are performed.
US07644104B2
An image data transmission system includes: a first procedure section includes: a path name acquisition unit that acquires a path name of a file; a directory path name specifying unit that specifies a path name of a directory associated with a character string; a path name conversion unit that converts the character string into the path name of the directory; a converted path name providing unit that provides the converted path name; and an image data providing unit that provides an image data; and a second procedure section comprises: a converted path name acquisition unit that acquires the path name; a data reading unit that reads file data stored in the file; an image data acquisition unit that acquires the image data; and a data processing unit that performs a process of the image data, using the file data and the image data.
US07644102B2
Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture consistent with certain principles related to the present invention enable a computing system to perform hierarchical topical clustering of text data based on statistical modeling of co-occurrences of (document, word) pairs. The computing system may be configured to receive a collection of documents, each document including a plurality of words, and perform a modified deterministic annealing Expectation-Maximization (EM) process on the collection to produce a softly assigned hierarchy of nodes. The process may involve assigning documents and document fragments to multiple nodes in the hierarchy based on words included in the documents, such that a document may be assigned to any ancestor node included in the hierarchy, thus eliminating the hard assignment of documents in the hierarchy.
US07644098B2
The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for identifying advertisements responsive to one or more historical queries generated by a given user. The method of the present invention comprises annotating a profile for a user with information associated with one or more historical queries generated by the user. The profile associated with the user is retrieved, the profile indicating one or more historical queries previously generated by the user. One or more advertisements are identified as responsive to a selected historical query maintained in the profile of the user. The one or more advertisements previously displayed to the user in response to the selected historical query are identified. The one or more advertisements identified as not previously displayed to the user are thereafter displayed.
US07644095B2
Method, system, and article of manufacture for assembling a compound document according to a collection of domain-specific rules. For example, a content management system (CMS) may be configured to process the domain-specific compound document according to domain-specific schema and rules (e.g., an XML schema and DTD), while at the same time, maintaining the compound document in a generic form according to a generic schema for a compound document format used by the CMS.
US07644094B2
The present invention includes a system and a method for processing large data sets that are too large to conveniently fit into a formal database application. The large data set processing system and method use a prediction model having a feature selection capability to process a fraction of the large data set and define useful predictors. The useful features are used to make predictions for the entire data set. The large data set processing system includes a useful predictor module, for defining useful predictors, and a feature-selection prediction model, for processing a portion of the data set (including the useful predictors) to obtain prediction results.
US07644071B1
A computer implemented method searches for keywords within a document and displays a surrounding context. A keyword search term and a view area size for the document are received. A plurality of occurrences of the search term is identified within the document. A view area size surrounding each occurrences of the search term is identified to form a plurality of view area sizes. An edited view of the document is displayed. The edited view includes a sequence of the plurality of view area sizes, wherein each of the plurality of view area sizes are separated by one of a plurality of interactive virtual boundary lines, and each of the a plurality of interactive virtual boundary lines have an indicator to form a plurality of indicators.
US07644063B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for ensuring query execution plan stability in a database management system. The present invention binds a static database query to a new query execution plan (QEP) that produces the same result set as an original QEP bound to the static database query. Next, the present invention identifies one of the original QEP and the new QEP as a primary QEP and automatically collects execution statistics for the original QEP and the new QEP. Finally, the present invention automatically selects one of the original QEP and the new QEP as the primary QEP in response to completion of the automatic collection of execution statistics, the primary QEP selected such that the automatically selected QEP provides optimal execution performance based on performance criteria in comparison to the automatically unselected QEP, the primary QEP selected based on the execution statistics.
US07644061B1
A method, apparatus, and medium are provided for assigning indexes to a set of index-based resources. The method includes providing an index-based-resource manager (IBRM), requesting one or more indexes to be allocated to a desired number of resources, directing the request to the IBRM, identifying indexes available to be allocated, and allocating the identified indexes to be associated with the one or more resources. The present invention also contemplates transactional processing, enabling deallocation and querying of indexes.
US07644054B2
A system for finding and presenting content items in response to keystrokes entered by a user on an input device having a known layout of overloaded keys selected from a set of key layouts. The system includes (1) a database containing content items and terms characterizing the content items; (2) input logic for receiving keystrokes from the user and building a string corresponding to incremental entries by the user, each item in the string having the set of alphanumeric symbols associated with a corresponding keystroke; (3) mapping logic to map the string to the database to find the most likely content items corresponding to the incremental entries, the mapping logic operating in accordance with a defined error model corresponding to the known layout of overloaded keys; and (4) presentation logic for ordering the most likely content items identified by the mapping logic and for presenting the most likely content items.
US07644053B2
A system, method, and computer program product for combining causal domain models with reasoning and text processing for knowledge driven decision support are provided. A knowledge driven decision support system is capable of creating a domain model, extracting and processing quantities of text according to the domain model, and generating understanding of the content and implications of information sensitive to analysts. An interface may be used to receive input to model complex relationships of a domain, establish implications of interest or request a query, and update the causal model. A processing element can capture and process text into text profiles by incorporating the domain model and process the text profiles in accordance with the domain model by applying formal reasoning to the information to derive trends, predict events, or arrive at other query results. An output element can provide a user the resulting information related to the domain model.
US07644051B1
In a method for managing a data center, data for a training set of data is collected. The data includes heat loads generated by a plurality of electronic components and temperatures at multiple locations in the data center and under varying power profiles. A machine learning application is implemented to develop a model of a thermal topology of the data center using the training set of data and the model is implemented to predict heat profiles corresponding to a plurality of power profiles that are outside of the training set of data.
US07644044B2
The present embodiments provide methods, apparatuses, and systems to distribute content over a network. Some embodiments provide methods to distribute content within a local media network. These methods receive a request for a first content to be transferred to a sink device, request from the source an access criteria for a first content that is protected according to a first digital rights management (DRM), forward the access criteria to the sink device, receive an evaluation of the access criteria from the sink device regarding at least whether the sink device can interpret the first DRM, determine according to the evaluation received from the sink device whether the sink device can utilize the first content that is protected according to the first DRM, and initiate a transfer of the first content from the source device to the sink device when the sink device can utilize the first content.
US07644040B2
An automated banking machine (12) is operative to conduct transactions in response to HTML documents and TCP/IP messages exchanged with a local computer system (14) through an intranet (16), as well as in response to messages exchanged with foreign servers (20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 96) in a wide area network (18). The banking machine includes a computer (34) having an HTML document handling portion (76, 80, 82). The HTML document handling portion is operative to communicate through a proxy server (88), with a home HTTP server (90) in the intranet or the foreign servers in the wide area network. The computer further includes a device application portion (84) which interfaces with the HTML document handling portion and dispatches messages to operate devices (36) in the automated banking machine. The devices include a sheet dispenser mechanism (42) which dispenses currency as well as other transaction devices. The device application portion communicates with a device interfacing software portion (64) in the banking machine through a device server (92) in the intranet. The device server maintains local control over the devices in the banking machine including the sheet dispenser. The banking machine operates to read indicia on the user's card corresponding to a system address. The computer is operative to connect the banking machine to the home or foreign server corresponding to the system address, which connected server operates the banking machine until the completion of transactions by the user.
US07644036B2
A payment service provider receives a request to pay a payee on behalf of a payor and determines, responsive to the received request, that the payee will not accept the requested payment via a charge to a credit card account of the payor with a credit card issuer. The payor wishes to fund the requested payment from the credit card account. Accordingly, the payment service provider transmits, to the credit card issuer, account information identifying the credit card account and payment information representing the requested payment for inclusion in a credit card statement of the credit card issuer to the payor for the credit card account. However, the payment service provider directs the requested payment to the payee on behalf of the payor from a payment account other than the credit card account.
US07644026B2
A method for ranking a plurality of systems based on their susceptibility to a selected risk that is determined from a plurality of risk indicators, is described herein. The method includes obtaining benchmark values for at least one benchmark system with a predetermined level of the predetermined risk; obtaining measured risk indicator values of the predetermined plurality of risk indicators in each of the plurality of systems, the predetermined plurality of risk indicators are the same in all of the plurality of systems; comparing the measured risk indicator values of each of the plurality of systems with the benchmark values of the at least one benchmark system; and ranking the plurality of systems based on the comparing to indicate the susceptibility of each of the plurality of systems to the predetermined risk.
US07644023B2
A system for updating parameters of financial transactions associated with financial services initiated and completed on behalf of or directly by a user through access to a data-packet-network into more than one electronic interface accessible to the user is provided. The system comprises, a main electronic interface supported by back-end software, the main interface for registering all user accounts into at least one portfolio group, the accounts accessible in detail through the main interface, at least one cobranded electronic interface supported by back-end software, the cobranded interface mirroring the accounts registered in the main electronic interface and a plurality of institution-specific electronic interfaces for providing direct account registration, reporting, and maintenance specific to accounts provided by the associated institutions. Through direct linking between the main, cobranded, and institution-specific interfaces, any parameters associated with any action initiated to a specific account through any of the interfaces is immediately propagated to the other interfaces.
US07644020B2
The invention relates to both a method and a computer system that are designed to provide a bid positioning system using a computerized bid proxy. The bid proxy takes instructions from the bidder and then bids based upon these instructions. Using a bid positioning system allows this bidder to place its bids in relation to a lead bid placed by another bidder in an auction based upon either a nominal or percentage distance from the lead bid. In a preferred embodiment, this computerized bid proxy is used in a shipment management system. This system allows a shipper to present at least one shipping requirement for a particular shipment to a centralized server. These shipping requirements could include the origin and destination of a shipment, the time or delivery date of a shipment, the number of articles being shipped, and the weight or volume of the shipment. The server next sends the at least one shipping requirement to a plurality of carriers some of whom are chosen by the shipper and some of whom are chosen by the system. These carriers next bid based upon the at least one shipping requirement. This system and method also allows these carriers to re-quote their bids based upon the bids presented by the other carriers. Once all of the bid deadline has been reached, the shipper picks the quote that best suits the shipper.
US07644014B2
In an electronic procurement system having a portal server, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) content integration and transformation method and system. The XML content integration and transformation system includes logic for retrieving an “Open Buying on the Internet (OBI)” compliant XML file from a database which is then formatted in response to an electronic purchasing request over the Internet. In one embodiment of the present invention, the client aware XML content transformation system receives an OBI XML file and uses this information to automatically search for data objects related to the OBI XML file content from a database on the Internet and translates the content into a format suitable for internal processing by the XML content integration and transformation logic and delivers it to the purchasing requisitioner over the Internet.
US07644013B2
The present invention includes a method and system to facilitate managing of local and remote resources. The invention facilitates access to a resource engine, for the automatic grading, tracking, scoring, and assigning of resources based on the resource's skills and skill sets. The invention also facilitates the automatic grading, tracking, scoring, and assigning of tasks and/or applications based on the skills and skill sets needed to perform the tasks and/or applications. The invention uses one or more engines to combine relationships for resources, tasks, skills and time entry to determine expected completion times and efficiencies. The engine may include grading and scoring a resource's skills sets, dividing applications into various tasks, determining the desired resource skills sets to complete the tasks, and matching a resource's skills sets with the desired skills sets for the tasks.
US07644012B2
It is desirable to provide systems that select prospective consumer contact points producing high advertising effects and that carry out navigation for distribution of a budget among the contact points, taking into account every opportunity to introduce brand information to prospective consumers.The present invention provides methods and systems that accomplish the above objectives by determining purchase processes that correspond to article types, setting phases appropriate to the purchase processes, determining time slots suitable for contacting targets for each phase, and selecting ContactPoints that produce a high advertising effect, for each phase, on the basis of ContactPoint power for each phase calculated on the basis of a ContactPoint potential index, a ContactPoint-wise contact rate index, a ContactPoint/mood affinity index, and the like.
US07644005B1
The invention concerns a probabilistic method and automatic control (3) for preventing and regulating an interruption of a multistage and multilink industrial production glow, to optimise said production flow while controlling industrial impact resulting from random chained stress, and applications to factory noise and value at risk of a clearing house. The invention consists in regulating production by means of a probabilistic automatic control (3) with action loop (5) and feedback loop (6). Industrially speaking, said regulating automatic control (3) can be electronically produced by means of a programmed and cabled computer. The action loop (5) of the automatism (3) consists of an inductive probabilistic simulator (11) evaluating the chaining of random stresses in the production chain leading to a probabilistic measurement of the industrial impact I(r) resulting, on the basis of the adjustable level of an industrial stock parameter (r). The method used in the action loop (5) of the automatic control (3), is of the type called “Value at Risk” or “VaR”. The feedback loop (6) of the automatic control (3) adjusts in course of time (t) the industrial action parameter (r) to an extremal value, maintaining said estimator of VaR effect (p,T(r)) below its authorised nuisance level M. This is aimed at making the industrial production level F(r) extremal but nevertheless at a level compatible with the respect of regulatory or stock out conditions. The method and device of the invention can be advantageously used in numerous industries whether manufacturing, financial, agricultural where risks of pollution and other risks resulting from random chained stress need to be controlled.
US07644002B2
An encoder uses multi-pass VBR control strategies to provide constant or relatively constant quality for VBR output while guaranteeing (within tolerance) either compressed file size or, equivalently, overall average bitrate. The control strategies include various techniques and tools, which can be used in combination or independently. For example, in a first pass, an audio encoder encodes a sequence of audio data partitioned into variable-size chunks. In a second pass, the encoder encodes the sequence according to control parameters to produce output of relatively constant quality. The encoder sets checkpoints in the second pass to adjust the control parameters and/or subsequent checkpoints. The encoder selectively considers a peak bitrate constraint to limit peak bitrate. The encoder stores auxiliary information from the first pass for use in the second pass, which increases the speed of the second pass. Finally, the encoder compares signatures for the input data to check consistency between passes.
US07644001B2
Coding an audio signal wherein values of first parameters, which represent aspects of the audio signal at a first instant are calculated to obtain first calculated values and values of second parameters, which represent the aspects of the audio signal at a second, later, instant, are calculated to obtain second calculated values, wherein the number of the first parameters and the number of the second parameters differ. The values of the subset of the second parameters are coded based on a difference of this subset and a subset of the first calculated value associated with substantially a same particular portion of the frequency range. Thus the differentially coded values of the second parameters are obtained by coding the difference of the values of second parameters and first parameters which are associated with substantially the same frequency sub-range.
US07643997B2
The present invention relates to a handheld analysis instrument for assaying a medically significant sample. The instrument comprises a measuring device for measuring the concentration of an analyte in the sample, an output device for outputting measurement results. The output device has both an acoustic signal output device for outputting the measurement results through nonverbal acoustic signals and also a wireless interface for communicating with an external speech output unit.
US07643996B1
An Enhanced analysis-by-synthesis Waveform Interpolative speech coder able to operate at 4 kbps. Novel features include analysis-by-synthesis quantization of the slowly evolving waveform, analysis-by-synthesis vector quantization of the dispersion phase, a special pitch search for transitions, and switched-predictive analysis-by-synthesis gain vector quantization. Subjective quality tests indicate that it exceeds MPEG-4 at 4 kbps and of G.723.1 at 6.3 kbps.
US07643992B2
This invention relates to a method of automatic recognition for limited speech and its correlative system and device. The main technical content is: Establish the relationship between the voice file and the identification information for a limited range of speech, and then insert the identification information into the voice file, or replace the content of the voice file with the identification information. After the transmitter sends the modified voice file, the receiver receives the modified voice and distinguishes the identification information in the voice. It then extracts the corresponding speech in the predetermined relationship using this identification information. The benefits of the embodiment of this invention include: a lower-cost method for automatically recognizing limited speech; high efficiency speech recognition, no need to wait for the voice file to finish to complete speech recognition; and lastly, a high recognition hit-rate or accuracy rate.
US07643990B1
Portions from time-domain speech segments are extracted. Feature vectors that represent the portions in a vector space are created. The feature vectors incorporate phase information of the portions. A distance between the feature vectors in the vector space is determined. In one aspect, the feature vectors are created by constructing a matrix W from the portions and decomposing the matrix W. In one aspect, decomposing the matrix W comprises extracting global boundary-centric features from the portions. In one aspect, the portions include at least one pitch period. In another aspect, the portions include centered pitch periods.
US07643986B2
A translation device for translating a document has an image analysis unit and a translation unit. The image analysis unit determines a word and an abbreviation of the word. The translation unit translates the word and generates a new abbreviation based on the translated word.
US07643985B2
Architecture that interacts with a user, or users of different tongues to enhance speech translation. A recognized concept or situation is sensed and/or converged upon, and disambiguated with mixed-initiative user interaction with a device to provide simplified inferences about user communication goals in working with others who speak another language. Reasoning is applied about communication goals based on the concept or situation at the current focus of attention or the probability distribution over the likely focus of attention, and the user or user's conversational partner is provided with appropriately triaged choices and, images, text and/or speech translations for review or perception. The inferences can also process an utterance or other input from a user as part of the evidence in reasoning about a concept, situation, goals, and/or disambiguating the latter. The system's best understanding of the question, need, or intention at the crux of the communication can be echoed back to the user for confirmation. Context-sensitive focusing of recognition and information gathering components can be provided based on the listening, and can employ words recognized from prior or current user utterances to further focus the inference.
US07643983B2
A technique for emulation of a data storage system. The invention allows the level of services to be provided by a data storage system to be specified in terms of the level of services provided by another storage system. In one aspect, a performance characterization of a data storage device to be emulated is obtained (e.g., by experimental techniques). A specification of a workload is also obtained that includes a specification of a plurality of data stores for the workload. The data stores are assigned to an emulation data storage device according to the performance characterization and according to the specification of the workload such that sufficient resources of the emulation data storage device are allocated to the workload to meet the performance characterization of the data storage device to be emulated. The emulation data storage device is then operated under the workload. Quality-of-service (QoS) control may be performed so as to provide a degree of performance isolation among the workloads.
US07643980B2
An electromagnetic field analysis apparatus includes an information input device configured to input information as to wirings and components of an analysis object and a modeling device configured to generate a simulation model of the analysis object based on the inputted information as to wirings and components of the analysis object. A model simplification device simplifies the simulation model into a simplified simulation model by dividing the analysis object according to the simulation model into a plurality of cells and thinning out, when a plurality of elements are included in a cell, the plurality of elements.
US07643974B2
One embodiment of the invention provides a method for optimizing a variety of aspects of pipeline operations by using a genetic algorithm. Generally, the genetic algorithm is used to evolve a population of feasible solutions over successive generations until a termination condition is satisfied. Each solution specifies a feasible operational state of the pipeline system. Over successive generations existing solutions are modified, and an identified solution in the population is removed at each successive generation. Over repeated generations, the solutions in the population improve. Once an optimized production solution is generated, an optimized pressure solution may be generated using a direct pressure optimization process.
US07643969B2
A method for providing decision support includes using a programmed computer to input a regression model specification, and to repeat the input a plurality of times to obtain and store a plurality of regression model specifications. The method further includes using the programmed computer to analyze selected regression model specifications to determine at least one of common variables and functions of common variables, to thereby determine a reduced-redundancy request for input of variables, when a plurality of the stored regression model specifications are selected for use.
US07643958B2
An automated system for validating Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus adapters or PCI-X bus adapters has a computer, motherboard, a PCI-X bus and isolated test slot for operatively coupling a PCI/PCI adapter under test through the PCI-X bus to the motherboard. The isolated test slot is adapted and arranged to minimize degradation of data flow on the PCI-X bus such that a PCI-X adapter, mounted in the isolated test slot, can negotiate a required operating rate greater than PCI operating rates. It can be configured as a low profile slot in a low profile computer system, such as a 2U low profile system. A method for validating the PCI/PCI-X bus adapters includes operatively coupling the bus adapter under test to the motherboard, negotiating to the required operating rate and testing the functionality of the adapter. The operating rate of the bus adapter can be verified to ensure the PCI/PCI-X bus adapters are tested at required PCI/PC-X rates.
US07643956B2
A method and apparatus for monitoring and adjusting an analog signal of an operating circuit. The apparatus includes a control circuit, an analog-to-digital converter, and a comparator. The control circuit has an analog generator for generating the analog signal and an adjusting circuit for adjusting the strength of the analog signal. The analog-to-digital converter receives the analog signal and converts the analog signal to a digital signal. The comparator then compares the value of the digital signal to a predetermined value and generates a comparator signal. The adjusting circuit then receives the comparator signal and adjusts the strength of the analog signal based upon the value of the comparator signal. The method includes generating the analog signal, converting the analog signal to a digital signal, comparing the value of the digital signal to a predetermined value and adjusting the strength of the analog signal.
US07643950B1
A system and method is disclosed for minimizing power consumption of a sensor unit that is capable of detecting an object. Main circuitry operates the sensor unit in a high power mode of operation when the sensor unit detects an object. Low power control circuitry operates the sensor unit in a low power mode of operation when the sensor unit does not detect an object within a pre-determined period of time. The low power control circuitry also comprises a counter to periodically determine when to restore the sensor unit to a high power mode of operation. One advantageous embodiment of the sensor unit is a fingerprint sensor unit for detecting a finger to obtain fingerprint information.
US07643945B2
A method of enhancing acoustic pump data for monitoring of pump condition in operation. The enhancement may be in the form of a substantial reduction in the amount of data to be processed by firmware to a much more manageable level. This may be achieved through pre-filtering of acquired acoustic data, computing frequency momentum, and by application of a median filter to the acoustic data. Regardless, a thresholding technique that uses features vector including but not limited to double-threshold derived from statistics of enhanced amplitudes, may be employed whereby enhanced acoustic data is boiled down to a series of potential acoustic events of particular widths. These widths may represent a duration of each acoustic event and be checked for correlation with the speed of the operating speed of the pump. Acoustic events that correlate with an operating speed of the pump may represent an unhealthy condition of the pump such as where the width is about the duration of one half of a cycle of the pump and a leaky pump valve presents itself for this same period of time.
US07643943B2
Methods, systems and equipment useful for monitoring in vivo activities of CCI-779 or other drugs. Numerous drug activity genes can be identified by the present invention. The expression profiles of these genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells are modulatable by CCI-779 or other drugs. Therefore, these genes can be used as surrogate markers for detecting or monitoring drug activities in vivo.
US07643942B2
Method for conducting an efficient and interpretable controlled-source electromagnetic reconnaissance survey for buried hydrocarbons. While a part of the survey area is being set up for measurement and data are being acquired, data from a nearby part of the survey area, surveyed just previously, are being rapidly processed and analyzed (110). If the analysis shows resistive anomalies of interest in a portion of a survey area, a fine-grid survey is quickly designed for that portion, and that survey is conducted next before moving source and receivers to a more distant part of the survey area.
US07643939B2
A navigation system for a vehicle is described that includes an inertial measurement unit, a positioning unit, and a processing unit. The inertial measurement unit configured to provide a first set of data relating to operation of the vehicle and the positioning unit is configured to provide a second set of data relating to operation of the vehicle. The processing unit is configured to receive the data sets provided by the inertial measurement unit and the positioning unit and the processing unit comprises an error processing device. The error processing device is programmed with time updating error states and measurement updating error states relating to the data sets received by said processing unit and is configured to iterate both the time updating error states and the measurement updating error states based on a first criteria and iterate only the measurement updating error states based on a second criteria.
US07643938B2
A hydraulic excavator periodically measures its current location at predetermined time intervals by the GPS device in an inoperative state where its engine key is in the off position and sends the current location data and time data to a management server by a main controller and communicator. The management server receives the periodically sent location data at its communicator and successively stores it in its memory. The current location data and the measurement time data to provide a location confirmation service by a location information provider. Changes in location can be confirmed on a map, the movement of the hydraulic excavator can be tracked, and assistance can be given for confirmation of location and prevention of theft.
US07643934B2
A method and a control system for positioning a mine vehicle. Measurement of a distance travelled by the mine vehicle is based on monitoring rotation of a wheel. In the invention, an error caused in the distance measurement by wear of the wheel is compensated for automatically when the distance value obtained from monitoring is corrected by a correction factor. The value of the correction factor is updated at predetermined intervals during use.
US07643933B2
An overturn prevention control device includes a bicycle robot capable of freely laterally inclining, an angular velocity sensor mounted on the bicycle robot such that a detection axis thereof extends in a substantially longitudinal direction of the bicycle robot, a motor mounted on the body such that a rotating shaft thereof extends in a substantially longitudinal direction of the body, a rotation sensor that detects a rotational position or a rotational speed of the motor, and an inertial rotor coupled to the rotating shaft of the motor. The overturn prevention control device corrects inclination of the bicycle robot by rotating the inertial rotor using the motor and by utilizing a reaction torque occurring when the inertial rotor is rotated. The overturn prevention control device further includes an inclination angle estimating portion arranged to estimate an inclination angle relative to a balanced state.
US07643928B2
A system and method for controlling the speed of a turbine engine, the turbine engine being operative to provide power to a primary load. When a decrease in the power requirement of the primary load is detected, at least a portion of the power generated by the turbine engine is redirected to a secondary load, thereby maintaining the speed of the turbine engine below a rated maximum speed. In the example of a turbine-powered train in which the turbine engine provides power to electric traction motors driving the wheels of the train, when a wheel spin is detected, at least a portion of the power generated by the turbine engine is diverted from the respective electric traction motor to rheostats for conversion to heat.
US07643925B2
A method for determining when in the course of a shift event an on-coming clutch gains torque capacity is provided. The method includes closed-loop controlling an off-going clutch to maintain a predetermined slip threshold by generating an off-going clutch pressure command, causing the on-coming clutch to engage during the closed loop control of the off-going clutch, generating a first derivative with respect to time of the off-going clutch pressure command, and using the first derivative to determine when the on-coming clutch gained torque capacity. A neural network method is preferably employed in analyzing the first derivative to locate a transition in the rate of commanded pressure indicative of off-going clutch release. A corresponding apparatus is also provided.
US07643922B2
A turning behavior control device for vehicle has a left and right wheel driving force adjustment mechanism for adjusting a difference in driving force between right and left, a braking force adjustment mechanism for adjusting a difference in braking force between the wheels, an auxiliary steering mechanism for adjusting a steering angle of the wheels, a vehicle velocity sensor, a steering wheel sensor, and a yaw rate sensor for detecting the behavior of a vehicle, and a control unit for controlling the foregoing mechanisms based on the vehicle velocity, the steering angle, and the yaw rate detected by the sensors. The control unit operates the front wheel auxiliary steering mechanism before operating at least one of the left and right wheel driving force adjustment mechanism and the braking force adjustment mechanism.
US07643920B2
A seat-belt pretensioner arrangement comprises a pretensioner (7) and a control system (3-6) to control the tension applied to a seat-belt by the pretensioner (7). The control system (3-6) controls the pretensioner (7) in response to at least the rate of change of steering angle (δ′). A first processor (4) provides an output indicating a desired level of force to be applied to the seat-belt determined from the steering angle and the velocity of the vehicle. A second processor (5) provides a corresponding output indicative of a desired force level, determined from the rate of change of steering angle (δ′) and the velocity of the vehicle (vx). A selector (6) selects the highest of the two force levels, and provides an appropriate signal to the pretensioner (7).
US07643919B2
A crash sensor arrangement for a motor vehicle is disclosed. The crash sensor arrangement includes a first set of sensors (3,4) comprising a respective sensor on each side of the vehicle. Each sensor (3,4) is an accelerometer and has a predetermined sensing axis (5,7). Each sensor (3,4) is mounted on the vehicle (1) close to the outer skin of the vehicle and at a first longitudinal position such that the sensing axis (5,7) of each sensor (3,4) makes a predetermined angle to the longitudinal axis (6) of the vehicle (1). The predetermined angle is between 30° and 60°, or between −30° and −60°. The sensing axes (5,6) are mirror symmetrical to each other relative to the longitudinal axis (6) of the vehicle (1), so that at said first longitudinal position, there are said two respective sensors (3,4), the sensing axes of the two sensor extending in different directions.
US07643918B2
There is disclosed an apparatus for controlling a vehicle equipment device. The apparatus permits a reduction in the cost of manufacturing a vehicle in which the apparatus is installed. The apparatus also enables easy and precise switching between normal mode and delivery mode. The apparatus has a delivery decision unit and control change unit. The decision unit makes a decision as to whether the vehicle is in the delivery mode. If the decision unit determines that the vehicle is in the delivery mode, the control change unit changes the controlled contents of the vehicle equipment device from normal mode to delivery mode. The decision unit makes the aforementioned decision according to whether a backup power supply is applied to a clock device.
US07643917B2
A vehicle multimedia system includes a display that displays a hierarchically structured menu. The hierarchically structured menu may have a main menu, a plurality of submenus, and menu items. The multimedia system provides a memory for storing information identifying a menu or menu item, and a memory control unit for writing information related to a menu item upon a user's selection of the menu by an operating element or by automatic return to a main menu, and displaying the information as selectable menu items identified by the information.
US07643898B2
A decision is made as to whether a fabric to be knitted is tubular or flat, and density is corrected such that knitting-start density is smaller and knitting-end density is larger for a tubular fabric. Knitting-start density is larger and knitting-end density is smaller for a flat fabric. A variable density section is provided between the end part and the central part of the fabric thus correcting the density gradually. Stitches at the end part of the fabric are prevented from becoming uneven as compared with the stitches in the central part without requiring additional hardware.
US07643892B2
A simulation that integrates historical data and real-time data as a test or simulation tool can capture an entry that relates to a desired output as function points. A determination can intellectually be made as to which activities can achieve the desired output. The activities can be process steps that can represent a workflow that can be automatically implemented by an MES Appliance or other enterprise components. If a simulation reveals that the desired output might not be achieved, a change to one or more function points can be analyzed in an attempt to achieve the desired result. This change can be input into a simulation tool through a feedback loop, for example. Another simulation can performed on the modified data until a determination is made that the desired output can be achieved.
US07643888B2
A control apparatus which generates control information on the basis of control target information from a control target, controls the control target by using the generated control information, and transmits the control information to an off-system control apparatus, includes a single common memory which stores both the control target information from the control target, and the transmitted control information.
US07643884B2
A surgical needle assembly for penetrating soft and hard tissues of a patient includes a handle assembly removably coupled to the needle assembly. The needle assembly is electrically coupled to an electrical signal source. The surgical tool includes an electrically conductive portion in communication with an un-insulated distal end of the needle assembly, and an insulated portion extending from the distal end to the handle assembly.
US07643878B1
Techniques are provided for estimating optimal atrioventricular pacing delay values for use in pacing the ventricles based on features of an intracardiac electrogram (IEGM) signal. Briefly, atrioventricular pacing delay pacing values are set based upon the location of atrial repolarization events within the IEGM. In one example, the end of an atrial repolarization is identified, then the interval from the atrial depolarization to the end of the atrial repolarization is measured. The atrioventricular pacing delay is then set by subtracting an offset value from that interval so as to time delivery of V-pulses prior the end of atrial repolarization. In this manner, atrioventricular pacing delay values are set based only IEGM signals and hence can be set to optimal/preferred values by the device itself without requiring surface electrocardiogram (EKG) signals and Doppler echocardiography or other cardiac performance monitoring techniques.
US07643873B2
Exercise data apparatus for use on the body of a user during exercise, includes an electrocardiogram detector for detecting electrocardiogram data of the user during exercise; an attachment device for attaching the electrocardiogram detector onto the chest of the user; a motion detector for detecting body motion data indicative of steps of the user during exercise; a processor for calculating exercise data based on the electrocardiogram data detected by the electrocardiogram detector and the body motion data detected by the motion detector, the exercise data including at least one of heart rate, speed and distance, and calorie consumption of the user; and an output device for informing the user of the exercise data calculated.
US07643866B2
A method is disclosed for producing a computed tomography display of tissue structures by applying a contrast medium. A contrast medium is applied to a patient for better visualization of the tissue structure to be examined. An X-ray scan is performed during the presence of the one contrast medium, and computed tomography 2- or 3-dimensional pictures are subsequently reconstructed from the X-ray scan data obtained. In the method, absorption data are measured for at least two different energy spectra, a computed tomography intermediate image is reconstructed per energy spectrum, and the distribution of the one contrast medium in the tissue is determined from the different energy-specific absorption behavior between tissue and contrast medium.
US07643862B2
A method of performing a surgery is provided including a surgical navigation system having a tracking system, computer and monitor placed outside of a sterile field. An input pad and a tracking array attachable to a surgical instrument or bone are placed into the sterile field along with a probe having a probe array. The tracking array and the probe array are acquired by the tracking system and a virtual mouse is activated by positioning the probe relative to the input pad, thereby causing a mouse input to the computer with the virtual mouse.
US07643860B2
A portable instrument for measuring a physiological quantity arranged to contact with the surface of organic tissue includes, essentially arranged in the same plane: an illumination device including at least one light source with an illumination surface for subjecting a portion of organic tissue to light emission in at least one wavelength range; and a detection device distant from the illumination device for detecting intensity of light emission produced by the illumination device after propagation in the organic tissue. The illumination device includes an optical element forming a guide coupled to the at least one light source for guiding light emission from the source by total internal reflection in a substantially parallel direction to the surface of the organic tissue and for distributing light emission into several illumination zones on the surface of the organic tissue over a substantially broader area than the illumination surface of the light source.
US07643856B2
A mobile communication device (100) uses a local wireless transceiver (108) to establish an asynchronous link (202) with a remote audio processor (110) which is typically operated in a low power mode and that maintains an association between the mobile communication device and remote audio processor. When the mobile communication device receives an incoming call page (210), the mobile communication device initiates a synchronous link with the remote audio processor, and responds to the incoming call page at a time when the call will be connected only after the synchronous link is established.
US07643845B2
A transmission power control device is provided that includes: a transmission loss calculator that calculates a transmission loss in the electric wave transmission path between a mobile station and each base station; and a transmission power control information determiner that determines which transmission power control information is to be used in a transmission power control operation at the mobile station, based on transmission power control information transmitted from each base station to the mobile station and the transmission loss in the transmission path between the mobile station and each base station calculated by the transmission loss calculator. This transmission power control device may further include an autonomous controller that increases transmission power from a current value in accordance with predetermined characteristics, regardless of transmission power control information from another communication device, when reception signal quality has become lower than a predetermined quality level. With this structure, after synchronization with a signal from the base station is established at the mobile station, the transmission power is controlled to increase from the initial value in accordance with the predetermined characteristics, regardless of the transmission power control information transmitted from the base station.
US07643844B2
A method of managing radio resources and a Node B implementing the same are provided. If the total radio resources used in a cell exceed target radio resources signaled by an RNC, uplink rates are equally allocated to primary UEs and non-primary UEs by controlling the signal strengths of the primary and non-primary UEs.
US07643841B2
A method of operating a network node that controls a component of a wireless communications network is described. The network component has a receiver with at least one receiver structure that can assume two or more states, including a first state corresponding to an enhanced receiver performance and a second state corresponding to a reduced receiver performance and a reduced power consumption. The method comprises determining a network condition and, in dependence of the network condition, generating a performance control signal that aims at controlling the state of the receiver structure, and transmitting the performance control signal to the network component. The invention is further directed the performance control signal generated by the network node and the network component which the network node intends to control.
US07643838B2
An integrity protection count synchronization method (200) initiates (210) a new connection when a user equipment (UE) is already in connected mode with a network. If new security keys are pending, the UE sends (250) a START value of zero in an initial direct transfer message. If no new security keys are pending, the UE sends (240) a non-zero START value based on a Universal Subscriber Interface Module (USIM). Sending a START value of zero when new security keys are pending at the UE forces the network's COUNT-I integrity count value to match the zero COUNT-I value at the UE, which prevents call set-up failure due to inability to pass an integrity protection security check.
US07643831B2
In a mobile telephone system, a call routing equipment such as an SMS Router (18) receives a routing information request signal (SRI_SM) indicative of a communication such as a text message intended for a mobile terminal (10), and returns a routing information response signal (False Response) indicative of the SMS Router (18) instead of being indicative of the intended mobile terminal (10). This allows processing (Copy sent via TCP/IP) of the resulting text message (MTForwardSM) by the SMS Router (18), such as archiving of the text message, sending the text message to an email address, and/or forwarding the text message to an alternative destination.
US07643828B2
A method and apparatus for a communication system provide for fast link setup for a mobile station by transmitting a request message, transmitting an assignment message from the base station to the mobile station, and transmitting a notification message from the base station to a base station controller. The mobile station transmits an indication message to the base station controller indicating a successful completion of acquiring the data packet channel. The base station controller processes the indication message for message integrity and security feature. A portion of the available communication resources at the base station is allocated for an immediate response to the request message for acquiring a data packet channel.
US07643826B2
A mobile care engine system is provided for delivering customer care to mobile devices, comprising. The mobile care engine system compares profile data from a mobile device with reference data and highlights any inconsistencies between the data, so that the device can be optimized. The inconsistencies are preferably determined using rule-based processing, and are automatically highlighted on the device display itself, or on a display of a customer service representative interface. Optionally, the system allows for corrective patches or settings to be sent to the device.
US07643821B2
A method and device for providing brochures to interested parties using cellular communication devices such as cellular telephones, cellular enabled digital devices and the like. An access number which may be contacted by a cellular communication device is provided in an advertisement of an item, the access number being a short code, telephone number or the like. An active seeker device continuously receives messages sent to the access number, then a database of information is consulted and an informational message sent to the caller. The informational message may be an SMS text message, a photograph of the item, an opt-in message to receive further information, and combinations thereof. Items may include any object or estate commonly advertised for sale or lease, such as real estate, vehicles, consumer products and the like.
US07643813B2
A diversity switch combiner for use in systems for receiving multi-carrier wideband signals is arranged to determine, during a guard interval, which antenna provides the strongest carrier, for each of a plurality of carrier frequencies. A switch is then operated to select, for the subsequent symbol, that antenna which provides the greatest number of strongest carriers.
US07643812B2
A single-path enhanced-algorithm digital automatic gain control (SDAGC) integrated receiver is presented. The SDAGC has a front-end RF/IF reception/processing block and associated RF/IF AGC, which outputs to a single ADC. Output from the ADC is split into two TDM and one COFDM signal pathways, each with a respective DAGC. The TDM DAGCs are controlled according to TDM post-power signals, while the COFDM, DAGC is controlled according to COFDM post- and pre-power signals. An IF Gain Decision block determines the RF/IF gain based upon the respective gains of the TDM and COFDM DAGCs. A Gain Distributor block then distributes the total gain of the system across the RF/IF AGC and the various DAGCs. To save power, the COFDM pathways may be disabled if the COFDM pre-power signal falls below a threshold value.
US07643808B2
A first and a second signal (base band and local oscillator), respectively modulated to a first and a second frequency, are mixed to deliver an output signal at a frequency obtained by combining the first and second frequencies. The mixing is accomplished through a variable resistance stage controlled by the second signal and connected between a first and a second potential to deliver the mixed output signal. A control stage is configured to drive the resistance variation of the variable resistance stage according to the first signal.
US07643806B2
A network search method for a mobile communication terminal is disclosed. In one example embodiment, a mobile communication terminal employing a Digitally Controlled Crystal Oscillator (DCXO) performs a network search method including the act of searching for a frequency using a value stored in an Automatic Frequency Control (AFC) mode.
US07643804B2
A transmitter includes a detection element to determine when a current power requirement of a communication link is less than the standard transmit power. The current power requirement may be determined by a current operation condition of the communication link, for instance. The transmit power of the transmitter may be set to be less than the standard power in any of a variety of ways. For example, a center tap voltage of the transmitter may be reduced. In another example, a class of operation of the transmitter may be changed. In yet another example, the transmitter may include a current mirror having a plurality of diode-connected transistors coupled in parallel, thereby reducing the current at output terminals of the transmitter. Reducing the current at the output terminals decreases the output power of the transmitter, which may reduce the power consumed by the transmitter.
US07643795B2
The invention relates to a remotely controllable vibrator, which comprises a receiver interface, a microcontroller connected with the receiver interface and a resonator device controlled by the microcontroller. The receiver interface is a Bluetooth interface which is provided for a bidirectional wire-free signal transmission between the vibrator and an external Bluetooth apparatus. The vibrator is remotely controllable and remotely programmable by way of its Bluetooth interface. In addition, the invention relates to a device for remote control of a vibrator, comprising a vibrator, which is provided with a Bluetooth interface, and a second Bluetooth apparatus, wherein the second Bluetooth apparatus is provided for generating remote control signals and/or remote programming signals for the vibrator.
US07643777B2
A toner cartridge can be attached to and detached from an apparatus main body. The toner cartridge includes an outer housing having a substantially rectangular upper cross section and a substantially semi-circular lower cross section, and an inner housing that is disposed inside of a lower portion of the outer housing and that has a cylindrical shape with an opening formed at its side surface, the inner housing being rotatably supported in the lower portion of the outer housing, and at the opening a bridging portion being formed along a longitudinal direction of the inner housing.
US07643775B2
In a method for control of circulation speed of an endless belt arranged in a printer or copier, the endless belt is directed over at least two rollers where the belt is driven with a preset first circulation speed via at least one of the rollers as a driven roller. Various load states act on the endless belt in successive operating phases during a printing or copying process, and via said various load states the belt being braked with different strengths so that a slippage is generated at least between the belt and the driven roller. A braking force acting directly on the endless belt is generated. Braking force is controlled such that a substantially constant slippage is generated between the driven roller and the belt based on the operating phases so that the endless belt is braked to a second circulation speed.
US07643765B2
An image forming apparatus charges the surface of a photosensitive member to a predetermined potential. A current detector detects a charging current when the charging bias is applied. A storage stores a target charging current value when the photosensitive member is charged to a required potential. A usage acquiring portion acquires information relating to usage of the charging roller. A bias corrector performs first and second corrections. The first correction compares a charging current value with a stored target charging current value and determines a new charging bias based on the comparison. The second correction determines whether usage of the charging roller is a predetermined first amount or a greater amount based on acquired usage information, and when the usage is the greater amount, changes the target charging current value in accordance with the usage amount and obtains a new charging bias based on the changed target charging current value.
US07643764B2
A method of monitoring one or more patches in an image-processing device comprised of photoreceptor, a controller, and a sensor, includes obtaining specular readings and diffuse readings from the one or more patches and computing values received from the readings. In addition, the one or more patches are from about 0.1 mm to equal or less than the field of view of the sensor where each patch size, location, and approximate value is known; and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) is automatically conducted from the known size, location, and approximate value of each patch.
US07643738B2
An imaging device, such as a digital camera, has a mechanism for compensating an image blur caused by hand jiggling and is capable of consecutively shooting, through one operation of a shutter operation section (36), frames of an image in a state where the mechanism (20) is operational and in a state where the mechanism is not operational.
US07643735B1
A deer scent spreading apparatus includes an inner container positioned in an outer container. A peripheral wall of the inner container is spaced from a peripheral wall of the outer container. A cover is removably attached to the outer container and covers an opening defined by an upper edge of the outer container. A fluid is positioned between the outer and inner containers. A liquid scent configured to attract deer is positioned within the inner container. The fluid is heated to heat the liquid scent. A wicking member is attached to a bottom side of the cover and is positioned to be extended into the inner container. A tether is attached to the cover and extends upwardly away from a top side of the cover. The wicking member is at least partially removed from the inner container to disperse by evaporation the liquid scent absorbed therein.
US07643732B2
At least one text subtitle stream is recorded on a recording medium. Each text subtitle stream includes a dialog style segment defining a set of region styles and at least one dialog presentation segment. Each dialog presentation segment contains at least one region of dialog text and being linked to at least one of the set of region styles. The dialog style segment further defines a set of user control styles for each region style. Each user control style is selectable by a user and is configured to change at least one of region presentation properties specified by a corresponding region style.
US07643729B2
A recording medium having recorded thereon, a plurality of picture information sets, presentation time values each of which is associated with the corresponding one of the picture information sets, picture information record marks each of which is associated with the corresponding one of said presentation time values, clip information specifying what position on the recording medium is associated with each of said presentation time values, and reproducing order specifying information specifying in what order the picture information sets are to be reproduced.
US07643712B2
The invention relates to an optical device which can increase the spread of a beam diameter in the depthwise direction by a simple configuration in comparison with that by prior art devices. The optical device includes a substrate, an optical path formed on the substrate, and a diffraction propagation region, provided between the optical path and an end face of the substrate, for propagating light emitted from the optical path with diffraction. The diffraction propagation region includes a first groove, formed therein, adapted to block part of components of the propagated light in a depthwise direction of the substrate.
US07643710B1
A method and apparatus for efficient coupling between a silicon photonic chip and an optical fiber is described. In one embodiment, an apparatus according to embodiments of the present invention includes: a first optical waveguide having a first end to optically couple to a first external device and a second end, the second end having a taper with a tip at the second end, a second optical waveguide optically coupled to the taper of the first optical waveguide, having a taper with a tip at a second end, and a third optical waveguide optically coupled to the taper of the second optical waveguide, the third optical waveguide to optically couple to a second external device having a larger cross-sectional area than the first external device.
US07643707B2
Provided is a lighting apparatus capable of uniformly and efficiently lighting a spatial light modulator. The lighting apparatus includes: a light source for outputting laser light; a multimode optical fiber in which the laser light outputted from the light source propagates through an internal core whose lateral cross section is a substantially polygonal outer diameter shape; and spatial light modulator for producing an image with illumination light from the multimode optical fiber. In the lighting apparatus, the laser light is outputted from the light source and is propagated to the multimode optical fiber in which an outer diameter shape of the lateral cross section of the core is a substantially polygonal shape, whereby the spatial light modulator can be uniformly and efficiently lighted.
US07643698B2
An improved sharpening technique sharpens an image using diffusion rather than a Gaussian blur in the smearing phase. After an appropriate radius or number of passes is determined for the pixels of an image, a diffusive process is applied to the image in the smearing phase to generate a blurred image. The values of each pixel in the original image are differenced with the values of each corresponding pixel in the blurred image. The difference may be weighted by input from a user. The resulting value is added to the original image and a sharpened version of the original image is created.
US07643689B2
The present invention intends to provide an encoded data conversion method for speeding up conversion processing by eliminating re-encoding processing when predetermined data is inserted into encoded data. The encoded data conversion method is a conversion method for converting encoded image data comprising: a step of decoding encoded image data; and a step of inserting a code for eliminating re-encoding of subsequent data after the predetermined data.
US07643688B2
Systems and methods of reducing artifacts in compressed images are described. In one aspect, spatially-shifted forward transforms of the input image are computed to generate respective sets of forward transform coefficients. Nonlinear transforms are applied to the forward transform coefficients of each set. Inverse transforms of the sets of nonlinearly transformed forward transform coefficients are computed to generate respective intermediate images. Respective measures of local spatial intensity variability are computed for pixels of each of the intermediate images. An output image is computed with pixel values computed based at least in part on the computed measures of local spatial intensity variability.
US07643673B2
Data-driven guarded evaluation of conditional-data associated with data objects is used to control activation and processing of the data objects in an interactive geographic information system. Methods of evaluating conditional-data to control activation of the data objects are disclosed herein. Data-structures to specify conditional data are also disclosed herein.
US07643670B2
There is disclosed a method apparatus for image processing of e.g. MRI images. A method and apparatus is disclosed enabling one to determine if an image contrast/intensity change of a chosen point within an imaged subject volume (e.g. a lesion) is an artefact of motion in the imaged subject. An apparatus and method for fast visual assessment of the imaged subject volume's alignment quality (within a time-sequence of images) is provided, and an interactive display tool enabling effective use of this method is provided.
US07643664B2
The present invention comprises a system and method for analyzing trabecular bone structure. A means for scanning the trabecular bone using a magnetic resonance image (MRI) scanner generates bone image data, which is then processed including correcting, deshading and reducing noise in the image data.
US07643657B2
A key frame representative of a sequence of frames in a video file is selected. The sequence of frames is divided into shots, sequences of frames captured by a single continuous operation of the camera, by detecting shot boundaries. Shot boundaries are detected by measuring changes in motion activity between frames using measures of pixel intensity and histogram differences between frames. The most interesting shot in the sequence of frames is selected using measures of motion activity, spatial activity, skin pixel color and shot length. The key frame is selected in the most interesting shot using measures of spatial activity and motion activity.
US07643642B2
The invention concerns an accessory (112) for coupling to a portable electronic device (110). The accessory includes an interface (120) for coupling to the portable electronic device, an identifier (124) in which the identifier generates at least in part a parameter and at least one speaker (128). Only if the accessory contains more than one speaker, the parameter generated at least in part by the identifier causes an audio amplifier (148) that drives one of the speakers to be activated. In addition, the parameter generated at least in part by the identifier can cause the audio amplifier to be deactivated if the accessory contains only one speaker.
US07643638B2
A system for generating pseudorandom codes using a register which contains an identification of the code tree leg of the desired code and a counter which outputs a successive binary sequence. The output from the counter is bit-by-bit ANDed with the output of the register, and those outputs are XORed together to output a single bit. As the counter is sequenced, each count results in a different bit that is output from the XOR gate, resulting in the desired code.
US07643634B2
An integrated circuit is embodied on a monolithic substrate and incorporates a tuning module of the direct sampling type that is able to receive satellite digital television analog signals composed of several channels, as well as several channel decoding digital modules connected at the output of the tuning module so as to deliver respectively simultaneously several streams of data packets corresponding to several different selected channels.
US07643627B2
Exemplary embodiments relate to methods, systems, and storage mediums for providing self-provisioning telephony services. The method includes receiving a request for the self-provisioning telephony services from a caller of a telecommunications service provider. The method also includes prompting the caller to provide information for facilitating implementation of the self-provisioning telephony services. The method further includes implementing the self-provisioning telephony services, without human intervention from a telecommunications service provider, in response to information received as a result of the prompting. The self-provisioning telephony services include activating an account for a new telephone number, modifying an account for an existing telephone number, retrieving a forgotten personal identification number, and canceling an account for an existing telephone number.
US07643626B2
The inventors provide herein methods for the decomposition of initial Filter Criteria (iFCs) into user-independent, global data and user specific data. In various embodiments of the present invention, the approach is based on Trigger point templates that represent families of trigger points, which are able to be instantiated to real trigger points by adding missing user specific data. Trigger point templates are specified at service deployment time and are instantiated to real trigger points and complemented with the other iFC components to form complete iFCs at the time of service subscription. It is demonstrated that the trigger point methods of the present invention facilitate the storing, provisioning and downloading of initial filter criteria and are beneficial in terms of at least storage and run-time efficiency.
US07643625B2
According to the various embodiments of the present invention, an outbound call to a number on an emergency call list may change the incoming call controls to a telephone. In particular, methods of altering incoming call controls after a call has been placed to an emergency number comprises steps of performing a first modification of a first call control related to a first incoming calling number, and performing a second modification of the first call control related to the first incoming calling number after a predetermined period of time. Systems for altering incoming call controls after a call has been placed to an emergency number are also disclosed.
US07643624B2
A method for remote accessing a multi-line residential telephone system. Using a first remote telephone, a calling party dials a telephone number associated with a first telephone line of the multi-line residential telephone system. After a predetermined number of unanswered rings at the first telephone line of the multi-line telephone system, the multi-line telephone system prompts the calling party to input a code. After a successful verification of the code, the multi-line telephone system connects the first remote telephone with a second telephone line of the multi-line telephone system so that the calling party receives a dial tone over the second telephone line. The calling party then dials a terminating telephone number associated with a second remote telephone to establish communication with a called party of the second remote telephone.
US07643617B2
Telephone test sets include a telephone test set housing and at least one lead that extends away from the telephone test set housing. The lead is configured to be coupled to a telephone line. A light source, a data port and/or a display are integrated with the telephone test set housing. The light source is configured to project light away from the telephone test set to illuminate an area adjacent the telephone test set. The data port is configured to receive a data jack operatively associated with a communications device. The display is configured to display identification information associated with the telephone line. Related methods and systems are also provided.
US07643608B2
In a method for checking for leakage from tubular batteries, when tubular batteries are fed with their respective axial centers aligned in parallel to each other to pass through a leakage check mechanism, a sealed end face of the tubular batteries is irradiated with an X-ray. In accordance with the result of analysis on whether the incident fluorescent X-ray entering a detector contains a fluorescent X-ray associated with an electrolyte component, it is determined whether the tubular batteries have leaked. A length of a detection window of the detector in a direction of feed of the tubular batteries is set to be less than a spacing between the tubular batteries. A length of the detection window oriented orthogonal to the direction of feed is set to be greater than an outer size of the cross-sectional shape of the tubular batteries oriented orthogonal to their axial center.
US07643599B2
Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus used to detect phase error information between edges of an input data signal and a clock signal for use at ultra-high frequencies and where linear phase error information is required. This invention extends the usefulness of a given integrated circuit logic technology to twice the frequency range of application while maintaining the desired linear phase error measurement operation. Flip flops are used to sample the data input signal with the clocking signal and processing is done separately for rising and falling data edges. Analog recombination of phase error information from both edges is then done in a fashion that is not limited by the integrated circuit speed. This invention overcomes limitations of prior methods in that it operates in data applications, provides linear phase error information at very high phase-error bandwidth and can operate at the same maximum speed as the flip flop and logic process technology will allow by operating on bit cells that are a full 1-bit minimum rather than half-bit cells.
US07643589B2
Enhanced performance is achieved by combining channel coding with the space-time coding principles. With K synchronized terminal units transmitting on N antennas to a base station having M≧K receive antennas, increased system capacity and improved performance are attained by using a concatenated coding scheme where the inner code is a space-time block code and the outer code is a conventional channel error correcting code. Information symbols are first encoded using a conventional channel code, and the resulting signals are encoded using a space-time block code. At the receiver, the inner space-time block code is used to suppress interference from the other co-channel terminals and soft decisions are made about the transmitted symbols. The channel decoding that follows makes the hard decisions about the transmitted symbols. Increased data rate is achieved by, effectively, splitting the incoming data rate into multiple channels, and each channel is transmitted over its own terminal.
US07643588B2
The method is for estimating the fading coefficients of a plurality of transmission channels on which signals to be sent, generated as a function of a sequence of symbols, are transmitted according to a particular modulation, e.g. AM-PSK modulation. The fading coefficients are estimated by using estimations of the transmitted symbols obtained in advance, thus obtaining DC components of the received signal by coherent demodulation locked to the phases of the transmitted AM-PSK signals, and processing these DC components. The method may not require the choice of a stochastic distribution model of the channel fading, thus it remains efficient even when the channel characteristics vary significantly. Moreover, the method works correctly even if the received stream is disturbed by inter-symbolic interference (ISI) and/or by multi-path fading.
US07643587B2
A frequency offset correcting unit estimates frequency offsets in a preamble period, corrects digital received signals by the estimated initial frequency and further corrects them by residual frequency signals. A receiving weight vector computing unit computes receiving weight vector signals by using LMS algorithm. Based on the error vectors or receiving weight vector signals derived by LMS algorithm, the frequency offsets contained in corrected received signals are also estimated and are outputted as the residual frequency signals. A multiplier weights the corrected received signals with the receiving weight vector signals. An adder sums up outputs of the multiplier so as to output a synthesized signal.
US07643586B1
A receiver baseband processor comprises a channel estimator that generates a channel estimate from a received symbol. A phase demodulator receives the channel estimate from the channel estimator and selectively rotates the phase of the received symbol. A decoder comprises a branch metric calculator that computes a plurality of branch metrics based on the channel estimate and selectively phase rotated received symbol. A most-likely symbol estimator estimates a clean symbol based on the plurality of branch metrics.
US07643585B2
A method for correcting a soft decision value includes: demodulating a reception signal, which is coded by an error correction code and modulated in order to represent one or multiple bits with one symbol; generating the soft decision value, which is used in decoding of the error correction code; multiplying the soft decision value by a weight factor to correct the soft decision value; estimating an amplitude of the reception signal in every predetermined measurement time period; and variably setting the weight factor in a symbol unit in accordance with an estimating result so that a corrected soft decision value approaches to a predetermined amplitude range.
US07643583B1
In a high-precision signal detection apparatus and method for a high-speed receiver, signal detection occurs asynchronously of the incoming data. A comparison clock is generated by an oscillator whose effective capacitance is varied by a second, lower speed oscillator connected to the capacitance. This prevents the asynchronous sampling that occurs in a zero-crossing position in the incoming data from remaining in that position in subsequent sampling cycles, so that a valid signal is not missed by the detector.
US07643573B2
A data acquisition system includes a programmable gain amplifier, an analog-to-digital converter, a filter, and control circuitry. The programmable gain amplifier is operatively connected to receive an analog input signal on its input and generates an amplified signal on its output in accordance with gain control signals. The analog-to-digital converter is operatively connected to receive the amplified signal from the amplifier and generates a digitized signal on its output. The filter is operatively connected to receive the digitized signal from the converter and generates a filtered digital signal on its output. The control circuitry is operatively connected to the amplifier and to the converter and is also responsive to the gain control signals for dynamically adjusting power between the amplifier and converter when the gain control signals are changed.
US07643571B2
A communication system including a first device transmitting a modulated signal and a second device receiving the modulated signal. The second device can include a first demodulator and a second demodulator. The first demodulator can receive the modulated signal, produce a first demodulated output, and implement a first demodulation technique. The second demodulator can receive the modulated signal, produce a second demodulated output, and implement a second demodulation technique. The second demodulation technique can differ from the first demodulation technique. The second device can also include an error detection module that can perform bit error detection based on the first demodulated output and the second demodulated output.
US07643570B2
On the transmitting side, a decision is made as to whether to add pilot symbols which are separate from basic pilot symbols, to frames, based on the propagation path state, and when symbols are added, control symbols comprising information relating to the additional pilot symbols are generated, and frames comprising basic pilot symbols, control symbols, additional pilot symbols, and data symbols are assembled and transmitted. On the receiving side, control symbols included in the received frames are demodulated, and a judgment is made as to whether additional pilot symbols are included in the received frames based on the control symbol information, and if additional pilot symbols are included, the additional pilot symbols are used to estimate the propagation path, and the propagation path estimation value is used to demodulate data symbols.
US07643565B2
A portable terminal communicates with a plurality of base stations by use of an OFDM signal. The portable terminal includes a communication unit sending and receiving the OFDM signal to and from the base stations, a switching timing detector, and an OFDM signal controller. The switching timing detector detects switching timing at which handover and a normal state are switched therebetween. The OFDM signal controller changes a guard time length of the OFDM signal upon detecting the timing by the switching timing detector.
US07643561B2
Data coding and entropy coding are performed with interconnection, and grouping is used to enhance coding efficiency. The present invention includes the steps of obtaining a pilot reference value corresponding to a plurality of gains and a pilot difference value corresponding to the pilot reference value; and obtaining the gain using the pilot reference value and the pilot difference value.
US07643559B2
For the purpose of coding or decoding motion information in a picture with a small overhead, a coding method of performing compression coding of a moving picture by motion compensated prediction is configured to have a motion compensated prediction step (processing by motion detector 2, motion compensator 5, spatial predictor 9, etc.) of performing the motion compensated prediction while assigning one or more motion vectors (e.g., up to two motion vectors) in units of sub-blocks obtained by sub-dividing each of macroblocks resulting from division of each frame of the moving picture; and an assignment information coding step (processing by variable length encoder 23 and others) of outputting information about an assignment situation of the one or more motion vectors to the sub-blocks in a multiplexed form on a bitstream.
US07643542B2
Acquisition method for a localization receiver, in particular for a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. It involves the calculation of an interpolated Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) spectrum (S′) of correlated signals in which the frequency lines corresponding to half-integer values of the frequency resolution defined by the FFT are obtained by a combination of both amplitude and phase values of the FFT spectrum (S).
US07643539B2
A technique for arranging a receiver device (20) includes equally spacing adjacent rake receivers (26-30) within an observation window (OW). A disclosed technique for updating an observation window includes changing the position of one of the rake fingers (24, 30) while maintaining a position of other ones of the rake fingers. The disclosed technique for arranging rake fingers in a receiver device (20) does not depend on searching and tracking channel conditions and reduces computational complexity without sacrificing receiver performance.
US07643526B1
A light emitting device with a μ-cavity including a first spacer of single crystal dielectric material and an active area including single crystal erbium dielectric material positioned on the first spacer. The erbium dielectric material and the single crystal dielectric material of the first spacer are substantially crystal lattice matched at their juncture. A second spacer of single crystal dielectric material is positioned on the active area. The erbium dielectric material and the single crystal dielectric material of the second spacer are substantially crystal lattice matched at the second surface. The high-κ erbium dielectric provides a high gain κ-cavity that emits increased amounts of light in either spontaneous or stimulated modes of operation.
US07643521B2
A system for using a pulsed laser beam to process materials includes a selector for varying the pulse repetition rate of the laser beam. Also included is a control unit for identifying an optimal pulse repetition rate that is compatible with the required pulse energy level for processing the material. Variations in the pulse repetition rate can be made during a procedure pursuant to either pre-programmed instructions, or in response to closed loop feedback controls.
US07643519B2
Embodiments of apparatuses, articles, methods, and systems for pre-processing and packetizing data for transmission in accordance with a transmission protocol are generally described herein. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US07643498B2
A private dialing plan for the communication of packetized voice on a packet-based network using a signaling protocol such as Q.931 to establish, maintain and release switched connections over the network. The dialing plan uses a “telephone number” based on a conventional 10-digit telephone number, such as the user's regular telephone number. A leading single digit consisting of a “0” or a “1” is added in front of the conventional telephone number. A leading “0” indicates that the desired call is to be directed to the called party's on-network computer by means of the Internet, while a leading “1” indicates the call is directed through a special gateway to the called party's conventional telephone.
US07643497B2
An intermediation apparatus is designed to interconnect at least one service provider and at least one user by using a non-Internet channel. The apparatus includes an intelligent connection management unit for recognizing an incoming protocol and for selecting an outgoing protocol and an outgoing communications channel by referring to databases. A protocol conversion unit controlled by the management unit interconnects a service provider using a channel that implements a first communications protocol and a user using the non-Internet channel that implements a second communications protocol. The non-Internet channel is advantageously a wireless communications channel.
US07643488B2
Customer Traffic may be segregated using customer provisioned IPSec VPNs implemented using group security association for IPSec tunnels, by causing the CE network element to implement multiple VRFs for the several VPNs, each of which may be used for a different segment of the customer's traffic. The CE network element may implement a single MPBGP peering session with the GCKS/RR for all VPNs, and may establish secure data channels for each of the VPNs based on the group security associations for each of the VPNs. Although a common MPBGP peering session may be used, routing information for the several VRFs may be separated by applying per-VRF import policies at the CE, so that each VPN only has access to routes intended to be advertised to that VPN.
US07643487B2
A system and method for delivering the magic packet to wake up a node in a remote subnet are disclosed. A method includes receiving a message generated by a source node located on a first subnet at a switching device located on a second subnet, where the message includes an address associated with a target node. The switching device determines if the target node is located on the second subnet by comparing the address to a plurality of network addresses included in a memory of the switching device. The message is communicated to the target node if the address matches one of the network addresses in the memory and is used to wake up the target node.
US07643484B2
A computer system of a federation coupled to a network including a server having an internal address associated with a first subnet and a network abstraction and isolation layer rules-based federation and masquerading (NAIL RBFM) interface that interfaces the server with the network. The NAIL RBFM interface transforms the internal address between the first subnet and a second subnet for intra-federation communications. The NAIL RBFM interface performs transform and inverse transform operations to convert between internal and external addresses of intra-federation network traffic. The operations may be performed on source and destination addresses, and may be configured in any of several manners, such as modifying at least one bit of an address, replacing at least one octet of an IP address, substituting a prefix of an address, replacing an entire address, etc.
US07643483B2
A system and method for using a hop limited cast for Internet egress point selection. One aspect of the present invention includes a computer-implemented method. The computer-implement method includes casting an Internet egress announcement to a network. The announcement has a range associated therewith. A list is then created with discovered Internet egress points within the range. Another aspect of the present invention includes an egress mesh node with an Internet egress point. The egress mesh node is configured to cast an Internet egress announcement to a range of the network.
US07643481B2
A network switch for switching packets from a source to a destination includes a source port for receiving an incoming packet from a source, a destination port that contains a path to a destination for the packet, and a programmable counter unit for counting a number of packets of selected packet types which are received by the switch.
US07643468B1
A data-center network architecture. The data-center network architecture incorporates a front end having an aggregation layer exhibiting integrated service-module intelligence. A server farm connects the front end with a storage network. In a specific embodiment, the aggregation layer includes plural interconnected multilayer switches incorporating service-module intelligence implemented via one or more service modules. Plural layer-2 switches communicate with the plural multilayer switches. The server farm includes one or more servers that are dual homed or multihomed with the plural layer-2 switches. The storage network includes plural interconnected multilayer directors and one or more Fibre Channel hosts using Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) that interface one or more data-storage devices to the server farm.
