US07848833B2

A flexible/adjustable fixing system (100) for fixing a workpiece (40) includes an information management module (10), a plurality of driving devices (20), and a positioning device (30). The information management module receives and processes the position information of the workpiece. The driving devices electronically couple with the information management module. The positioning device includes a platform (31) and a plurality of positioning pins (32). One end of the workpiece is positioned in a certain area of the platform. Each respective pin is attached to a corresponding driving device. When the driving device receives an order/signal from the information management module, the positioning pin is selectably driven relative to (e.g., toward, away from) the workpiece by the driving device.
US07848831B2

A real-time operating optimized method of multi-input and multi-output continuous manufacture procedure includes steps as follows: first, using plurality of pivotal operation conditions in the manufacture procedure as optimized variables, and using the technical target associating with the pivotal operation conditions as the objective function, then, calculating on line the grades vector between pivotal operation conditions and the technical target at current time according to historical data of pivotal operation conditions and the technical target, using correlation integral method or other methods, at last, using this grades vector to define the adjustment direction of the operation conditions. When the grades vector is positive or negative, the pivotal operation conditions should be adjusted in order to change the grades vector to zero.
US07848818B2

According to one embodiment, a system for neurological stimulation of peripheral nerve fibers to treat low back pain is provided. The system includes stimulation electrodes adapted to be implanted in tissue proximate a network of peripheral nerve fibers located in and innervating a painful region of the low back area and to deliver electrical stimulation pulses to the network of peripheral nerve fibers located in and innervating the painful region of the low back area. The system also includes a stimulation source adapted for implantation into the person's body and operable to generate electrical stimulation pulses for transmission to the electrodes for delivery to the network of peripheral nerve fibers located in and innervating the painful region of the low back area to relieve pain in the painful region of the low back area.
US07848802B2

The disclosure is directed to programming implantable stimulators to deliver stimulation energy via one or more implantable leads having complex electrode array geometries. The disclosure also contemplates guided programming to select electrode combinations and parameter values to support efficacy. The techniques may be applied to a programming interface associated with a clinician programmer, a patient programmer, or both. A user interface permits a user to view electrodes from different perspectives relative to the lead. For example, the user interface provides a side view of a lead and a concentric axial view of the lead. The user interface may include an axial control medium to select and/or view electrodes at different axial positions along the length of a lead, and a rotational control medium to select and/or view electrodes at different angular positions around a circumference of the lead.
US07848799B2

The present invention relates to methods and devices for formation of microconduits in tissue, particularly using an impedance sensing drill to form microconduits. One embodiment of the invention is an impedance sensing drill comprising a drilling assembly, a control module, mechanically connected to the drilling assembly for controlling the depth of drilling by the drilling assembly; and a sensor, electrically connected to the drilling assembly and control module for detecting a change in an electrical impedance of a material being drilled. Another embodiment is a method of forming a microconduit in a material, which comprises the steps of drilling into the material, monitoring an electrical impedance of the material, and stopping the drilling into the material when a change in the impedance is detected, thereby forming microconduit.
US07848794B2

A device for detecting electrical potentials in the forehead area of a patient has a transverse member adapted to rest against the forehead of the patient, a vertical member extending crosswise to the transverse member and a mask on the vertical member. Electrodes are provided on the transverse members at least at its ends and at the center at which the vertical bar crosses the transverse member.
US07848786B2

A portable electronic device has various functions such as mobile communication, multimedia entertainment, and data processing. The device includes a main body installed with two keyboards and two slide rails, and two sub-bodies respectively equipped with a display. The sub-bodies are pivoted to each other and rotate through a shaft, and slide along slide rails through connecting members on the main body respectively. Therefore, the sub-bodies can be lifted relative to the main body through the shaft and the connecting members, so as to be optionally drawn close to the main body with the two displays facing the same direction, or to stand on the main body with the two displays facing opposite directions. Therefore, two different operating modes are achieved.
US07848782B2

Prior to being admitted into the network, a base station establishes a set of operating parameters. Next, a search is performed to determine the presence and configuration of neighboring base stations and current network conditions. Based on the search results, an improved operating configuration is determined for the base station and the base station's operating parameters are adjusted. Once the base station is admitted to and is operating in the network, the base station continues to monitor neighboring base stations and network conditions and adjusts its operating parameters accordingly.
US07848780B2

In a communication terminal using UIM, when a message disabling use of a content is received not by a communication terminal containing the content to disabled, but by another communication terminal containing the same content, the content stored in a storage unit of the communication terminal which has received the message is not disabled. Mobile phone 100-1 using UIM stores a program in correlation with a telephone number stored in the UIM. When mobile phone 100-1 receives a management message to delete a program, mobile phone 100-1 interprets the content of the management message. Mobile phone 100-1 obtains a telephone number from the UIM, and deletes the content stored in correlation with the telephone number according to the management message interpreted.
US07848778B2

A method and apparatus for using a conventional oscillator in a cellular telephone transceiver as a source of a reference signal for a GPS receiver. In one embodiment, the method comprises using a voltage-controlled oscillator (“VCXO”) within a cellular telephone transceiver to generate a reference frequency signal for the GPS receiver. Circuitry within the telephone transceiver generates a frequency error signal. Both of these signals are coupled to GPS circuitry and used to control a carrier numerically controlled oscillator (“NCO”) and a code NCO. The NCOs produce a tuning signal and a timing signal, respectively. The GPS circuitry uses the NCO generated signals to process GPS signals.
US07848770B2

The present invention provides a distributed antenna communications system and methods of implementing a distributed antenna communications system. In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, a distributed antenna system comprises: a base station configured for communication with a telecommunications network; a multi-port repeater hub connected to the base station to receive a communications signal from the base station and to distribute the communications signal to a plurality of ports of the multi-port repeater hub, the multi-port repeater hub comprising a scanner for scanning a plurality of frequency channels to identify one or more channels of the communications signal received from the base station; and a plurality of antenna units, each coupled to one of the ports of the multi-port repeater hub.
US07848764B2

A system is described for providing location predictive advertising. The system may include a processor, a memory, and an interface. The memory may store an advertisement. The interface may communicate with an electronic device. The processor may determine a first geographic location of an electronic device which is travelling in a direction. The processor may identify a first geographic region which may encompass the first geographic location of the electronic device. The processor may determine a second geographic region which is located in the direction of travel of the electronic device. The processor may determine an advertisement associated with the second geographic region in accordance with the electronic device being located within the first geographic region. The processor may provide the advertisement to the electronic device.
US07848763B2

A method to remotely determine a location of a mobile unit without intervention by a user of the mobile unit is provided. The mobile unit may receive a location query, download location data from a GPS, and transmit the location data via a wireless telecommunications network. For example, a call center may initiate a location query using a voice channel call to the mobile unit. In addition, the mobile unit may select a mode of communication from a number of alternative modes of digital wireless communication based upon a determined characteristic of the transmission mode. By way of example, the determined characteristic could be a transmission speed, cost of transmission, or signal strength of the selected communication mode. Furthermore, the unit may be a battery pack or other accessory device attachable to a wireless telephone handset, or integrated within a mobile unit.
US07848762B2

A method of using a non-GPS-derived technique to estimate the location of an Assisted-GPS-enabled wireless terminal for the purposes of generating location-specific assistance data for the wireless terminal is disclosed. The wireless terminal then uses the assistance data to acquire and process one or more GPS signals and to derive information that is probative of the wireless terminal's location. The GPS-derived location information is then combined with non-GPS-derived location to form an estimate of the location of the wireless terminal that is better than can be derived from either alone. This combination of GPS-derived and non-GPS techniques is particularly useful when the wireless terminal can only acquire one or two GPS signals because it is not possible to determine the location of the wireless terminal with only two GPS signals alone.
US07848760B2

A telecommunications system includes a wireless device (150) including a positioning controller (504) and a communications controller (502), said wireless device adapted to cause an audible warning to be generated if said wireless device is determined to be outside a first predetermined range; and an administrative device (30-152) for receiving alerts from said wireless communication device via said communications controller when said positioning controller determines that said wireless device is outside said first predetermined range for longer than a predetermined period or is outside said first predetermined range and a second predetermined range.
US07848757B2

Mobility in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) can be extended by using fixed network resources to support MANET-level communication between a traveling MANET node and the remainder of the MANET. The IPv6 protocol is used over the fixed network resources to support the MANET-level communication, and mobility-supporting features of the IPv6 protocol are exploited without modifying the IPv6 protocol.
US07848742B2

Saving bandwidth on the Abis interface in mobile communication systems. When congestion appears on an Abis full rate channel communication is switched over to half rate while keeping full rate on the radio interface. Thereby possibilities are still available for good error correction and control on a highly interfered radio channel.
US07848740B2

A method in a user equipment for enabling use thereof in electronic transactions is disclosed. In the method control information is received at the user equipment (1) from a management entity (12). The user equipment is provided with transaction means based on the received control information.
US07848735B2

A transmission-request control unit controls a first transmission request in which a third communication terminal is designated as a receiver with a terminal number of a first communication terminal as a sender terminal number, and controls a second transmission request including the first transmission request and a transmission request in which a second communication terminal is designated as a sender with a terminal number of the second communication terminal as the sender terminal number by acquiring the terminal number of the second communication terminal corresponding to the first communication terminal from a terminal-number storing unit.
US07848734B2

A device communicates with a telecom system to establish a call or data session. The communication includes an identifier used by the telecom system to obtain account information and/or preauthorization from a fund guardian. The fund guardian maintains account information about the device and/or subscriber associated with the identifier. A fund guardian authorizes a call access cost or data session access cost. The telecom system facilitates the call or data session between the device and a destination address until the authorized access costs are expired. A reauthorization can occur prior to expiration. An access rate negotiation may also include a bandwidth negotiation.
US07848725B2

A phase locked loop (PLL) a phase detector, a charge pump, a loop filter, a controlled oscillator, and a feedback divider. The phase detector is coupled to produce a difference signal based on a difference between phase of a reference oscillation and phase of a feedback oscillation. The charge pump is coupled to convert the difference signal into an up-signal or a down signal. The loop filter coupled to filter the up signal or the down signal to produce a control signal. The controlled oscillator is coupled to generate an output oscillation based on the control signal. The feedback divider is coupled to generate the feedback oscillation from the output oscillation based on a divider value. The loop filter includes a first resistor-capacitor circuit and a second resistor-capacitor circuit. The first resistor-capacitor circuit is calibrated using a first calibration technique and the second resistor-capacitor circuit is calibrated using a second calibration technique.
US07848718B2

The present invention relates to a mobile apparatus comprising an integrated circuit to operate predefined functions, which integrated circuit is susceptible to be set in a standby operating mode wherein which said circuit can resume operation within a predefined delay. The circuit comprises configuration sequential logic having defined states that need to be stored before the circuit enters in standby mode. The mobile apparatus further comprises a power down unit for storing the states of the configuration sequential logic into a low leakage storage area during standby mode that reduces standby current considerably.
US07848716B2

The present invention provides a semiconductor integrated circuit for communication (RF IC) realizing high yield without deteriorating a carrier leak characteristic even when a modulation circuit is formed by using cheep parts with large variations. In a semiconductor integrated circuit (RF IC) including: an input circuit constructed by a differential amplifier circuit and a level shifter, which is provided on the ante stage of a mixer of a differential circuit called a Gilbert Cell; and a modulation circuit that performs modulation by adding an I/Q signal and a carrier wave signal, a calibration circuit for canceling a DC offset in an output of the input circuit is provided.
US07848714B2

A radio frequency circuit apparatus and a radio frequency module which permit alleviation of the PA efficiency drop and are compatible with both a MIMO system and a conventional system are to be provided. They are provided with a plurality of power amplifiers for amplifying a transmit signal and the plurality of power amplifiers include at least two power amplifiers differing in maximum output power from each other, and at least one out of the plurality of power amplifiers is used according to the communication system.
US07848710B2

A radio circuit includes a mixing module, a first adjustable resonant circuit and a second adjustable resonant circuit. The mixing module is coupled to mix a first signal having a first carrier frequency with a second signal having a second carrier frequency to produce a mixed signal having a frequency sum component and a frequency difference component. The first adjustable resonant circuit is tuned to resonant at a frequency corresponding to one of the frequency sum component and the frequency difference component. The second adjustable resonant circuit is tuned to resonant at a frequency corresponding to another one of the frequency sum component and the frequency difference component, wherein the first and second adjustable resonant circuits alter the mixed signal to produce a converted signal.
US07848705B2

The present invention is an information processing apparatus which obtains identification information of an electronic device and makes communication with the electronic device via a network based on the identification information. When a portable telephone (11) is placed on an input display section (2) of a personal computer (1), a reader/writer built in the personal computer (1) reads a telephone number of the portable telephone (11) stored in an RF tag built in the portable telephone (11). Based on the telephone number, a telephone line is connected between the portable telephone (11) and the personal computer (1). Data is interchanged between the portable telephone (11) and the personal computer (1) via the telephone line.
US07848702B2

An emergency system for providing an emergency function is described in which the system is required to provide an autonomous and self-diagnostic capability so the system can be tested when not in operation in an emergency situation. A plurality of emergency devices 14 are provided which have transmitters and receivers for producing a mesh network (FIG. 1). Each device 14 has a processor 60 for establishing a preferred wireless communication link of the mesh network to another device 14 for relaying signals and messages. The devices 14 are arranged in subnets 50 and the subnets are also grouped into groups of devices 14 which may cross various subnets 50 so that only one group of devices 14 can be tested at a particular time.
US07848701B2

A mobile communication system employs moving base stations moving in the direction of flow of traffic moving along a roadway. The moving base station communicates with fixed radio ports connected to a gateway office. A plurality of moving base stations are spaced apart on a closed loop and move with the flow of traffic along one roadway on one leg of the loop and with a flow of traffic on another roadway in another leg of the loop. The moving base stations communicate with a plurality of fixed radio ports connected by a signal transmission link to a gateway office which, in turn, is connected to the wire line network. The moving base stations are each provided with a pair of directional antennas with one antenna directed toward the flow of traffic and another antenna directed to the fixed radio ports.
US07848691B2

A transfer unit, which transfers a toner image formed on at least one image support to a printing medium, and an image forming apparatus employing the same. The transfer unit includes: an intermediate transfer body to the toner image from the image support, which has a curved transfer surface and an ASKER-A hardness of from about 25° to 40°; a transfer member, which has an ASKER-C hardness of from about 45° to 70°, and which contacts the intermediate transfer body, with a printing medium being interposed therebetween, and transfers the toner image from the intermediate transfer body to the printing medium. The transfer unit may further include: a de-electrifying member having a DC power and an AC power concurrently applied thereto, to de-electrify the printing.
US07848683B2

A powder delivery member includes: a flexible axial core portion; and a powder delivering flexible vane portion formed on an outer periphery of the axial core portion.
US07848675B2

An intermediate transferring unit (120) is provided with a main cleaning member (29a) together with an auxiliary cleaning member (50). A main cleaning width (Wb1) of the main cleaning member (29a) is smaller than a width dimension (Wb) of an intermediate transferring belt (12). The auxiliary cleaning member (50) covers an outer remaining area (M), so that toners remaining on the remaining area (M) are scraped off by the auxiliary cleaning member (50). The toners scraped off by the auxiliary cleaning member (50) are collected in a toner collecting portion provided in an apparatus main body.
US07848672B2

Fusers, printing apparatuses and methods of fusing toner on media are disclosed. An embodiment of the fusers comprises a pressure roll including an outer surface; a continuous fuser belt including an inner surface and an outer fusing surface contacting the outer surface at a nip; and a heater disposed inside of the fuser belt, the fuser belt being rotatable relative to the heater. The heater includes at least one heating surface contacting the inner surface and adapted to pre-heat a portion of the fuser belt before the portion is rotated to the nip, and to heat the pre-heated portion at the nip.
US07848670B2

A developing device includes an image carrier, a developer carrier, a biasing unit disposed upstream of a developing area, and a controller configured to control the biasing unit, and a cleaning member disposed downstream of the developing area to remove the liquid developing agent remaining on the developer carrier. A latent image held on the image carrier may be developed with the liquid developing agent, including charged toner and a carrier liquid, at the developing area where the developer carrier faces the image carrier. The controller causes the biasing unit to apply a first bias voltage to the surface of the liquid developing agent held on the developer carrier during developing, or a second bias voltage thereto during cleaning.
US07848668B2

Fusers, printing apparatuses and methods of fusing toner on media are disclosed. An embodiment of a fuser for fusing toner on a medium includes at least two modules arranged along a process direction of the medium, each module having an ON state in which the module discharges a hot gas and an OFF state in which the module does not discharge the hot gas; and a controller connected to the modules for controlling the ON/OFF state of each module to control the discharge of the hot gas from each module onto the medium as the medium is transported past the modules in the process direction.
US07848646B2

Normality of links on a spare path or the links and nodes is monitored. When the spare path cannot be used, at least any one of nodes at both ends in a segmented path section is changed to another node on a working path. The segmented path section is changed to set another spare path. When a fault monitoring section which can accumulatively detect abnormal information is changed to the changed partial working path section, alarm generation in the fault monitoring section is prevented to release the prevention after completion of the change.
US07848644B2

A method and an apparatus to provide optical equipment protection have been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes splitting an incoming optical signal into a first and a second optical signals, sending the first and the second optical signals to a first and a second equipments in an optical network node, respectively, the second equipment being a protection module for the first equipment, monitoring a first and a second outgoing optical signals from the first and second equipments, and declaring a failure of the optical network node if only one of the first and the second outgoing optical signals has failed. Other embodiments have been claimed and described.
US07848643B2

A communication recovering system for a wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM PON) includes a central office and remote nodes. When there is a fault in an optical fiber connecting a first blue/red band coupler to a blue/red band coupler R11, optical signals are inputted/outputted thereto/therefrom through a first 1×2 optical switch and a second blue/red band coupler, and when there is a fault in an optical fiber connecting the second blue/red band coupler to a blue/red band coupler R21, optical signals are inputted/outputted thereto/therefrom through the second 1×2 optical switch and the first blue/red band coupler.
US07848622B2

A method of real-time recording a file with an AVI format on an optical storage medium is provided, in which the optical storage medium is a write-once type medium and employs a file system without multi-section record. According to the method, in the AVI format, a dummy chunk is used to cover a linking loss area generated between every continuous recording area, thus avoiding the AVI format being destroyed by the linking loss area.
US07848619B2

The present invention relates to a data structure for managing to resume reproduction of data including at least video data recorded on a recording medium. A recording medium having the data structure has data recorded thereon that comprises: at least one data playing unit (title or movie object) including at least video data; and navigation information for managing the data playing unit, wherein the navigation information includes control information to indicate whether resumption of the data playing unit is permitted or not.
US07848616B2

A processing device and method for time domain change of A/V data stream comprises a starting threshold setting unit for setting a starting threshold; a detecting module for detecting whether the A/V data stream having a SCR domain change; a counting unit comprising a counter for recording a continuous probable times of the SCR domain change according a detecting result of the detecting module; a comparing unit for comparing the counter with the starting threshold; and a time domain change procedure performing unit for performing a time domain change procedure of the A/V data stream for synchronization of a STC according a detecting result of the comparing unit. Accordingly, since the frequency of the time domain change will be lower, the corresponding response of the decoder will be in time for playing as well.
US07848611B2

A digital broadcasting system is provided, in which an editing storage connected to plural digital image editing apparatuses can be managed as a virtual storage in a collective manner and an editing storage connected to other digital image editing apparatuses can be handled as the editing storage connected to the digital image editing apparatus. The digital broadcasting system includes a digital image editing apparatus, a storage system having an editing storage and a management storage, and a sending apparatus, wherein a first access path from the digital image editing apparatus to the editing storage and a second access path from the digital image editing apparatus through a virtual storage in the management storage are provided as access paths to the digital image data stored in the editing storage, and the access through the first and second access paths is controlled based on the use of the editing storage.
US07848601B2

Techniques are disclosed for optical switching and data control, without the interaction of electronic switching speeds. In one example embodiment, a common cavity optical latch is provided that that can hold an optical state for an extended period of time, and the operation of which is controlled optically. Optical phase control allows optical modal switching to be employed between two common optical cavities, using incident optical signals and the way in which the cavities manipulate the phase within them to lock in one or the other configuration, thereby forming an optical latch. The optical latch is implemented in an integrated fashion, such as in a CMOS environment.
US07848599B2

Embodiments of an optical device, an array of optical devices, and a technique for fabricating the optical device or the array are described. This optical device is implemented on a substrate (such as silicon), and includes a thermally tunable optical waveguide that has good thermal isolation from its surroundings. In particular, a portion of a semiconductor in the optical device, which includes the optical waveguide, is free standing above a gap between the semiconductor layer and the substrate. By reducing the thermal coupling between the optical waveguide and the external environment, the optical device can be thermally tuned with significantly less power consumption.
US07848597B2

In an image scaling method, an image (10) having an original row/column resolution NO is scaled into a scaled image (30) having a target row/column resolution NT. A filter set comprising α filters is provided, where α being equal to a quotient of the target resolution NT and a common denominator k of the original resolution NO and the target resolution NT. The common denominator k is a positive number larger than one. For at least one row/column (16/18) of image elements (12), a filtered image element (32) of the scaled image (30) is formed, for each filter in the filter set, by filtering at least one image element (12) of the at least one row/column (16/18) using the filter. This image element formation is repeated up to k times over the at least row/column (16/18) to form a scaled row/column (36/38) of image elements (32) of the scaled image (30).
US07848594B2

Exposure is performed with a reticle installed in an exposure apparatus, and a measurement mark on the reticle is transferred onto a wafer so as to form a first transferred image of the measurement mark (step 212). Then, the wafer is rotated (step 218), and then the measurement mark is transferred onto the wafer that has been rotated and a second transferred image of the measurement mark is formed (step 224). In this manner, the first transferred image and the second transferred image of the measurement mark each formed on the wafer are respectively imported by an SEM, according to a direction of the wafer with respect to the reticle during transfer of the measurement mark. Image processing having a common measurement direction is applied to each of the images that are imported without having to rotate the images, and the size of the first transferred image and the second transferred image in the measurement directions is measured. Accordingly, degradation of the size measurement accuracy of the mark due to the combination of image import and image processing can be prevented.
US07848584B2

Embodiments related to coding and/or decoding data, including for example image data, using wavelet transform and matching pursuits are disclosed. In some embodiments, a wavelet transform is applied to data to produce transformed data. The transformed data is scanned to produce reduced dimension data, and a matching pursuit is performed in the reduced dimension data.
US07848583B2

The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for encoding a series of still images. The first image is captured and stored, then for each subsequent image of the series, that image is captured and compared to the first image or the previous image and difference information between the first or previous image and each subsequent image of the series is stored, resulting in one output file that contains the base image and difference information for each subsequent image, thereby reducing the amount of storage needed to store a series of images.
US07848581B2

System and method for memory efficient decode and viewing of compressed image files. A preferred embodiment comprises a decoder coupled to a data input, a resize unit coupled to the decoder, a memory coupled to the resize unit, and a reorder data unit coupled to the memory. The decoder decompresses image data that is provided by the data input, while the resize unit resizes the decompressed image data from a first size to a second size. The memory stores the resized image data and the reorder data unit rearranges the image data into a format suitable for display. By resizing the image data prior to subsequent processing, memory requirements (such as storage space and bandwidth) are reduced.
US07848573B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for processing electronic ink: (a) receive electronic ink input; (b) convert the input to machine-generated objects; and (c) render the objects such that their size substantially corresponds to the input's original size. The input ink may constitute text, and the machine-generated objects may correspond to words, lines, and/or other groupings of text generated by a handwriting recognizer. To enable quick and easy identification of recognizer errors, in at least some systems and methods, a user may select one or more words, which will cause the system to display the original ink corresponding to the selected word(s). Such systems also may display alternative words generated by the recognizer corresponding to the selected original ink and allow the user to select one of the alternatives to make corrections in the recognized text (akin to using a spell-checking or handwriting recognition program).
US07848558B2

A computerized method, system and computer program for the computerized fractal-based analysis of a structure as presented in a pattern on a medical image. Image data is generated from the medical image and a region of interest is selected. The image data is digitized and analyzed to reveal fractal-based computer-generated features of a texture of the image data. Then a qualifier is applied to the computer-generated features to obtain fractal characteristics of the image data. A multi-fractal nature is observed for the texture of the region of interest. A marker for assessing a risk of a disease is yielded based on the multi-fractal nature of the texture.
US07848554B2

A method and system are described for image registration using an information theoretic approach that can be used for correcting motion in blood flow studies as well as other applications. The joint probability distribution between two MRI (or other modality) images is estimated where the interpolation method is referred to as a continuous histogram.
US07848544B2

A face recognition and/or verification system including the step of registering a persons actual face wherein an image of the actual face is captured and synthesized to create a plurality of face prototypes, and wherein the face prototypes are stored for later analysis and comparison with a captured image to be recognized or verified.
US07848543B2

A method and system for mapping anatomical connection and signaling across a multiplicity of channels, channel contents, and channel speed. In particular, the anatomical connection and signaling is mapped in relation to the human brain. Constructs a three-dimensional, dynamically structured, active model, for general or individual patterns. Uses for the present invention include: risk reduction in surgery to significant channels; planning cell insertion at sites where they can be expected to migrate to a less reachable target site; guiding searches for metastatic tumors; indirectly localizing brain structures; constructing models of disease in which multiple sites are involved in the deficit and any proposed repair; and building simulation of normal processes which require the sequential interaction of multiple sites.
US07848528B2

A wind break device for a microphone includes an airflow diverter and a flow separation edge partially bordering a microphone end of the airflow diverter. The microphone zone located between the flow separation edge and is part of the recirculation zone. The microphone is located in the microphone zone. Airflow separates from one of the airflow diverter or the flow separation edge. The separated airflow is directed as one of recirculating airflow or a major airflow and the recirculating airflow is directed into the recirculation zone. The major airflow is directed over the microphone zone and the recirculation zone to reduce the level of pressure fluctuations experienced by the microphone in the microphone zone.
US07848527B2

A consumer electronic product (e.g., a portable media player ported to a media delivery accessory) is powered by a limited capacity DC power source (such as a battery or mini-fuel cell). The consumer electronic product limits the maximum allowable sound pressure level (SPL) that can be produced by the speakers. In one embodiment, the maximum allowable SPL is based upon an amount of stored energy available in the limited capacity DC power source.
US07848523B2

In half-duplex communications over a wireless network, a user from a private organisation sends the request for half-duplex communication through a private server controlled by the private organisation. The private server sets up a private account with the wireless carrier and the user communicates via the private account.
US07848519B2

A video information recording apparatus includes a first obtaining unit operable to obtain video information to be recorded; a second obtaining unit operable to obtain thumbnail picture information to be recorded in correspondence with the video information; an encrypting unit operable to encrypt the thumbnail picture information; and a recording unit operable to record the video information and the encrypted thumbnail picture information onto a recording medium.
US07848518B2

A method for generating a root key is described. Stable bits of a plurality of comparator outputs are identified. The root key is selected from a number of the identified stable bits. A statistically unique value is calculated from the root key using a cryptographically secure function. An identifier of the identified stable bits and the statistically unique value are stored in a memory.
US07848508B1

An apparatus and/or method for routing telephone calls to a communications device of a particular subscriber within an area code. A preferred embodiment is a system for routing a telephone call from a caller to a specific communications device situated in an area identified by an area code, said system comprising: means for assigning a first telephone number to a particular subscriber; and means for routing the telephone call to the specific communications device of the particular subscriber; wherein said area code is a two-character U.S. postal state abbreviation.
US07848502B2

A method for implementing services on an ASON (automatic switched optical network) network element based on multiple IDs is disclosed, including: a network element setting an ID corresponding to a new service in local as an active ID; the network element advertising an ID information including the newly set active ID over the network by a routing protocol; each adjacent network element which is connected with the network element via a Traffic Engineering (TE) link acquiring the newly set active ID, setting the newly set active ID as its new opposite-end active ID of the TE link, and advertising over the network an link information which contains the new opposite-end active ID and its current active ID; when implementing the new service on the network, calculating paths based on the new active ID, and implementing the new service according to the calculation result. This method makes it possible to guarantee the normal operation of old services on an ASON network element while creating new services based on newly set IDs.
US07848500B2

A method is described to verify the identity of a user. The method, in one example embodiment, comprises obtaining automatic number identification (ANI) data or billing telephone number (BTN) data associated with a subscriber line of a telecommunications network; obtaining identification data associated with a subscriber, said identification data being different from the ANI data or the BTN data; searching a first database using the ANI data or the BTN data to determine first reference subscriber data; searching a second database using the identification data to determine second reference subscriber data; comparing the first reference subscriber data to the second reference subscriber data; and verifying an identity of the subscriber based on the comparing.
US07848498B2

An inquirer provides a support facility for a medical engineering system with a voice entry by means of a voice entry device. The support facility evaluates the voice entry by means of a voice recognition system and reacts correspondingly in that it outputs an acoustic output to the inquirer via an acoustic output device and an optical output via an optical device.
US07848494B2

A system and method for capturing and storing audio information from the forward or reverse link is disclosed. A communication device receives audio information via the forward or reverse link channel. The audio information is parsed and processed by voice recognition in order to translate the audio information into text information. Alternatively, the audio information may be recorded by the communication device and stored in memory for later processing. Once captured and translated, the text information can be edited and stored in various databases integral to the communication device. Additionally, when the text information comprises a telephone number, the communication device can place a call to that telephone number.
US07848493B2

A method and system are disclosed for capturing media during a recording session using a separate input device for each of plural audio sources. An exemplary method includes producing audio data with the separate input device, processing the audio data to identify a portion of audio data having a first audio characteristic, and storing an audio record for each identified portion of audio data. Each audio record is associated with temporal data used in determining a sequence of the identified portion of audio data in relation to other identified portions of audio data from other separate input devices, and each audio record is associated with identity data representing identifying characteristics for the identified portion of audio data.
US07848488B2

A radiation system includes a gantry having an opening and a first axis associated with the opening, a radiation source coupled to the gantry, a first bearing located adjacent a left side of the gantry, and a second bearing located adjacent a right side of the gantry, wherein the gantry is tiltable about the first and second bearings, the first and second bearings forming a second axis that is at a first angle relative to the first axis. A radiation system includes a gantry having an opening and a first axis associated with the opening, a radiation source coupled to the gantry, and a base to which the gantry is rotatably coupled, wherein the gantry is tiltable relative to the base about a second axis that forms an angle relative to the first axis, wherein an uppermost portion of the gantry is not coupled to a support frame of the gantry.
US07848484B2

Disclosed herein is a metal sorting device including an X-ray tube, a dual energy detector array, a microprocessor, and an air ejector array. The device senses the presence of samples in the x-ray sensing region and initiates identifying and sorting the samples. After identifying and classifying the category of a sample, at a specific time, the device activates an array of air ejectors located at specific positions in order to place the sample in the proper collection bin.
US07848474B2

Signal timing phase selection and timing acquisition apparatus and techniques are disclosed. A timing phase that is most closely aligned with a phase of information carried by a received signal is selected from a plurality of timing phases. The selected timing phase may be used, for example, as a reference signal for a phase detector in a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL). The received signal may be sampled one or more times per timing phase. In a multiple-sample implementation, the samples may be used for timing phase selection, for detection of a known initial pattern of a burst of information to thereby detect the start time of a an information burst, or both.
US07848470B2

In one embodiment of the present invention, a method for adjusting a signal includes applying at least one of a loss compensation for frequency-dependent distortion and an offset compensation for DC-offset distortion to a signal before or after the distortion occurs to generate an output signal. The method also includes, using a clock signal, sampling the output signal to generate a plurality of data values and boundary values, each value comprising either a high value or a low value based on the sampling of the output signal. The method further includes, based only on the high or low value of one or more of the data values and boundary values, adjusting at least one of the loss compensation and the offset compensation applied to the signal, where if the at least one of the loss compensation and the offset compensation applied to the signal is to be increased, the at least one of the loss compensation and the offset compensation is increased by a first amount, if the at least one of the loss compensation and the offset compensation applied to the signal is to be decreased, the at least one of the loss compensation and the offset compensation is decreased by a second amount, and the magnitude of the first amount is not equal to the magnitude of the second amount.
US07848469B2

A receiver for a telecommunication system, including a radio frequency unit connected to at least one antenna and configured to receive using a multitude of channels, and an estimator configured to estimate a first signal to interference and noise estimate dependent on a noise covariance matrix and channel vector, and estimate a second signal to interference and noise estimate dependent on the first signal to interference and noise estimate and a bias correction term.
US07848466B2

A method for synchronizing receivers that receive turbo encoded signals to a received signal. Turbo encoding may enable signals to be decoded at a much lower signal to noise ratio than previously practical. A traditional method of synchronizing a receiver to an incoming signal is to use a slicer to determine a received symbol and then to compare the determined symbol to the incoming waveform, in order to adjust the phase of the slicer with respect to the incoming signal. At signal low levels, at which turbo encoded signals may be decoded, this slicing method may be prone to errors that may disrupt the synchronization of the receiver to the incoming signal. By replacing the slicer by a Viterbi decoder with zero traceback (i.e., one which does not consider future values of the signal only past values) a prediction as to what the incoming signal is can be made. Because the Viterbi decoder can consider past signal values it can predict the present symbol being received with higher reliability than by using a slicer, which considers only the present value of the incoming signal.
US07848456B2

This invention concerns a wireless data communication method, wherein a transmitter device having a first wide band antenna transmits ultra-wide band coded data signals to a receiver device having a second wide band antenna for receiving the direct and/or multiple path coded data signals. The transmitted data is defined by one or several sequences of N pulses where N is an integer number greater than 1. The arrangement of the N pulses of each sequence represents a data coding relative to the transmitter device. The N pulses of a sequence of direct and/or multiple path coded data signals received by the receiver device are processed each in one among N corresponding reception time windows. Each of the N reception time windows is positioned in time based on a known theoretic arrangement of the N pulses of signals transmitted by the transmitter device. An adding operation of the N windows is then performed in the receiver device so that the amplitude level of the constantly added pulses is higher than the amplitude level of the noise sensed by the receiver device.
US07848454B2

Modulated signal A is transmitted from a first antenna, and modulated signal B is transmitted from a second antenna. As modulated signal B, modulated symbols S2(i) and S2(i+1) obtained from different data are transmitted at time i and time i+1 respectively. In contrast, as modulated signal A, modulated symbols S1(i) and S1(i)′ obtained by changing the signal point arrangement of the same data are transmitted at time i and time i+1 respectively. As a result the reception quality can be changed intentionally at time i and time i+1, and therefore using the demodulation result of modulated signal A of a time when the reception quality is good enables both modulated signals A and B to be demodulated with good error rate performances.
US07848441B2

An apparatus and method are disclosed to generate convolution encoded data. The method supplies a convolution encoder. The method receives original data and generates convolution encoded original data. The method receives revised data. The method generates an XOR data stream by Exclusive OR'ing the original data with the revised data, forms a convolution encoded XOR data stream using the convolution encoder, and Exclusive ORs the convolution encoded XOR data stream with the convolution encoded original data to generate convolution-encoded revised data.
US07848432B2

Presented herein are systems and methods for efficiently storing macroblocks in DRAM. The macroblocks are stored contiguously allowing each macroblock to be written and overwritten in a single write transaction. Additionally, in one embodiment, as many as five macroblocks can be written or overwritten in a single write transaction.
US07848421B2

A video encoding apparatus includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07848412B2

A video encoding apparatus includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07848401B2

In accordance with a particular embodiment of the present invention, a method is offered that includes characterizing a data correlation matrix for an idle pattern offline in a filter environment and, further, using a static adaptive control scheme with a static value of a data-pattern compensation matrix to achieve a compensated adaptive equalizer control. In more specific embodiments, the adaptive control scheme is used with a ZF adaptation scheme in conjunction with a constant adaptation matrix. In other embodiments, the adaptive control scheme is used with a fast steepest-descent method using a variable adaptation matrix. In still other embodiments, the adaptive control scheme is used with a constant adaptation matrix, whereby a value of is statically calculated. If the adaptive control scheme is used with a decoupling matrix, a value of is statically calculated. An inverter is used between the data correlation matrix and the data-pattern compensation matrix.
US07848396B1

Methods, circuits, and systems for increasing bandwidth and/or transition separation in data communications and data storage in the presence of potential intersymbol interference (ISI). The method includes writing L bits of serial data per data transition period to a channel, reading data units from the channel M times per data transition period (M≦L), and determining a most likely value for a K*2(L-M)-bit binary sequence of the data. The circuit generally receives m-ary symbols, converts them to n-ary data, and includes detector logic that (i) calculates a most likely n-ary data sequence from L-unit blocks thereof, and (ii) disallows subsequent L-unit blocks in which there is a transition and any of the first x units do not equal any of the last y units in an immediately preceding block (where x+y=L). Generally, successive transitions in the serial data are at least L/M bit lengths apart. The algorithm(s) and software generally implement the method, and the receivers and systems generally include the circuit. By using certain coding techniques and increasing the transmitter/write clock frequency, bandwidth and/or minimum transition separation in run length limited (RLL) encoded data can be increased dramatically.
US07848392B2

The invention relates to a rake receiver and a method for de-spreading thereof. A plurality of noise branches is adopted for producing a plurality of noise components in the rake receiver. Next, a noise combining unit adjusts each noise component according to a plurality of noise weights, so as to combine the noise components to obtain an interference-plus-noise estimation value. The rake receiver eliminates the noises in the main signal generated by the signal branches through using the interference-plus-noise estimation value. Therefore, the performance of a receiving terminal can be enhanced.
US07848383B2

Apparatus and method are provided for damping the induced fluid flow, particularly in the region of the base plate, in an electrically conductive material that is heated and melted in a cold crucible induction furnace. Damping is accomplished by establishing a dc magnetic field such that flow of the electrically conductive liquid metal in that dc magnetic field would induce eddy currents in the liquid metal which would generate forces that tend to oppose the flow. The dc magnetic field may be established by dc current flow in the ac induction coil that induces current in the material, dc current flow in a separate dc coil, or coils, constructed to prevent excessive induced losses, by discrete magnets, or a combination of any of the three prior methods.
US07848371B2

The laser device (22) is formed by a stack of laser diodes (4) arranged on plates (6) formed of a material that is electrically conductive and a good heat conductor. In order to obtain a high level of heat evacuation efficiency towards the cooling body (10) and to prevent electric short-circuiting problems, each plate has at the bottom end (24) thereof, an electrically insulating layer deposited on the surface thereof prior to being fixed to the cooling body by a securing material (26) that is preferably a good heat conductor, formed in particular by a braze layer. According to the invention, the insulating layer covers the end face of each plate and also goes up along the lateral faces of the latter over a certain height. The securing material is arranged under the end of the plate and also partially covers the insulating layer along the lateral faces of the plate.
US07848365B2

Provided are an apparatus for receiving cable broadcasting programs and a multiplexer and a de-multiplexer thereof for reducing data amount processed in a Cable CARD and for correcting synchronization of descrambled data stream. The apparatus includes: a multiplexing unit for filtering a broadcasting stream to select only programs selected by a viewer and multiplexing the selected programs; a conditional-access processing unit for receiving the multiplexed streams and processing the multiplexed streams for conditional access (descrambling); and a de-multiplexing unit for de-multiplexing the multi stream from the conditional-access processing unit and correcting a program clock reference (PCR).
US07848351B2

Provided is a method for sharing contents between devices using an IEEE 1394 interface in a DLNA system. The method includes transporting a SetAVTransportURI from a DMP to a DMS, and informing the DMS of a URI of a content; upon receipt of the SetAVTransportURI, performing the steps of transporting a “CONNECT” command to the DMP using a protocol, and preparing contents transport between the DMP and the DMS; upon preparation of the contents transport, performing the steps of transporting a command depending on each environment between the DMP and the DMS, controlling contents transport in the IEEE 1394 interface, and linking the contents transport between the DMP and the DMS; and upon ending of the contents control and transport, performing the steps of transporting a “DISCONNECT” command between the DMP and the DMS using the protocol, performing a cleanup between the DMP and the DMS, and ending the contents transport.
US07848349B2

In a trading system market data from a matching engine is distributed by a broker to a plurality of trading floors repeatedly every T seconds, typically one second. This one second distribution period is divided into a plurality of time slots and each trading floor is randomly assigned to a slot. Data for a given trading floor is calculated and distributed during the time slot assigned to that floor. The position of a trading floor relative to others is varied by swapping a pair of adjacent time slots every J distribution periods.
US07848346B2

A method of efficiently processing a random access response message, when a terminal (or user equipment) performs random access, is disclosed. After the terminal transmits a random access preamble to a base station, the terminal may receive a random access response message having a format of medium access control protocol data unit (MAC PDU) including only a backoff indicator subheader in a MAC header of the MAC PDU, from the base station in response to the random access preamble. As described above, the terminal, which has received the random access response message including only a backoff indicator subheader in the MAC header of the MAC PDU, may consider a random access response reception procedure not successful and may perform a subsequent procedure for a random access responses reception failure.
US07848342B2

A listening-or-viewing charge is differentiated with bit rates depending on distributed programs. A broadband access server for holding user channels by PPP and replicating and transferring multicast packets have a counter for counting the number of distributed multicast packets and the number of distributed bytes at each multicast group address. The counter values (byte counts and packet counts) when a user joins a multicast group and when the user leaves the multicast group and a multicast session ID containing a PPP user ID and a multicast group address are sent to a multicast accounting radius server. The multicast accounting server provides an accounting on a basis of the byte counts, the packet counts, or a bit rate.
US07848335B1

A virtual private network (VPN) tunnel is established that extends from a source spoke to a destination spoke in a hub-and-spoke enterprise network. Prior to establishing the VPN tunnel, packets are sent from the source spoke to the destination spoke through the hub network. In this manner, packets are not dropped while the VPN tunnel is being set up. The VPN tunnel is established by querying a server for the network address of a destination router in the destination spoke, then setting up the VPN tunnel using a secure communication protocol. An extension to the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol is used to obtain the private network address of the destination router during setup of the VPN tunnel. A forwarding table is updated after the VPN tunnel is established to reroute the packets through the new VPN tunnel.
US07848331B2

A method for processing a packet that includes receiving the packet where the packet comprises a header, and traversing a flow table comprising a plurality of flow table entries (FTEs) for each FTE encountered during the traversal, obtaining a packet matching function associated with the FTE, applying the packet matching function associated with the FTE to the header to determine whether the packet matches the FTE, if the packet matches the FTE, send the packet to one selected from the group consisting of one of a plurality of receive rings (RRs) and a first sub-flow table, where the first sub-flow table is associated with the FTE, stopping the traversal of the flow table, and if the packet does not match the FTE continue the traversal of the flow table.
US07848330B2

A communication apparatus includes a receiving device configured to receive a physical frame in which a plurality of MAC frames, each having a sequence number, are aggregated. A reception buffer which stores MAC frames of the physical frame received by the receiving device. A determination device determines whether or not the first MAC frame in the physical frame received by the receiving device has been successfully received. A reception buffer management device determines, when the first MAC frame has been successfully received, a MAC frame to be forwarded to an upper layer, on the basis of the sequence number of the first MAC frame, and extracts the MAC frame from the reception buffer.
US07848321B2

The present invention is directed to rapidly replacing an output destination port with a bypass port and replacing packet output header information with bypass header information when a port accommodated by a router within an IP or MPLS network becomes faulty. The present invention provides a packet forwarding apparatus that accommodates two output ports. The packet forwarding apparatus is embodied in a structure having an element for storing the output information about each of a plurality of pieces of input header information, an element for storing the output information about an output port that is associated with input header information and used as a bypass in the event of a fault, and an output information address rewrite processor for writing, in the event of an output port failure, the output information address associated with an output port that should serve as a bypass.
US07848317B2

A communication module system has an interface module for interconnection with at least one communication module, the interface module containing an input, via which the interface module receives first data and/or messages, a first transmission path and a second transmission path being provided in the interface module, a coupling element being provided in the second transmission path, which coupling element is implemented in such a way that the first data and/or messages are at least partially combined to form second data and/or messages.
US07848312B2

This document describes Toll Free IP (TIP), a business model and its enabling methods to provide no-charge-to-user (“toll-free”) connectivity through IP-based access networks (e.g., public wireless hotspot networks based on IEEE 802.11), which may be operated by different network operators. With TIP, the use of networks to communicate with a toll-free IP destination will be paid by the owner of the toll-free IP destination. A toll-free IP destination can be identified in many ways, e.g., by a toll-free IP address, toll-free Internet Domain Name, a toll-free Universal Resource Identifier or Universal Resource Locator. TIP enables a user to use networks without prior service subscriptions with network or service providers and without any special terminal software or hardware for gaining permission to use a network. It allows users to use more access networks, i.e., larger “footprints”, than any individual network operator or aggregator can provide. With TIP, a service provider can provide services over IP-based access networks without the need to have business arrangements with each individual network operator or aggregator. TIP can also be used to enable other value-added services such as Prepaid IP, Collect IP, Selective Charging, and a single prepaid account across access networks of multiple operators or aggregators and even across wireless LANs (e.g., public hotspots and enterprise wireless LANs) and cellular networks.
US07848288B2

A method and apparatus for estimating channelization codes in a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) using blind code detection (BCD). A WTRU receives communication bursts and detects a midamble in the received burst. A candidate code list is generated in accordance with the detected midamble. The candidate code list includes channelization codes intended for both the intended WTRU and other WTRUs. Active channelization codes among the codes in the candidate list are identified, and the identified codes are forwarded to a multi-user detector (MUD). Since the orthogonal variable spreading factor code maintains the orthogonality between codes of different SF, SFs of other WTRUs follow the SF of the intended WTRU. Moreover, since the data for other WTRUs is not used in symbol processing after MUD, the performance of MUD for the intended WTRU is preserved with the SF ambiguity of other WTRUs.
US07848287B2

The transfer delay QoS attribute for delay-sensitive applications is enforced in radio access networks by determining the ongoing validity of incomplete data packets based on a maximum data transfer delay constraint. According to one embodiment, upper-layer packet data units (PDUs) associated with an application having a maximum data transfer delay constraint are transferred by starting a timer responsive to initial transmission of an RLC data block associated with one or more of the upper-layer PDUs. The timer is initialized to a timer value that is based on the maximum data transfer delay constraint. The RLC data block is retransmitted responsive to a received message indicating reception of the RLC data block is unacknowledged so long as the timer has not expired. The RLC data block is deleted from memory responsive to the timer expiring or a received message indicating reception of the RLC data block is acknowledged.
US07848286B2

In a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a channel selection method of a WLAN station, a station newly entering the WLAN captures packets from WLAN service channels, which packets are provided by at least one access point (AP) for a predetermined measuring time. The WLAN calculates, from the captured packets, busy factors indicative of the load on each WLAN service channel so as to confer a priority between WLAN service channels. The WLAN selects channels according to the conferred priority.
US07848281B2

A transmission channel, for the transmission of messages from a mobile terminal to a base station, is selected after a terminal sends a send authorization request signal, for a particular transmission channel, to the base station and the base station sends a reply signal with a first decision value. The terminal is thus signaled whether the terminal is authorized to send a message on the requested transmission channel. On sending a first negative decision value, the base station sends a second positive decision value with the reply signal, when the terminal is authorized to send a message on another transmission channel. On detection of a first negative decision value, the terminal analyzes the reply signal further for whether a second positive decision value is contained therein and which other transmission channels are available and hence sends the message on one of the available transmission channels.
US07848271B2

The invention relates to a system and a method for selectively reducing power consumption of a communication device communicating with a network. In the method, it comprises the following steps: de-activating at least one communication subsystem of the device during intervals when the device is placed in a power save mode; and while the device is in the power save mode the method re-activates the subsystem in two instances. For the first instance, the communication subsystem is re-activated in relation to a first connection condition, and is then de-activated after a first event. For the second instance, the subsystem is re-activated in relation to a second connection condition and is then de-activated after a second event.
US07848262B2

A self healing ad hoc communications network and method of training for and healing the network. The network includes wireless devices or nodes that include a neural network element and the ad hoc network operates as a neural network. Some of the nodes are designated as healing nodes that are identified during network training and are strategically located in the network coverage area. Whenever one group of nodes loses connection with another a healing node may reposition itself to reconnect the two groups. Thus, the network can maintain connectivity without constraining node movement.
US07848254B2

Methods and apparatus are provided for determining equivalence and generalization of a network model. A method is provided for determining whether two networks are equivalent. A model of at least two networks is obtained, and then simplified using one or more normal form rules. A test is then performed to determine if the two simplified network models are equivalent (e.g., isomorphic). A first network M is said to be generalized by a second network N, M≦N, if every test that satisfies M also satisfies N. A first network M is said to be equivalent to a second network N, N≡M, if M generalizes N and N generalizes M.
US07848250B2

A wireless communication apparatus includes a transmission and reception unit, a monitoring unit, and a control unit. The transmission and reception unit transmits and receives a frame to and from a wireless communication terminal. The monitoring unit monitors an interference signal in a first communication channel. The control unit selects a second communication channel and a third communication channel. The second and the third communication channels are different from the first communication channel. The transmission and reception unit transmits an instruction frame to the wireless communication terminal when the monitoring unit detects the interference signal in the first communication channel. The instruction frame includes information on the second and third communication channels and instructs the wireless communication terminal to switch the communication channel from the first communication channel to at least one of the second and third communication channels.
US07848249B1

Systems and methods for estimating aggregate bandwidths of primary traffic flows are provided. Tighter upper bounds on aggregate bandwidths for arbitrary combinations of primary traffic flows may be computed. These tighter bounds are highly useful in configuring backup tunnels to protect a node in the event of failure in that the total backup bandwidth burden on individual links may be determined more accurately to permit optimal use of available backup bandwidth capacity.
US07848238B1

Methods and systems are provided for using VoIP-quality metrics to dynamically adjust the EV-DO reverse activity bit (RAB). In one embodiment, an EV-DO access node provides VoIP service to EV-DO access terminals, which comprises (i) providing EV-DO service in a wireless coverage area and (ii) providing transport service over a packet-data network. The access node measures reverse noise rise (RNR) in the wireless coverage area. The access node further measures, over the packet-data network, each VoIP-quality metric in a set of one or more VoIP-quality metrics. The access node then determines whether to set or clear the RAB in the wireless coverage area based at least in part on the measured RNR and at least in part on the one or more measured VoIP-quality metrics.
US07848237B2

A system and method is provided for reducing the bandwidth of MPEG transport streams during transmission over a packet-switched network. The system and method identifies characteristics of a plurality of media fragments disposed within each of a plurality of packets of a transport stream, and aggregates the characteristics into a summary value for each of the packets. The summary value is correlated to a priority weighting identifiable by a network element. Each of the packets is marked with the priority weighting, so that the packets may be selectively dropped by a network element in accordance with their priority weightings to reduce the bandwidth of the transport stream.
US07848235B2

Network evasion and misinformation detection are disclosed. Techniques are provided for network security, including determining whether a particular packet, segment, frame, or other data encapsulation has been retransmitted. By detecting and tracking retransmits, the packet may be compared to the original packet to determine whether an attack exists. By evaluating the original data stream and a copy of the original data stream modified with the retransmitted packet, an evasion or misinformation attempt may be detected, invoking pattern or signature matching to determine whether an attack is attempted against a target host.
US07848234B2

A method of providing network access across a shared communications medium between competing users includes the step of allocating network access for each user for a future time interval. Features include forecasting network access of the users in a future time interval, and prioritizing the users for allocating network access to the users. The network access allocations represent network access allowances available to the users during the future time interval, and further may represent network access usage. Classes of users can be allocated network access first, and then each user allocated network access from the class allocation. Users with high network access usage are identified and solicited to modify service level agreements under which network access is provided. Network Access is also provided to user classes under class service level agreements entered into, for instance, by a service provider on behalf of the users.
US07848224B2

A method is disclosed for constructing a repair path for multicast data around a non-available component in a data communications network having as components nodes and links therebetween. The method comprises the step performed at a repairing node, of receiving from a notifying node in a network, a notification identifying the notifying node and components through which the notifying node can be reached. The method further comprises the steps of deriving, from the notification, a network repair address for use in the event of non-availability of a component identified in the notification; and constructing a repair path for multicast data for the repair address.
US07848223B2

Methods and devices for operating a wireless network including redundant communication. Methods involving redundantly connected nodes are discussed including addressing methods and/or methods of creating groups for such redundant communication. The use of primary and secondary redundant connections is discussed. Also, devices for implementing such methods.
US07848212B2

High-density optical data storage comprising multi-layer optical disc and multi-wavelength reading/recording head, wherein the reading/recording head utilizes a single-mode optic fiber connecting the head with remote short-wavelength laser and acousto-optical (AO) cells that allow precisely positioning the focused light spot on the track and filtering the specific wavelength from multi-wavelength light emitted by the laser built in the head.
US07848199B2

An optical disk drive includes a spindle motor, a power source, a microprocessor, and a comparator. The spindle motor is for supporting a disk. The power source supplies a first voltage to drive the spindle motor to rotate. The microprocessor signals the power source to supply a second voltage to slow down rotational speed of the spindle motor when receiving a power-off signal. The comparator compares the rotational speed with a predetermined value. The microprocessor signals the power source to stop supplying power to the spindle motor when the rotational speed is smaller than the predetermined value. A controlling method for controlling the spindle motor in the optical disk driver is also provided.
US07848192B2

Additional recording is performed on a recording medium without using a VAT technique.An area including the 256th logical sector is reserved at disc initialization time, and additional recording is performed from this reserved area and after. Additional recording is performed by writing packets from a logical sector immediately after a recorded area (including the reserved area), and AVDP is recorded into two places having the last logical sector number N of a packet structure and a logical sector number less than 256 sectors from N, and thus additional recording in compliance with the UDF is possible after that. At the time of finalization, AVDP is recorded in the 256th logical sector, a surplus area in the reserved area is subjected to padding to ensure wide compatibility with playback-only apparatuses.
US07848189B2

It is an optical disk apparatus that comprises: a laser drive device for outputting a test power larger than a prescribed value in a gap section; an optical pickup for forming a beam spot on a disk and detecting reflected light; a focus error detector for detecting position shift between a recording face of the information recording medium and the beam spot; a focus control device for controlling the position shift; and a focus drive device for driving an objective lens in directions far from and close to the disk, wherein, in the gap section, the focus drive device keeps a focus drive output level of right before the laser drive device outputs the test power, and sets a recording power such that the emitted light power becomes the prescribed value.
US07848187B2

The present invention provides an information reproducing/recording apparatus capable of executing tracking servo normally in short time at the time of loading an information recording medium. At the time of executing a tracking servo process on a BD (Blu-ray Disc)-R capable of recording information selectively on a land track or a groove track during loading of the BD-R, the polarity of a tracking error signal adapted to trace of the land or the groove is temporarily determined on the basis of statistical information indicative of a result of a statistic taken to see which one of the BD-R that records information on the land track and the BD-R that records information on the groove track is more frequently used. On the basis of the tracking error signal of the polarity, an optical pickup is driven to execute tracking servo.
US07848181B2

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for optimizing optical disc navigators. According to the present invention, the optical disc player sets the optimum optical disc navigator that can be realized as the optical disc navigator for playing the optical disc by testing and adjusting basing on the optical disc navigator resources that are retrieved from the optical disc playing system (including the optical disc player, optical disc and network or other storage media) and the functions that can be realized by the default optical disc navigator within the optical disc playing system, so as to achieve the purpose of fully utilizing the resources and smooth playing.
US07848162B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a write controlling circuit configured to selectively provide a fixed pulse or a variable pulse according to a level of a test mode signal in a write operation mode, thereby adjusting a pulse width of an internal write pulse that is a current pulse driving an internal memory cell in response to the fixed pulse or the variable pulse.
US07848149B2

Storage elements are read multiple times and the results are accumulated and averaged for each storage element to reduce the effects of noise or other transients in the storage elements and associated circuits that may adversely affect the quality of the read. Several techniques may be employed, including: A full read and transfer of the data from the storage device to the controller device for each iteration, with averaging performed by the controller; a full read of the data for each iteration, with the averaging performed by the storage device, and no transfer to the controller until the final results are obtained; one full read followed by a number of faster re-reads exploiting the already established state information to avoid a full read, followed by an intelligent algorithm to guide the state at which the storage element is sensed. These techniques may be used as the normal mode of operation, or invoked upon exception condition, depending on the system characteristics. A similar form of signal averaging may be employed during the verify phase of programming. An embodiment of this technique would use a peak-detection scheme. In this scenario, several verify checks are performed at the state prior to deciding if the storage element has reached the target state. If some predetermined portion of the verifies fail, the storage element receives additional programming. These techniques allow the system to store more states per storage element in the presence of various sources of noise.
US07848146B2

A method for partial local self-boosting of a memory cell channel is disclosed. As a part of memory cell channel partial local self-boosting, an isolating memory cell located on a source side of a program inhibited memory cell is turned off and a gating memory cell located on a drain side of the program inhibited memory cell is used to pass a pre-charge voltage to the program inhibited memory cell to provide a pre-charge voltage to a channel of the program inhibited memory cell. Moreover, a pre-charge voltage is passed to a buffering memory cell located on the source side of the program inhibited memory cell to provide a pre-charge voltage to a channel of the buffering memory cell and the gating memory cell that is located on the drain side of the program inhibited memory cell is turned off. During programming, a program voltage is applied to the gate of the program inhibited memory cell where a channel voltage of the program inhibited memory cell is raised above a level raised by the pre-charge voltage.
US07848144B2

To store, in a memory block whose word lines are written successively in a word line writing order, a plurality of data pages that are ordered by logical page address, the pages are written to the word lines so that every page that is written to any one of the word lines has a higher logical page address than any page that is written to a subsequently written word line, regardless of the sequence in which the pages are received for writing. Alternatively, the pages are written to the word lines so that for every pair of written word lines, the word line of the pair that is earlier in the writing order has written thereto a page having a higher logical page address than at least one page written to the other word line of the pair.
US07848140B2

A memory system includes memory cells arranged in sectors. A decoder corresponding to a sector disables memory cells having a defective top gate. The decoder may include a low voltage or high voltage latch for the disabling. A top gate handling algorithm is included. The memory system may include dynamic top gate coupling. A programming algorithm and waveforms with top gate handling is included.
US07848135B2

A piezoelectrically programmed, non-volatile memory cell structure includes a programmable piezo-resistive hysteretic material (PRHM) that is capable of being interconverted between a low resistance state and high resistance state through applied pressure cycling thereto; a piezoelectric material mechanically coupled to the PRHM such that an applied voltage across the piezoelectric material results in one of a tensile or compressive stress applied to the PRHM, depending upon the polarity of the applied voltage; and one or more electrodes in electrical communication with the PRHM, wherein the one or more electrodes are configured to provide a write programming current path through the piezoelectric material and a read current path through the PRHM.
US07848133B2

A phase change memory may be organized with a global word line coupled to a plurality of blocks, each with a plurality of phase change memory cells arranged in rows and columns. Thus, one global word line may be common to a plurality of blocks. The global word line may be coupled to a word line decoder that is responsible for pulling the word line to ground. Each of the blocks, on the other hand, is coupled to a bitline selector through a bitline. Each block may have its own local word line coupled to the global word line. In some cases, this architecture reduces the minimum capacity of the memory.
US07848132B2

FRAM includes a tunable gain amp serving as a local sense amp, wherein the tunable gain amp is connected to a local bit line for reading a memory cell including a pass transistor and a ferroelectric capacitor, and gain is adjusted by setting a local amp voltage for reading the memory cell more effectively with optimized gain. And a global sense amp is connected to the local sense amp for receiving a read output. When reading data, a voltage difference in the local bit line is converted to a time difference by the sense amps for differentiating high data and low data. For example, high data is quickly transferred to an output latch circuit through the sense amps with high gain, but low data is rejected by a locking signal based on high data as a reference signal. Additionally, alternative circuits and memory cell structures for implementing the memory are described.
US07848129B1

A content addressable memory (CAM) device includes a comparand register, a CAM array, and partition logic. The comparand register has inputs to receive a search key, and outputs coupled to the CAM array, which includes a plurality of individually selectable sub-arrays. Each sub-array includes a number of rows of CAM cells and a control circuit, wherein each row of CAM cells is coupled to a match line, and wherein the control circuit has an input to receive a corresponding sub-array enable signal. The partition logic has an input to receive a partition select signal, and is configured to generate the sub-array enable signals in response to the partition select signal. The control circuits selectively propagate the search key through the sub-arrays in response to the sub-array enable signals.
US07848128B2

A content addressable memory (CAM) device includes an array of memory cells arranged in rows in a word line direction and columns arranged in a bit line direction, and compare circuitry configured to compare data presented to the array with data stored in each row and column of the array, and simultaneously indicate match results on each row and column of the array, thereby resulting in a two-dimensional, matrix-based data comparison operation.
US07848123B2

A current controlled shunt regulator uses logical OR gates and comparators corresponding to each field effect transistor (FET) shunt to redirect power to a neutral line whenever a controller indicates that power should be redirected, or whenever a phase voltage connected to the FET shunt is negative. The logical OR gate accepts inputs from the comparator and from the controller and outputs a control signal based on these inputs. When power is not being redirected by the FET shunts, AC power from a permanent magnet alternator is allowed to flow unimpeded to a DC rectifier which converts the power to a different format.
US07848119B2

An exemplary DC to DC converter (2) includes a transistor (29), a first rectifying and filtering circuit (21), a pulse generating circuit (27) and a transformer (25). The first rectifying and filtering circuit transforms an external AC voltage to a first DC voltage. The transformer includes a primary winding (251), an assistant winding (252) connected with the primary winding in a flyback mode, and a secondary winding (253). The first DC voltage is connected to ground via the primary winding, the transistor in series. The pulse generating circuit includes a controlling terminal, a diode, a resistor, and a capacitor. One terminal of the assistant winding is connected to ground, and the other terminal of the assistant winding is connected to an anode of the diode. A cathode of the diode is connected to ground via the resistor and the capacitor in series. The controlling terminal is connected to gate electrode of the transistor.
US07848114B1

An electronic ballast and ballast housing having an integral ground for a circuit board positioned within the housing. A ‘snap in’ capture means holds circuit board under flexion so as to press a circuit grounding means in electrical contact with an integral grounding device attached to the ballast housing and providing electrical continuity between the circuit grounding means and the ballast housing. The coupler includes a grounding tab with a fulcrum extension extending from the housing and holding a ground plane surface of the circuit board by means of serrated teeth. An alignment tab disposed on a housing wall receives an alignment slot disposed in the circuit board so as to provide proper alignment of the electrical contacts. The coupler includes an overhead extension that engages a jumper wire in the circuit of the circuit board.
US07848108B1

A heatsink including an electromagnetic bandgap structure reduces electromagnetic interference caused by an integrated circuit in an electronic device. One embodiment provides a heatsink having a base with an array of electrically-conductive, thermally-conductive patches spaced apart in two dimensions of a reference plane and having a thickness perpendicular to the reference plane. The patches are interconnected by a plurality of branches. Each branch connects adjacent patches and has a width in the reference plane of less than a width of each adjacent patch. A plurality of thermally conductive cooling fins coupled to a surface of the base and extend normal to the reference plane. The cooling fins may be formed of a thermally-conductive, electrically non-conductive material or may be coupled to the base by a thermally-conductive, electrically non-conductive material. The periodically patterned structure of the base, together with a solid metal layer of a circuit board, form an electromagnetic bandgap structure that reduces certain frequencies of electromagnetic noise caused by the integrated circuit.
US07848099B1

A hard disk drive holder includes main body, spindle slidably mounted to the main body, handle rotatably connected to the main body via the spindle, and hook slidably mounted to the main body. The handle includes claw and locking tongue. The handle rotates between closed and opened positions. When the handle is at closed position, if the spindle slides from a first position to a second position, the locking tongue gradually extends out of the main body. When the handle rotates to closed position, if the spindle isn't at first position, the claw engages with a blocking piece of the hook and compels the hook to slide from a third position towards a fourth position until the claw goes over the blocking piece. A first spring biases the spindle to second position. A second spring biases the handle to opened position. A third spring biases the hook to third position.
US07848098B2

A hard disk bracket for fixing a hard disk defining a plurality of positioning holes in two opposite sidewalls thereof includes a chassis and two substantially parallel rows of fixing members projecting from the chassis, spaced from each other, and receiving the hard disk therebetween. Each row of the fixing portion includes at least resilient two limiting portions each including a positioning pin received in the corresponding positioning hole to fix the hard disk and at least one supporting portion including a supporting plate parallel to the chassis to support the hard disk. The at least two limiting portions align with the at least one supporting portion. A distance between the surface of the chassis and the positioning pin is greater than that between the surface of the chassis and the supporting plate.
US07848091B2

A dual-screen mobile display device, which embodies a dual-screen display according to a user's selection. The dual-screen mobile display device for a mobile device includes an image signal supply part for supplying a first image signal and a second image signal. A first active matrix organic light emitting display panel displays the first image signal. A housing mounts the first active matrix organic light emitting display panel. A second active matrix organic light emitting display panel is adapted to be inserted in and pulled out from the housing and displays at least one of the first image signal or the second image signal. A moving mechanism moves the second active matrix organic light emitting display panel outside of the housing. A fixing part fixes the second active matrix organic light emitting display panel when the second active matrix organic light emitting display panel is moved outside of the housing.
US07848086B1

A power supply fixing device can effectively fix a power supply inside a computer case. One end of the power supply fixing device is movably assembled at a plate in the computer case, and a suppress surface is used to suppress the power supply. In addition, by hooking at the other end, which is formed at the fixing device, to the other plane of the computer case, and by moving an operating member of the fixing device to a packing position, the entire power supply can be fixed. The entire operation process is performed without an aid of a hand tool, and there is no need to use screws or screw holes, such that the power supply can be dismantled and assembled more conveniently.
US07848079B1

A capacitor assembly comprises a capacitor housing wherein a relatively larger main capacitor and at least one relatively smaller secondary capacitor can be enclosed and include an efficient and simple combination of electrical connections from the multiple capacitors to an external electrical connection interface. Another aspect includes a capacitor housing wherein volumetric efficiency is enhanced by the arrangement of the multi-capacitors within a given volume of a cavity of the housing. For a given size main capacitor and one or more secondary capacitors, the total volume of space occupied by those capacitors and the housing is minimized to take up minimum room in an electrical box.
US07848068B2

A circuit capable of providing electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection includes a first transistor including a first gate and a first source, the first gate being connected to a conductive pad, an impedance device between the first source and a first power rail capable of providing a resistor, a second transistor including a second gate and a second source, the second source being connected to the first power rail through the impedance device, and a clamp device between the first power rail and a second power rail, wherein the clamp device is capable of conducting a first portion of an ESD current and the second transistor is capable of conducting a second portion of the ESD current as the conductive pad is relatively grounded.
US07848065B2

A magnetoresistive sensor having magnetically anisotropic bias layers for biasing the free layer of the sensor. Hard bias structures for biasing the magnetization of the free layer are formed at either side of the sensor stack, and each of the hard bias structure includes a hard magnetic layer that has a magnetic anisotropy to enhance the stability of the biasing. The hard bias structure can include a Cr under-layer having a surface that has been treated by a low power angled ion milling to form it with an anisotropic surface texture. A layer of Cr—Mo alloy is formed over the Cr under-layer and the hard magnetic material layer is formed over the Cr—Mo alloy layer. The anisotropic surface texture of the Cr layer induces an aligned crystalline structure in the hard magnetic layer that causes the hard magnetic layer to have a magnetic anisotropy.
US07848056B2

A thin film magnetic head includes a main magnetic pole layer conducting a magnetic flux to the recording medium so that the recording medium an be magnetized in a direction orthogonal to a surface thereof; a return yoke layer disposed on a trailing side of the main magnetic pole layer; an intermediate protective layer partially disposed on a magnetic shield layer; and a thermal expansion suppressing layer having an edge located on the intermediate protective layer and being in contact with the return yoke layer in an area where the intermediate protective layer is not formed. If the thin film magnetic head is affected by ambient temperature environment, the thermal expansion suppressing layer suppresses the shift of the main magnetic pole layer and the return yoke layer toward the air bearing surface. This suppresses thermal protrusion from occurring on the thin film magnetic head due to ambient temperature environment.
US07848048B1

A patterned-media magnetic recording disk drive has compensation for write head track misregistration (TMR) from the track centerline. As the disk rotates, the read head detects angularly spaced servo sectors and generates a position error signal (PES) which is used by the servo control system to maintain the read head on track. As the disk rotates, the read head also detects angularly spaced synchronization marks, which are used to control the write clock so that magnetization reversal of the magnetic write field from the write head is synchronized with the position of the data islands. If there is TMR of the write head, there will be an effective shift of Δφ in the timing of when the center of the data islands pass through the write field. The disk drive includes write clock phase adjustment circuitry that correlates the PES with Δφ to compensate for TMR of the write head.
US07848045B1

The power required by a voice coil motor (VCM) to maintain the head in the data region of a disk drive during an idle mode is further reduced. The current supplied to the VCM is switched on and off. This takes advantage of the inherent inductance in the VCM, which maintains a current after the current supply is switched off. The current will slowly decay, with it being switched on again before it reaches a level where the average value won't offset the flex bias. In one embodiment, the current is maintained in a single direction, to offset the flex bias which pushes in one direction. Digital switches are used to reduce the power consumption of the control circuitry.
US07848043B1

Circuits, systems, and methods for generating bias for a magneto-resistive (MR) sensor in a magnetic storage device. The circuits generally include an amplifier having an input coupled to a magneto-resistive (MR) sensor, a feedback resistive element having an output coupled to the MR sensor, and a feedback control circuit having a first input coupled to an output of the amplifier, an output coupled to an input of the feedback resistive element, and a second input coupled the output of the feedback resistive element, wherein the feedback control circuit is configured to provide a bias current to the MR sensor through the feedback resistive element. The methods generally include amplifying a signal from the MR sensor to produce an amplified signal, producing a feedback signal from the amplified signal, the feedback signal having a predetermined bias characteristic, and applying the feedback signal to the MR sensor. The systems generally include those that embody one or more of the inventive concepts disclosed herein. The present invention advantageously provides for low noise output from the preamplifier by locating all or most of the potentially noisy bias generating circuitry at the post-amplification side of the feedback loop.
US07848039B2

A magnetic recording disk drive uses a disk having pre-patterned servo sectors extending generally radially across the data tracks. The servo sectors include at least two position error signal (PES) bursts or fields. The phases of the PES fields in the servo readback signal are demodulated to generate a PES to control the disk drive actuator for positioning the read/write heads. Each field contains generally radially directed magnetized stripes, with each stripe comprising a plurality of islands forming a zigzag pattern. The stripes have alternating polarity of magnetizations in the along-the-track direction. In one implementation there are four fields: a first pair of fields A and B wherein the zigzag pattern of the radial stripes in field A is the mirror image about a radial line of the zigzag pattern of the radial stripes in field B, and a second like pair of fields C and D, but wherein the radial stripes in fields C and D are shifted radially by one-half the island radial height from the radial stripes in fields A and B.
US07848038B1

A driver for driving a load over a transmission line, such as driving the magnetic head of a hard disk drive. The driver includes a signal switch for switching the signal to the load during a signal period, and a boost switch for boosting the signal during a boost period, so as to decrease rise time of the signal at the load by deliberately injecting an overshoot. A switchable protection device protects the signal switch and the boost switch. The protection device includes a reflection-suppression switch which is pulsed during a time corresponding to the expected return of a reflection corresponding to the overshoot signal, so as to force the protection device into saturation mode. Since the protection device is in the saturation mode during the return reflection of the boost signal, the returned reflection sees a matched impedance and thus reduces a re-reflection back to the load.
US07848036B1

An external lens device is mounted in front of a lens of an image pickup device. The external lens device includes a fixer and an external lens. The fixer includes a fixing slot and an alignment slice. The alignment slice includes a first reference mark and a second reference mark. The first reference mark is enclosed by the second reference mark. The first reference mark is arranged in the middle portion of the second reference mark. After the fixer is placed in front of the image pickup device, an outer portion of the second reference mark of the alignment slice is parallel with the lens fastening part of the lens of the image pickup device, the first reference mark is aligned with a center of the lens of the image pickup device, and the second reference mark is concentric with a lens fastening part of the lens.
US07848034B2

A flat spring plate includes an outer closed-loop frame having a plurality of evenly spaced outer connection parts and a plurality of elongated side frame members each interconnected between the two corresponding adjacent outer connection parts, an inner closed-loop frame concentric with and surrounded by the outer frame, and a plurality of spring parts interconnected between the respective outer connection parts of the outer frame and the respective inner connection parts of the inner frame. The inner frame includes a plurality of evenly spaced inner connection parts. Each of the spring parts includes a U-shaped part adjacent to the corresponding outer connection part, a curved part adjacent to the corresponding inner connection part, and an elongated intermediate part interconnected between the U-shaped part and the curved part. Each elongated intermediate part is substantially parallel to the corresponding side frame member of the outer frame.
US07848030B2

In an image forming optical system having a positive lens group, a negative lens group, and an aperture stop, the positive lens group being disposed at an image-plane side of the aperture stop and having a cemented lens, and when a straight line indicated by Nd=α×νd+β (where, α=−0.017) is set, Nd and νd of at least one lens forming the cemented lens are included in both an area which is determined by a line when a lower limit value is in a range of a following conditional expression (1), and a line when an upper limit value is in a range of the following conditional expression (1), and in an area determined by following conditional expressions (2) and (3) 1.45<β<2.15  (1) 1.30
US07848018B2

In an automatic microscope, there is the task to satisfy the demand for an economical, compact structure, especially a miniaturization as an essential aspect. The automatic microscope contains an optical system having the following: an illumination field (1) which is at least approximately arranged in the aperture diaphragm plane (ABE) of a condenser (2) and is used for the illumination of the object; an imaging optic (4); and, an image-providing sensor (5) arranged in the image plane of the imaging optic.
US07848013B2

An optical fiber amplifier pumping technique based on multiple stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) for optical communication systems includes a plurality of pump signals with increasing wavelength which are injected into a fiber. The wavelengths of such pump signals are such that, in cascade, each pump signal of the plurality is amplified by the pump signal of wavelength immediately shorter, while it amplifies that with the wavelength immediately higher with the pump signal of highest wavelength which, in turn, pumps a remote rare earth doped optical fiber amplifier.
US07848011B2

A wavelength converting element which does not generate crystal destruction and output saturation of a second harmonic due to a third harmonic generated inside the element is provided. The wavelength converting element receives a fundamental wave which is light having a wavelength (lambda), outputs the second harmonic which is light having a wavelength (lambda/2), and has a crystal including at least one element selected from a group composed of Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Eu, Gd, Ho, Yb, and Lu as an additive.
US07848004B2

An interference modulator (Imod) incorporates anti-reflection coatings and/or micro-fabricated supplemental lighting sources. An efficient drive scheme is provided for matrix addressed arrays of IMods or other micromechanical devices. An improved color scheme provides greater flexibility. Electronic hardware can be field reconfigured to accommodate different display formats and/or application functions. An IMod's electromechanical behavior can be decoupled from its optical behavior. An improved actuation means is provided, some one of which may be hidden from view. An IMod or IMod array is fabricated and used in conjunction with a MEMS switch or switch array. An IMod can be used for optical switching and modulation. Some IMods incorporate 2-D and 3-D photonic structures. A variety of applications for the modulation of light are discussed. A MEMS manufacturing and packaging approach is provided based on a continuous web fed process. IMods can be used as test structures for the evaluation of residual stress in deposited materials.
US07847994B2

A light scanning system and an image forming apparatus including the same, the light scanning system including: one or more light sources to emit light; a deflector to deflect the emitted light; and one or more f-θ lenses to focus the deflected light onto a photosensitive medium, wherein the light emitted by the one or more light sources is obliquely incident on a plane perpendicular to a rotational axis of the deflector, and the f-θ lens satisfies −0.5
US07847981B2

An image forming device is provided which is capable of printing paper fingerprint data encoded into code data on a paper sheet without inducing significant degradation of printing performance due to the slowing of the printing speed. In order to halt paper sheet transport until the processing of sending composite image data, including paper fingerprint data, to a printer has completed, a control component issues to a paper sheet transport control component instructions to halt paper sheet transport temporarily after the scanning of paper fingerprint. The paper sheet transport control component halts paper sheet transport after receiving these instructions. Subsequently, when composite image data is sent to the printer and is ready to be printed on the paper sheet, the control component issues to the paper sheet transport control component instructions to resume paper sheet transport. The paper sheet transport control component resumes paper sheet transport after receiving these instructions.
US07847978B2

An image reading apparatus is provided which includes a contact image sensor comprised of a plurality of sensor chips arranged in series, an analog image processor for processing an analog image signal from the contact image sensor, a unit for conducting black shading correction for each pixel and a unit for conducting white shading correction for each pixel. The image reading apparatus further includes a unit for digitally monitoring a black offset value corresponding to each chip with respect to the signal that has been processed by the analog image processor and a unit for adding and subtracting a black offset variation amount for each chip in the previous stage of the unit for conducting black shading correction for each pixel, and corrects black offset based on an instruction of a control unit.
US07847977B2

To provide a prepared color separation table for an inkjet printing apparatus that suppresses unevenness due to differences in the color of regular reflected light when a printing medium surface used for printing pigment-based inks is irradiated with light and which can output a high quality image. It is a printing apparatus that can carry out printing using recording materials and when reproducing a color of a predetermined color region using numerous types of the said recording materials with different regular reflected light colors it uses at least one type of the recording materials over the entire area in the predetermined color region.
US07847968B2

It is possible to provide an information processing apparatus capable of appropriately processing a job for case binding without depending on the sequence of page data constituting the job, a method for controlling the apparatus and a program. To accomplish this, a job for case binding is inputted, and the inputted job is stored in storage means of the image processing apparatus. A bookbinding cover attribute is set for page data to be a cover, in the job stored in the storage means. The order of output of page data in the job is determined based on the set attribute. The page data in the job stored in the storage means are read and outputted to a printer unit in accordance with the determined output order.
US07847966B2

There is provided an information processing system, which comprises a printing unit, a link information print control unit configured such that when first contents which has a first address and contains an object to which a second address is assigned as a link target address are printed, it causes the printing unit to print link information indicating that the first address is a link source address and the second address is the link target address, a link information obtaining unit configured to obtain the link information printed by the printing unit, a second content access unit configured to access second contents to which the second address is assigned in accordance with the link information, and a link source address notification unit configured to notify the link target address of information on the first address in response to execution of access by the second content access unit.
US07847960B2

In order to enable setting of a reading condition from an external apparatus, an image reading apparatus includes a reading unit reading a document and outputting an image data in accordance with a given reading condition, a communication unit communicating with an external apparatus through a communication line, a user interface unit receiving an instruction input from a user, and a control unit controlling the reading unit, the communication unit and the user interface unit, and the control unit includes an associating portion associating, when a reading condition is received from the external apparatus through the communication unit, the received reading condition with a one-touch key provided at the user interface unit.
US07847959B2

A processor implemented method and data processing system are provided for providing secure network tunneling. A request is received at a printer to transmit data to a network server. A secure network tunnel is established between the printer and the network server. The data is transmitted from the printer to the network server over the secure network tunnel. A server acknowledgement is received at the printer that the data has been received by the network server.
US07847958B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image reading section for reading an image of a book, to which an information tag is added, so as to acquire image data. Based on information stored in the information tag, the image forming apparatus controls an image forming section. The image forming apparatus further includes a tag addition determining section, an added information determining section, and a control section. The tag addition determining section determines whether or not the information tag is added to the book, and the added information determining section determines whether or not the image data contains added information indicating that the information tag is added to the book. Further, the control section controls the image forming section not to carry out image forming, both when the added information determining section determines that the added information is contained and the tag addition determining section determines that the information tag is not added to the book. With the above structure, it is possible to prevent unlimited copying, which may occur when a storage device added to an original document is removed from the original document.
US07847957B2

The present invention discloses an image processing method and an image processing apparatus which is capable of preventing wasteful consumption of toner and an increase in processing time when a page including information not desired by a user such as an advertisement on a Web page is printed. According to the image forming method of the present invention, the image forming method includes a mode for printing image data without change and a mode for simplifying and printing the image data or not printing the image data, and executes print processing according to a mode set by the user.
US07847956B2

Disclosed are systems and methods enabling a user to select optimal parameters for a printing job. The systems and methods disclosed are directed to facilitating the adjustment of printing parameters based upon at least the knowledge of a particular aspect of a printing environment (e.g., printer) and further including the ability to dynamically adjust parameters in relation to dynamically adjustable parameters, wherein the parameters may be determined as a function of other specified parameters.
US07847955B2

A surface sensing device for use in position determining apparatus has an elongate stylus (74) with a tip (82) for scanning the surface of a workpiece to be measured. Lateral displacements of the stylus tip are detected by a light beam which passes along the stylus from a light source (66) to a retroreflector (78). This reflects the beam back via a beamsplitter (70) to a position sensitive detector (76). The stylus is mounted for longitudinal displacement on a carriage (72). The longitudinal displacement is measured by another light beam projected by the beamsplitter (70) onto a second position sensitive detector (84).
US07847951B2

Some embodiments of the present invention provide optical coherence tomography systems including an OCT engine and a processor. The OCT engine is configured to provide both standard OCT imaging and spectral domain phase microscopy (SDPM) imaging. The processor is coupled to the OCT engine and is configured to use a first signal processing method when the OCT engine is configured to provide standard OCT imaging and a second signal processing method when the OCT engine is configured to provide SDPM imaging. Related methods and computer program products are also provided.
US07847944B2

A Method of correcting a multi-path absorbance measuring system is suggested. The multi-path absorbance measuring system has a plurality of n measuring path: The method is executed by correcting the signal of the measuring paths based on a determined linearization function.
US07847942B1

A peripheral interface device for determining the color of a surface, where the surface color may then be used to determine device position and identify objects. Embodiments provide a device capable of directing different colors of light (e.g., red, green and blue) onto a surface and measuring relative intensities of the reflected colors to determine the color of the surface. The reflection and measurement of each color may be performed separately. Alternatively, composite-colored light may be directed at the surface, which may then be filtered to extract the different colors and enable measurement of their relative intensities. As such, the device can detect regions of a given color and regions of different shades of the same color, which may then be used to determine the position of the device and/or identify an object.
US07847937B1

An optical measurement system includes a rotating element ellipsometer comprising a radiant source and a rotating optical element coupled to the radian source, an optical system to provide a modulated pump beam, a detection system optically coupled to the ellipsometer and a signal analyzer. The rotating element ellipsometer is configured to deliver a probe beam to a measurement spot on a sample and to measure one or more ellipsometric parameters of the sample at one or more discrete wavelengths or wavelength ranges, or a plurality of wavelengths across a wavelength range. Methods for determining sample characteristics from radiation scattered, reflected, diffracted or otherwise emitted from a sample surface using the optical measurement systems are also disclosed.
US07847936B2

Apparatus for the detection of analytes in a fluid, for example the eluant from a liquid chromatography is described. Solvent is evaporated from the eluant to produce a stream of particles when analyte is present in the fluid. The resultant stream of particles is passed through one or more beams of radiation, typically visible light, and radiation scattered by the particles is detected at least at a first angle to a beam of radiation and at a second, different, angle to a radiation beam to produce a signal indicative of the presence of the analyte.Chromatographic apparatus incorporating the detector and methods of operating the detector and chromatographic apparatus are also described.
US07847925B2

A system and method for forming acoustic beams is disclosed. One embodiment is an acoustic system configured to generate a plurality of beams non-orthogonal to a transducer array simultaneously with a vertical acoustic beam orthogonal to the array. The acoustic system includes a plurality of transducer elements arranged to form a two-dimensional array and electrically connected into rows in a first dimension and columns in a second dimension.
US07847922B2

In a method for capturing three-dimensional data of an area of space, a plurality of measuring beams (Ls) are sent out to a plurality of measuring points. A detector (50) receives a plurality of reflected beams (Lr) which are reflected by the measuring points (34a). A plurality of distances to the measuring points (34a, 34b) are determined as a function of the reflected beams (Lr). According to one aspect of the invention, at least one object (30) which comprises a hidden channel (66) having a visible entry opening (72) is located in the area of space. A rod-shaped element (32) is inserted into the channel (66) in such a manner that a free end (70) protrudes from the entry opening (72). A first distance to a first measuring point (34a) and a second distance to a second measuring point (34b) are determined. An orientation (74) of the hidden channel (66) is determined as a function of the first and the second distances.
US07847916B2

An exposure apparatus exposes a substrate by projecting an image of a pattern onto the substrate via a projection optical system and a liquid that fills a gap between the projection optical system and the substrate. The exposure apparatus has a liquid recovery mechanism with a drive section powered by electric power supplied from a commercial power source and an uninterruptible power source separate from the commercial power source. When the commercial power source has a failure, the supply of electric power to the drive section is switched to the uninterruptible power source.
US07847910B2

A display panel according to the present invention includes: a common wiring (4) formed above a TFT array substrate (30) and having a first terminal (5); a first transparent conductive film (6) formed above the common wiring (4); an interlayer insulating film (15) formed above the first transparent conductive film (6) and having a first terminal portion contact hole (17) formed outside a display area (54) and inside a sealing material (50); and a terminal pad (20) formed above the interlayer insulating film (15) and electrically connected to the common wiring (4) through the first transparent conductive film (6) in the first terminal portion contact hole (17).
US07847909B2

A liquid crystal display (LCD) device includes lower and upper substrates attached to each other, a plurality of data lines on the lower substrate, a plurality of lead lines on the lower substrate, the lead lines being positioned in a dummy region of the lower substrate, a plurality of scan lines on the upper substrate, the scan lines being connected to respective lead lines and being positioned to intersect with the data lines, and at least one dummy pattern on the lower substrate, the dummy pattern being positioned in the dummy region between an edge of the lower substrate and a corresponding outermost lead line of the plurality of lead lines.
US07847898B2

Disclosed is an in-plane switching liquid crystal display. The in-plane switching liquid crystal display uses at least one A-plate and adjusts the optical axis direction and the retardation value of the A-plate, thereby improving the contrast characteristic at a front and at a predetermined inclination angle of the in-plane switching liquid crystal display while minimizing a color shift according to viewing angles in the black state.
US07847894B2

Disclosed are a transreflective type LCD and a method of manufacturing the same. A color filter substrate is formed with a light transreflective member for reflecting an external light or transmitting an artificial light and a visual angle increasing member for increasing the visual angle of the light from the light transreflective member. A thickness of a color filter varies to obtain a uniformity of the light from the light transreflective member regardless of the transmissive and the reflective modes. The light from the light transreflective member is provided through a TFT substrate to a user as an image.
US07847888B2

The present invention provides a liquid crystal display device containing: a liquid crystal cell; a backlight; a first polarizing plate disposed between the liquid crystal cell and the backlight and having a polarizer and at least two protective films disposed so as to sandwich the polarizer; and a second polarizing plate disposed on a side of the liquid crystal cell opposite to a side on which the first polarizing plate is provided and having a polarizer and at least two protective films disposed so as to sandwich the polarizer, wherein a moisture permeability of the protective films on both sides of the first polarizing plate at 60° C. and 95% RH is more than 300 g/m2·day, and a moisture permeability of at least one protective film of the second polarizing plate at 60° C. and 95% RH is equal to or less than 300 g/m2·day.
US07847878B2

An electronic apparatus includes a frame made of metal, a holder that is made of metal and engaged with the frame, a display panel that is arranged between the frame and the holder, and configured to display information, and a housing that includes a front case and a rear case, and accommodates the frame, the holder and the display panel
US07847875B2

An exemplary anti-interference wiring assembly for a liquid crystal display device includes a base substrate (210), gate lines (201) formed at the base substrate, anti-interference wires (230), and data lines (202). The anti-interference wires are provided between the gate lines and the data lines and are insulated from the gate lines and the data lines respectively. The anti-interference wires are configured for carrying signals having a reverse phase compared to signals carried by the corresponding gate lines.
US07847867B2

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to a reflective liquid crystal display apparatus which includes a polarization beam splitter having a polarization split film used as both a polarizer and an analyzer; a reflective liquid crystal display device; a quarter wave plate; and a projection optical system; where the absolute value of phase difference of diffracted light generated by the reflective liquid crystal display device in a black display state is reduced by the phase difference of the quarter wave plate, and thus the amount of stray light of the diffracted light guided from the polarizing beam splitter to the projection optical system decreases.
US07847861B2

The H.264 standard has introduced a new coding method for intra-coded pictures, which is named “intra prediction”. The basic idea of intra prediction is to predict a block using reconstructed neighbour pixels. Thus, only the residual information needs to be encoded. Scalable video coding adds some scalable extension to H.264, in terms of spatial, temporal and SNR scalability. An improved encoding method for scalable video comprises generating from a video picture a first and a second picture with higher resolution than the first picture, wherein each macroblock in the first picture has a plurality of corresponding macroblocks in the second picture, intra-coding the first picture on macroblock level, wherein for each macroblock a prediction direction is determined, generating a first residual picture, intra-coding the second picture on macroblock level, wherein for each macroblock the prediction direction of the corresponding macroblock of the first picture is reused, and generating a second residual picture.
US07847854B2

A novel imaging apparatus capable of correcting a focus state by an AF detection value both simply and surely has been disclosed. The imaging apparatus comprises an auto-focus drive section for moving a lens, an AF processing section for calculating an AF detection value indicating the focus state from imaging data, a luminance processing section for calculating a luminance value from the imaging data, a correction section for calculating a corrected AF detection value by correcting the calculated AF detection value by the calculated luminance value, and a control section for controlling the auto-focus drive section based on the calculated corrected AF detection value. The imaging data is data not having been subjected to auto-exposure processing.
US07847839B2

A method of filtering a red-eye phenomenon from an acquired digital image including a multiplicity of pixels indicative of color, the pixels forming various shapes of the image, includes analyzing meta-data information, determining one or more regions within the digital image suspected as including red eye artifact, and determining, based at least in part on the meta-data analysis, whether the regions are actual red eye artifact. The meta-data information may include information describing conditions under which the image was acquired, captured and/or digitized, acquisition device-specific information, and/film information.
US07847836B2

A method for processing a captured image is provided. The method includes the steps of sensing the position of an eye and processing the captured image using the sensed eye position. In one embodiment, the step of processing involves detecting a face within the image, and applying a graphical object at a location within the image and relative to the detected face. The graphical object may be a speech bubble.
US07847835B2

A digital still camera comprises an imaging system for capturing a single image of printed material containing a printed audio format; a processor for extracting encoded audio data from the image; a decoder for receiving and decoding the encoded audio data to an audio signal; and an audio output for outputting the audio signal as audio.
US07847834B2

An apparatus for measuring the power frequency of a light source includes a photo-sensitive transistor, a modulators and a logic unit. The photo-sensitive transistor generates an electrical signal that is responsive to light incident thereon from the light source. The modulator generates a modulated signal based on the electrical signal that toggles at a rate substantially proportional to the power frequency of the light source. The logic unit is coupled to receive the modulated signal and determine its toggling frequency.
US07847827B2

Provided is a method and apparatus for photographing an object to produce a still image while recording a moving picture. If a request for recording a moving picture is input by a user, image resolution of preview image data is changed to pre-set image resolution of moving picture data, moving picture data is generated by adjusting preview image data according to the changed image resolution, and the generated moving picture data is compressed and stored, if a request for photographing in the recording is input by the user, pausing of the moving picture recording is selected, the image resolution of preview image data is changed to pre-set image resolution of still image data in recording, still image data is generated by adjusting preview image data according to the changed image resolution, and the generated still image data is temporarily stored, if the photographing in the recording is terminated, pausing is released, the image resolution of preview image data is changed to the image resolution of moving picture data, moving picture data is generated by adjusting preview image data according to the changed image resolution, and the generated moving picture data is compressed and stored, and if a request for terminating the recording is input by the user, the temporarily stored still image data is compressed and stored. Accordingly, a still image can be produced while recording a moving picture.
US07847824B2

A shake correction apparatus of a camera, includes a stationary support board; an electrical board movable relative to the stationary support board; an image pickup device supported by the electrical board and including leads made of a magnetic material which are arranged on a periphery of the image pickup device to electrically connect the image pickup device to the electrical board; at least one drive coil which moves with the electrical board; at least one magnet provided on a surface of the stationary support board which faces the electrical board, and positioned around the image pickup device and the leads as viewed from the front thereof, the magnet exerting a magnetic force on the drive coil; and at least one magnetic cover, made of a magnetic substance, for covering a portion of the magnet which faces the leads.
US07847821B2

An improved on chip test method for determining the photon transfer curve (PTC) and dark current in an image sensor is described. Cost and time savings is achieved by reducing the number of frames necessary for the measurements to three including two exposure frames and one frame for dark current testing. A conventional test involving “n” different exposure times each with two frames is replaced by implementing a snap shot mode where a first plurality of pixel rows are exposed for a time t1, a second plurality of pixel rows are exposed for a time t2, and so forth up to an nth plurality of pixel rows exposed for a time tn where the total number of pixel rows equals a frame and tn>t2>t1. The resulting image has “n” regions each with a different brightness that become progressively brighter from top to bottom of the image.
US07847816B2

In an imaging apparatus having two imaging devices, a converter module which synthesizes the two signals of each horizontal line produced from the two imaging devices to thereby convert the two signals into a single composite signal, a line memory which cooperates with the converter module to convert the signals, a line delay module which accumulates the output signals from the converter module, a line memory which cooperates with the line delay module to accumulate the signals, an exposure controller, an auto focus controller, a white balance controller, a color signal processor module, a luminance signal processor module, and an arithmetic processor module for stereo imaging process, the output signals from the plurality of imaging devices are converted to the single composite signal and processed on a one-channel processing basis.
US07847809B2

In an image display method for providing display in a predetermined color order using a plurality of color signals of image data for an electro-optical modulation device which modulates light emitted from a light source in accordance with signals, color distribution ratios for the plural color signals are established such that errors caused due to response delays of the electro-optical modulation device from the color signals can be reduced to the minimum value or almost the minimum value at the time of display in the predetermined color order.
US07847802B1

A graphics system coalesces Z data and color data for a raster operations stage. The Z data and color data are stored in a memory aligned tile format. In one embodiment, rendering modes in which the tile does not have a data capacity corresponding to Z data or color data for a whole number of pixels have data for at least one pixel split across entries to improve packing efficiency. Rendering modes having a number of bits for Z data or color data that does not equal a power of two such as 24 bits, 48 bits, and 96 bits, may be implemented with a high packing efficiency in tile formats having a data capacity corresponding to a power of 2 bits.
US07847797B2

The present invention provides a drive circuit suitable for use in a liquid crystal display, comprising an op amp which has an inversion input, a non-inversion input and a first output and of which the inversion input and the first output are connected to each other; a first PMOS transistor having a gate to which a node for the non-inversion input of the op amp is connected, and a source to which a node for the output of the op amp is connected; a first NMOS transistor having a gate to which a drain of the first PMOS transistor is connected, a drain to which the node for the output of the op amp is connected, and a source connected to ground; and a second NMOS transistor having a gate supplied with a predetermined first voltage, a drain to which the drain of the first PMOS transistor is connected, and a source connected to ground.
US07847788B2

In an arrangement for operating television-technological apparatuses, operating and display elements can be represented on a screen. The screen is provided with a touch-sensitive input field. The respective value of at least one quantity to be set is represented graphically. The at least one quantity to be set can be set by touching the input field in a touch region enclosing the representation and moving the touch point in a direction corresponding to the change in the quantity to be set.
US07847783B2

A method according to one embodiment may include supplying power to an LED array having at least a first string of LEDs and a second string of LEDs coupled in parallel, each of the strings includes at least two LEDs. The method of this embodiment may also include comparing a first feedback signal from the first string of LEDs and a second feedback signal from the second string of LEDs. The first feedback signal is proportional to current in said first string of LEDs and said second feedback signal is proportional to current in said second string of LEDs. The method of this embodiment may also include controlling a voltage drop of at least the first string of LEDs to adjust the current of the first string of LEDs relative to the second string of LEDs, based on, at least in part, the comparing of the first and second feedback signals. Of course, many alternatives, variations, and modifications are possible without departing from this embodiment.
US07847778B2

A gate driving circuit for driving plural scan lines of a liquid crystal display includes N driving circuit units and a control unit. Each of the N driving circuit units sequentially outputs a driving signal to drive a corresponding scan line of the scan lines. The control unit outputs a positive-phase and an opposite-phase clock signal to control the N driving circuit units. After an Nth driving circuit unit of the N driving circuit units outputs the driving signal, the control unit transmits a control signal to at least one of the N driving circuit units. A method for driving the foregoing gate driving circuit is also disclosed.
US07847776B2

A drive circuit for driving an electro-optical device where the scanning-line driving unit and the data-line driving unit drive, in a surface inversion manner, with a first cycle, the pixel portions in odd partial surfaces in a direction parallel to the data lines among 2M (where M is a natural number) partial surfaces resulting from dividing the display surface by division lines corresponding to the scanning lines, each partial surface including n (where n is a natural number greater than or equal to 2) scanning lines, and drive the pixel portions in even partial surfaces among the 2M partial surfaces in the surface inversion manner with a second cycle complementary to the first cycle.
US07847775B2

An electro-optical device includes pixels that are provided to correspond to intersections of a plurality of rows of scanning lines and a plurality of columns of first data lines, each pixel having an pixel electrode, a common electrode that faces the pixel electrode, a first transistor that is turned on when a corresponding scanning line is selected to supply a data signal from a first data line to the pixel electrode, and a second transistor that is turned on when another scanning line than the corresponding scanning line is selected prior to the corresponding scanning line to supply a data signal from the first data line or a data line different from the first data line to the pixel electrode, a scanning line driving circuit that selects the plurality of rows of scanning lines according to a predetermined sequence, when one scanning line is selected, applies a first voltage so as to turn on the first or second transistor, when the selection ends, applies a second voltage so as to turn off the first and second transistors, and, when a scanning line next to the scanning line is selected, applies a third voltage between the first voltage and the second voltage so as to turn off the first and second transistors, and a data line driving circuit that supplies a data signal according to a grayscale level of a pixel of the selected scanning line through the first data line.
US07847770B2

In order to realize a display with a multilevel halftone that is excellent in uniformity by using a liquid crystal display element employing an inexpensive and general purpose driver having a low voltage endurance, a pulse application employing a cumulative response (overwriting) of liquid crystals is performed a plurality of times, the driving voltage and the pulse width are set to be variable for each step, and the liquid crystals are controlled to be in a prescribed halftone state by using a region having a large margin from a reflection state as the initial state. Since an increase in drive voltage is prevented, an inexpensive binary output general purpose driver having a low voltage endurance can be used. Furthermore, a display with a multilevel halftone that is excellent in uniformity is realized because of a gray level conversion that uses a region having a large margin.
US07847769B2

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method of driving a liquid crystal display by frame rate control (FRC) is provided, which includes: receiving an input data having a first gray from an external graphic source; converting the input data to have bit number larger than the input data; and performing FRC on the converted data.
US07847768B2

Disclosed are an organic electroluminescence display having simple configurations of a pixel circuit and a driving circuit by using a frequency characteristic of an organic electroluminescence device to display a gray level, and a driving method thereof. The present invention provides an organic electroluminescence display including a plurality of scan lines for transmitting a scan signal; a plurality of data lines for transmitting a digital data signal; a plurality of emission control lines for transmitting an emission control signal; and a plurality of pixels defined by a plurality of power supply lines for supplying a power supply, wherein the scan signal is transmitted to a plurality of subframes, and the emission control signal have different frequencies in a plurality of the subframes, and a driving method thereof.
US07847767B2

A pixel circuit has a light emitting diode, a first driving transistor, a second driving transistor, a capacitor, and a switch unit. When a scan signal is asserted, the switch unit couples sources/drains of the second driving transistor respectively to a first and a second source/drain of the first driving transistor, and couples a gate and second source/drain of the first driving transistor together. When the scan signal is de-asserted, the switch unit decouples one of the sources/drains of the second driving transistor from the first/second source/drain of the first driving transistor, and decouples the gate from the second source/drain of the first driving transistor.
US07847766B2

It is an object of the present invention to inhibit a collapse of a color balance possibly caused due to deterioration of self-emission elements when performing a color displaying by virtue of several different colors. A self-emission display apparatus comprises: a display element section consisting of self-emission elements; a monitor element section consisting of self-emission elements of different colors formed in the same manner as the self-emission elements of the display element section; a power supply circuit which supplies driving voltages to the display element section; monitor detecting units for detecting an operating state of the monitor element section; driving voltage control units which control driving voltages in accordance with a detected operating state; and a display control section for supplying display signal to the display element section. Further, the self-emission display apparatus has monitor control units which perform lighting controls of the foregoing different colors on the monitor element section, as well as a monitor load adjusting unit which adjusts a load state of each of the foregoing different colors in lighting control so as to maintain a color balance of the display element section.
US07847756B2

A three-dimensional image display apparatus which displays a three-dimensional image as a set of two-dimensional images by switching and displaying the two-dimensional images on a rotating self-luminous two-dimensional display panel while synchronizing with the rotation angle of the two-dimensional display panel. This three-dimensional image display apparatus comprises a rotation body for rotating the two-dimensional display panel while fixing and supporting, a support body for rotatably supporting the rotation body, compressing image data on the support body to display the two-dimensional image on the two-dimensional display panel, transmitting the compressed image data from the support body to the rotation body side, receiving the transmitted compression image data on the rotation body, and expanding the received compression image data on the rotation body so as to restore an original image data. The support body is external to the rotation body, and includes drive coils which generate a repulsive and an attractive force with magnets in the rotation body.
US07847751B2

A planar broadband antenna includes a flat elliptical antenna device. The elliptical antenna device includes a central antenna element, a first angular antenna element and a second angular antenna element. The central antenna element is disposed parallel to a support. The angular antenna elements are formed by two opposite segments of the elliptical antenna device and point toward the support. The first angular antenna element is provided with a base point through which a signal is capable of being fed in. An impedance device connects the second angular antenna element to a ground point located near the base point.
US07847750B2

An antenna device includes a printed circuit board and an antenna element. The printed circuit board has a face a portion of which is formed by a conductive layer overlaid with a magnetic material layer made of anisotropic magnetic material. The magnetic material layer is arranged in such a way that a hard magnetization axis of the anisotropic magnetic material is directed almost parallel to the face. The antenna element is arranged almost parallel to the printed circuit board on a side of the face. The antenna element is arranged in such a way that an antenna current distributed on the antenna element if the antenna element is excited is directed almost perpendicular to the hard magnetization axis.
US07847749B2

An integrated antenna and reflector feed is provided which is structured as a waveguide cavity antenna or array having a curved reflector coupled to a sidewall of the waveguide cavity. A radiation source is situated facing the curved reflector and one or more radiating elements are provided on a top surface of the waveguide cavity. Several curved reflector feeds may be used, operating in the same or different frequencies.
US07847740B2

An antenna system comprises a receive diversity antenna system and a configurable antenna arrangement. Incoming signals are received through the receive diversity antenna system and outgoing signals are transmitted through the configurable antenna arrangement. A controller generates control signals to adjust the configurable antenna arrangement to change the transmission performance characteristics of the configurable antenna arrangement. The configurable antenna arrangement may be a smart antenna, a plurality of antennas, or a configurable antenna where transmission characteristics change in response to control signals.
US07847734B2

A method of multilaterating the position of a target, including the steps of deploying a plurality of time synchronized receiving units in a network that allows the receiving units to communicate with a central processor; receiving a target signal from the target at each receiving unit; determining a time of arrival for the target signal at each receiving unit; determining position data for each receiving unit at the time when the target signal is received at each respective receiving unit; and using the time of arrival and position data for each receiving unit to determine the position of the target by multilateration. A system for carrying out the method is also disclosed.
US07847728B2

A system and method for estimating the position of a mobile device using information from a constellation of satellites. A first set of satellites of the constellation may be selected and then a second set of satellites of the constellation may be selected as a function of signals received from the first set of satellites. Data may be transmitted to the mobile device based on signals received from the second set of satellites, and a location of the device estimated based on the data. One embodiment may select the second set as a function of an intersection of coverage areas of ones of the first set of satellites. Another embodiment may select the second set as a function of one or more satellites that are not occluded by the Earth from one or more of the first set of satellites.
US07847724B1

A computer software program which plots radar video data on a display screen for viewing by a user in a format that emulates a real display. The radar video data the program plots on the display screen is either recorded radar video data generated by a missile radar video seeker or telemetered radar video data generated by the radar video seeker. The display screen display multiple radar scans of video data in the form of a graph or plot on the display screen.
US07847717B2

A low noise current steering digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC includes a current reference for generating a bias current that biases a set of current elements. The set of current elements includes a reference element. The current reference includes a reference amplifier and a reference arm. The reference arm includes a reference resistor and the reference element. The DAC further includes a switch periodically coupling each current element including the reference element, to the reference resistor and an output of the DAC. This rotates the set of current elements and attenuates flicker noise from each of the set of current elements.
US07847708B1

A system for providing environmental condition information to remote users includes a computer system that obtains environmental data from a variety of sources and converts them into data that indicate presence of an environmental condition (including the strength, severity and form of a weather event), a distribution network in communication with the computer system, and one or more remote systems, which further comprise a receiver configured to receive distribution network signals and down convert them, and a remote computer system. The remote computer system is configured to receive the down-converted signals from the receiver and uses the data transmitted in the messages to determine whether the environmental conditions are geo-graphically relevant to the remote system based upon the geographic position of the remote system. The remote systems include a display systems which provide visual or aural alerts relating to weather phenomena, road conditions, road status or traffic.
US07847705B2

An in-vehicle image display apparatus for use in a vehicle is provided which includes: a state detecting device that detects a state of surroundings of the vehicle; a display device that is provided at least in an entire front window section of the vehicle and capable of displaying information over the entire window section; an image generating device that generates image data for displaying an image of the surroundings of the vehicle on the display device based on detection results from the state detecting device; and a display control device that makes the display device display an image represented by the image data generated by the image generating device.
US07847697B2

This disclosure describes a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that includes a three-dimensional (3D) loop antenna. The 3D loop antenna includes a first conductive portion having a length and width that substantially exceed a thickness. The length and width of the first conductive portion substantially lie in a first plane. The 3D loop antenna includes a second conductive portion having a length and width that substantially exceed a thickness. The length and width of the second conductive portion substantially lie in a second plane that is substantially parallel to the first plane. An RFID circuit electrically connected to the loop antenna excites a current through the first and second conductive portions in a current loop that lies in a third plane that is not substantially parallel to the first and second planes. In some instances the third plane may be substantially perpendicular to the first and second planes.
US07847695B2

The invention relates to an external package, particularly one with a conductive coating and in whose surroundings an RFID tag is used. The conductive area of the electrically conductive layer is interrupted by a structure.
US07847688B2

A method of improving the rate of detection of attempts at fraud when a person passes through a controlled space based on the use of different sets of parameters issuing from at least two different sensor systems, some sets of parameters being based on correlations of measurements issuing from various sensor systems. Learning is carried out so as to characterize various types of fraud to permit identification of attempts at fraud by correlation between measurements obtained and characterizations of each type of fraud for each set of parameters.
US07847680B2

Motor vehicle gear selectors, methods for integrating a variable display on the gear selector, and motor vehicles including a gear selector with an integrated display are provided. One gear selector includes a body and a variable display integral with the body and configured to display a message. The gear selector also includes a processor configured to select the message from a message set and communicate the message to the variable display. Another gear selector includes a shift console, a gear selector body, a variable display integral with the gear selector body, a speaker integral with the gear selector body, and a processor configured to select and communicate a message from a message set to the variable display and the speaker. A method includes providing a gear selector having an integral variable display, selecting a message from a message set, transmitting the message to the variable display, and displaying the message.
US07847677B2

A system for providing auditory feedback to visually impaired users when defining visual models. As the visually impaired user creates a visual model, the system detects when an object is placed in such a way that it overlaps with at least one previously placed object. In response to detection of an overlap, the system causes an auditory warning signal to be produced, indicating to the visually impaired user that object is overlapping a previously placed object. The disclosed system operates to create an invisible object within the user interface to cause a warning to be output, or modifies the object whose placement caused the object overlap to include the overlap warning. The user interface focus is then changed or reset to be on the invisible object or the object that caused the overlap to occur, enabling the user to conveniently fix the overlap condition.
US07847676B2

A HAZMAT monitoring system detects a plurality of different hazardous materials and includes first and second pluralities of RSIs. Each RSI of the first plurality forms a node in a first wireless sensor network and is associated with a mobile container and with at least one sensor that is configured to acquire data for detecting a first hazardous material. Each RSI further is configured to receive the sensor data and wirelessly transmit, over the first wireless sensor network, data relating to the received sensor data pertaining to the detection of the first hazardous material. Each RSI of the second plurality is similarly associated and configured. Communications within a respective wireless sensor network do not result in communications within the another wireless sensor network. A gateway is configured to independently communicate with each respective wireless sensor network.
US07847675B1

A security system for monitoring, controlling, and automating one or more work areas and office furniture components, or monitoring, controlling, and automating utility components in other environments such as retail, restaurant, and home applications. The system includes passive and active access authentication devices and active or passive unlocking and lockdown devices for utility components, such as storage components, office furniture components, offices, and work sites. The system may include, for example, a processor, an access authentication device, sensors for monitoring work areas, actuators for controlling and automating work areas, and status and alarm notifiers.
US07847674B2

A small inexpensive two terminal variable resistance assembly that conveniently changes its resistance when a force of an actuator is applied. It can be made for power applications as well as in miniature dimension versions in values from milli-ohms to meg-ohms.This variable resistor increases its power handling capacity during a decrease in its ohmic value, contrary to present three terminal potentiometers or reostats. It does this by a rolling action that increases or decreases two resistive surface areas in parallel. It could also be used as a variable capacitor.
US07847671B1

A subsea data and power transmission apparatus includes primary and secondary open magnetic circuits with coils for wireless data and power transfer between a drilling tool and a drilling rig. The primary magnetic circuit is U-shaped and the secondary is O-shaped. Both magnetic systems are electrically insulated. The electrical signal and power are transferred from one magnetic circuit to another through an air or water gap between the magnetic circuits. The U-shaped and O-shaped magnetic circuits allow communication and power transfer remotely with no mechanical or electrical connectors.
US07847665B2

A method for winding a coil for a transformer comprising providing a cylindrical inner tube of insulating material including a radially outwardly projected first end wall section disposed at a first end of the cylindrical inner tube and a radially outwardly projecting second wall section disposed at a second end of the cylindrical inner tube; winding a first insulating layer onto the cylindrical inner tube so as to extend to the first end wall section and the second end wall section; and winding a first winding wire layer onto the first insulating layer so as to provide a first distance between a first end of the first winding wire layer and the first wall section and a second distance between a second end of the first winding layer and the second end wall section.
US07847662B2

An inductance element (1) includes a doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2) having a wound body or a stacked body of a magnetic ribbon, a bottomed container (3) in which the doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2) is housed, and a conductive lead portion (5) inserted into a hollow section of the doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2) housed in the bottomed container (3). An open section of the bottomed container (3) is covered with an adhesive portion (4) which integrally fixes the doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2), the bottomed container (3) and the conductive lead portion (5). The adhesive portion (4) is entered into a gap between the doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2) and the bottomed container (3) and a gap between the bottomed container (3) and the conductive lead portion (5) in a range of 5 to 50% in average to a thickness of the doughnut-shaped magnetic core (2).
US07847659B2

A metamaterial device has a coaxial structure including rotational symmetry about a longitudinal axis of coaxial conductors. In a disclosed example, a series inductance portion has a relatively smaller circumferential dimension compared to another portion of a conductor. A series capacitance portion comprises an interruption in the conductor. A shunt capacitance portion has the largest circumferential dimension of the conductor. A shunt inductance portion comprises a relatively small electrical connection between first and second conductors. A disclosed example metamaterial structure is useful, for example, as a filter in a wireless communication device.
US07847656B2

Disclosed are exemplary monolithic acoustically coupled thin film piezoelectric-on-substrate filters that operate in a wide frequency range. The monolithic thin-film-piezoelectric acoustic filters includes a resonant structure that is released from and supported by a substrate that comprises a thin-film piezoelectric layer disposed between a lower electrode and a plurality of electrically isolated upper electrodes. Second order narrowband filters are realized by utilizing coupled resonance modes of a single microstructure. Narrow-bandwidth filters are disclosed that are suitable for channel-select applications in IF and RF bands. Filter Q values of 800 at 250 MHz, 470 at 360 MHz, and 400 at 3.5 GHz for small footprint second-order filters are disclosed. The measured power handling of these devices is high due to the use of high energy density structural material, showing a 0.2 dB compression point of >15 dBm at 360 MHz.
US07847647B2

An oscillator circuit includes a combination of two frequency-determining elements, designed as single-port surface wave resonators with interdigital converters, and one active electronic circuit. The two single-port surface wave resonators are connected to each other, avoiding inductive components. In the case of a combination in a parallel circuit, the connection is designed as a combination oscillating at high-frequency anti-resonance, and in the case of a combination in a series circuit, the combination is designed as a combination oscillating at high-frequency resonance. A ratio of apertures of the interdigital converters to one another, a ratio of their number of prongs to one another, and the thickness of the electrode layer of the single-port surface wave resonators as well as the propagation direction for acoustic surface waves of the single-port surface wave resonators are selected so that the temperature-dependent change of the phase of the combination and the temperature-dependent change of the total phase of the rest of the elements of the oscillator circuit have signs opposite to one another and that the sum of these phase changes in a thermal operating range of the oscillator circuit is smaller than a value of the phase change of the combination and smaller than a value of the phase change of the rest of the elements of the oscillator circuit.
US07847642B2

A frequency tuning circuit includes a connection for coupling to a signal tap of an element which has a resonant frequency. The tuning circuit contains a controllable-capacitance capacitance array for tuning of a signal frequency of the element. The capacitance array has a multiplicity of capacitances which can be connected to a control connection via a signal. In this case, the capacitance array is coupled to the connection. A control input is used to supply a digital control word. Furthermore, the tuning circuit contains a sigma-delta modulator whose input side is coupled to the control input and whose output side is coupled to the control connection of the capacitance array. This makes it possible to produce a tuning word by means of which the effective resolution of the capacitance array can be increased.
US07847630B2

There is provided an amplifier for combining outputs of a plurality of amplifying circuits to generate an amplifier output. The amplifier includes a first amplifying circuit for operating a first amplifying device in class-AB, wherein the first amplifying circuit is one among the plurality of the amplifying circuits; a second amplifying circuit for operating a second amplifying device in class-B or class-C, wherein the second amplifying circuit is one among the plurality of the amplifying circuits; and a summing node at which an output of the first amplifying circuit is combined with an output of the second amplifying circuit via a first impedance transformer containing a transmission line of an electrical length other than λ/4. The second amplifying device is connected to the summing node via an output matching circuit and a second impedance transformer containing a transmission line.
US07847626B2

Signals are coupled to and from stacked semiconductor dies through first and second sets of external terminals. The external terminals in the second set are connected to respective conductive paths extending through each of the dies. Signals are coupled to and from the first die through the first set of external terminals. Signals are also coupled to and from the second die through the conductive paths in the first die and the second set of external terminals. The external terminals in first and second sets of each of a plurality of pairs are connected to an electrical circuit through respective multiplexers. The multiplexers in each of the dies are controlled by respective control circuits that sense whether a die in the first set is active. The multiplexers connect the external terminals in either the first set or the second set depending on whether the bonding pad in the first set is active.
US07847617B2

A charge pump comprises a ring oscillator and a pumping circuit. The ring oscillator provides a plurality of oscillating clocks. The pumping circuit includes a plurality of pumping blocks coupled to each other for outputting a boosted voltage, and each pumping block is connected to a corresponding oscillating clock.
US07847615B2

In a quantum computing circuit forming a superconductive loop including a plurality of Josephson junctions, first and second superconductive magnetic flux quantum bit element (101, 102) are biased at a half-quantum magnetic flux, and have mutually different characteristic frequencies. A coupling superconductive magnetic flux quantum bit clement element (103) is located between the first and second superconductive magnetic flux quantum bit elements (101, 102) to perform parametric variable control between the element (101, 102) by supplying a microwave magnetic field pulse which is equal to the frequency difference between the elements (101, 102).
US07847589B2

A configuration data feeding device for feeding configuration data to a plurality of FPGAs includes a memory for storing configuration data that are fed to the plurality of FPGAs, a plurality of interface units for outputting the configuration data read out from the memory, according to their specific configuration layouts, an interface selection unit for selecting, out of the plurality of interface units, an interface unit that is to be used for configuring each of the plurality of FPGAs, and a circuit-switching unit for switching the circuits that connect the FPGAs to the interface units depending upon the selection by the interface selection unit.
US07847582B2

According to an aspect of an embodiment, a logic circuit includes a first master latch included in one of the master-slave flip-flop circuits, the first master latch having a first scan data input for receiving scan data, the first master latch latching the scan data and outputting latched scan data, a second master latch included in another of the master-slave flip-flop circuits, the second master latch having a second scan data input operatively connected to receive an output of the first master latch, the second master latch latching the scan data inputted into the second scan data input and outputting latched scan data and a slave latch included in one of the master-slave flip-flop circuits, the slave latch having a scan data input operatively connected to receive an output of the second master latch.
US07847581B2

An integrated circuit including a substrate of a semiconductor material having first and second opposite surfaces and including active areas leveling the first surface. The integrated circuit includes a device of protection against laser attacks, the protection device includes at least one first doped region extending between at least part of the active areas and the second surface, a device for biasing the first region, and a device for detecting an increase in the current provided by the biasing device.
US07847562B2

A resistive fault condition detector for conducting one or more tests of a circuit to detect a resistive fault condition. The detector includes means for determining changes in current through a load during the test, and means for measuring changes in first and second voltages respectively between the circuit's live and neutral conductors and between the circuit's neutral and ground conductors during the test, the changes in the first and second voltages corresponding to the changes in the current respectively. The detector also includes means for calculating apparent source impedances for the live and neutral conductors respectively, based on the changes in current and the measured changes in the first and second voltages respectively, and means for calculating an estimated source impedance for each of the live and neutral conductors for the test.
US07847558B2

A locomotive, a battery system and a method for monitoring a battery are provided. The battery has a first plurality of cells electrically coupled in series to one another. The first plurality of cells includes a second plurality of cells and a third plurality of cells electrically coupled together at a node. The method includes calculating a first number of failed cells in the first plurality cells. The method further includes calculating a second number of failed cells in the second plurality cells and a third number of failed cells in the third plurality cells.
US07847557B2

A battery management system that estimates an internal impedance of a battery, a method of driving the same, a device that estimates an internal impedance of a battery, and a method of estimating the internal impedance of a battery. A method of driving a battery management system that estimates the internal impedance of a battery including a plurality of cells includes generating a battery equivalent model of the battery, receiving a terminal voltage signal and a charge and discharge current signal of the battery, and generating a first discrete signal corresponding to the terminal voltage signal of the battery and a second discrete signal corresponding to the charge and discharge current signal of the battery, and filtering the first discrete signal and the second discrete signal according to a frequency range corresponding to the battery equivalent model so as to estimate the internal impedance of the battery. The device that estimates an internal impedance of a battery filters the first discrete signal and the second discrete signal according to a frequency range corresponding to the battery equivalent model so as to estimate the internal impedance of the battery.
US07847553B2

At least one embodiment is directed to a combination of an MR tomograph and a positron emission tomograph having avalanche photodiodes as reception elements. In at least one embodiment, the intention is to ensure that the avalanche photodiodes are kept at a constant temperature despite the exposure to heat from the MR components. It is proposed, in at least one embodiment, that cooling by Peltier elements 5 should be provided.
US07847543B2

A flexible current sensor including a sensing cable with a sensing coil wound on a cylindrical flexible core and electrical shielding located over said sensing coil and an outer isolation coat. The electrical shielding includes a plurality of individually isolated shielding wires arranged into groups wound in mutually opposite directions and/or the sensing coil includes a plurality of individually isolated sensing wires arranged into groups wound in mutually opposite directions.
US07847533B2

A switching circuit for a power converter includes an oscillation circuit, a first circuit, and a first comparator. The oscillation circuit generates a switching signal for regulating an output of the power converter. The first circuit generates a threshold signal. The first comparator is coupled to receive a signal representative of a current through a power switch. Besides, the first comparator generates a control signal in response to the signal and the threshold signal. A frequency of the switching signal is increased in response to the enabling of the control signal.
US07847528B2

A single-board power supply structure and a method for providing a power supply are provided. An operational processor sends control signals capable of controlling the output of the power supply to a DC/DC converter. The DC/DC converter converts a received bus voltage into a required power supply voltage according to the received control signals. The operational processor may further monitor the output of the power supply and report the monitored result to a connected upper-layer machine, and may also control the sequence of a plurality of the outputs of the power supply converted by the DC/DC converter by controlling the time for sending the control signals. The structure and the method provided by the present invention can both uniformly, timely, and effectively monitor the output of the single-board power supply.
US07847520B2

A battery charging circuit comprising: a semiconductor switch having an output connected to a rechargeable battery; a battery charge controller for receiving power from an external source, and supplying output power to a portable device and the input of the semiconductor switch, the current output of the battery charge controller being controllable; and a voltage sensing circuit for: measuring the voltage drop across the battery charge controller; and responding to the voltage drop across the battery charge controller by modulating the semiconductor switch to reduce the quantity of current supplied to the rechargeable battery when the voltage drop is too great; whereby the total power dissipated by the battery charge controller is controlled, the portable device receiving the power it needs to operate and the rechargeable battery receiving any additional available power.
US07847519B2

A battery protector with internal impedance compensation comprises: a logic circuit and delay module, an overcharge comparator, and an over-discharge comparator. The overcharge comparator has a positive terminal connected with a first adjustable reference signal and the over-discharge comparator has a negative terminal connected with a second adjustable reference signal and both of the other terminals of comparator are fed by the same partial voltage of the same voltage divider, which has two terminals, respectively, connected with the two electrodes of the battery. The first adjustable reference signal and the second adjustable reference are varied with the charging current or discharging current and the internal impedance of the battery.
US07847517B2

A system and method for using a universal serial bus (USB) interface in a mobile device is provided that includes providing a battery charger operable to receive a voltage provided at the USB interface, the battery charger operable for charging a battery in the mobile device, and, a voltage regulator operable to receive a voltage provided at the USB interface, the voltage regulator used in powering the mobile device. The method also includes, detecting a USB bus voltage at the USB interface, measuring passage of a predetermined amount of time upon detecting the USB bus voltage, and disabling at least one of the voltage regulator and the battery charger if the predetermined amount of time expires before an enumeration acknowledgement signal is received at the USB interface.
US07847508B2

A heat dissipation system for an electronic device comprises a base, a fan, a pulse width modulation speed control circuit controlling the speed of the fan, a converter outputting a voltage signal, a selection switch connected to the motor, and a control element provided on the base, connected to the switch and to the converter. When the control element is operated, the switch selectively enables the motor be connected to the output of the pulse width modulation speed control circuit or to the output of the converter, and when the motor is electrically connected to the converter, the control element can modify the output voltage of the converter.
US07847503B2

A control apparatus includes: a memory storing data regarding an interference matrix; a position compensation calculator calculating position compensation by using the data based on a target position of an output shaft and a detected position of the output shaft; a torque compensation calculator calculating torque compensation by using the data based on the detected position of the output shaft and a detected position of a drive shaft; and a command value calculation unit calculating a command value for the drive source based on the position compensation and the torque compensation.
US07847502B2

A device for controlling a feed motion of a feed control axis and a rotary motion of a rotary control axis, both axes being provided in a machine tool so that the rotary control axis is fed along the feed control axis. The device includes an interference estimating section estimating an interference generated between the feed control axis and the rotary control axis, based on a position command instructed to at least one of the feed control axis and the rotary control axis and a position and mass information of an eccentric load carried by the rotary control axis; and a command correcting section correcting a current command given to at least one of the feed control axis and the rotary control axis, based on the interference estimated by the interference estimating section.
US07847498B2

When starting a brushless motor, if the stop position of the rotor is detected between time t1 and time t2, a start-up excitation pattern in accordance with the rotor stop position is input for an initial energization time Ts1. Afterward, when the energization is stopped, a plurality of signals SL1, SL2, SL3, SL4 are generated in sequence in excitation switch timing signals in accordance with the rotational position of the coasting rotor. From these signals SL1 to SL4, the rotor position is detected using the second and subsequent signals SL2 to SL4 and then the process shifts to ordinary energization switch control. In accordance with the present invention, it is possible to start up a motor in a short time with a simple method so as to obtain a large torque during start-up.
US07847491B2

A sequential burst mode regulation system to deliver power to a plurality of loads. In the exemplary embodiments, the system of the present invention generates a plurality of phased pulse width modulated signals from a single pulse width modulated signal, where each of the phased signals regulates power to a respective load. Exemplary circuitry includes a PWM signal generator, and a phase delay array that receives a PWM signal and generates a plurality of phased PWM signals which are used to regulate power to respective loads. A frequency selector circuit can be provided that sets the frequency of the PWM signal using a fixed or variable frequency reference signal.
US07847484B2

An ionizable mercury-free and sodium-free composition is capable of emitting radiation if excited. A radiation source includes such an ionizable mercury-free and sodium-free composition. The ionizable mercury-free and sodium-free composition includes at least a metal, a metal and a metal compound, or a metal compound.
US07847479B2

An organic electroluminescence element including an organic layer including a light-emitting layer between a pair of electrodes, wherein the light-emitting layer contains at least two light-emitting materials having different Ea values and at least one host material, a concentration of a light-emitting material having a larger Ea value in the light-emitting layer gradually decreases from a cathode side toward an anode side, and a concentration of a light-emitting material having a smaller Ea value in the light-emitting layer gradually decreases from the anode side toward the cathode side.
US07847473B2

A spark plug in which a distal end portion (60) of a crimp portion (53) of a metallic shell (50) is crimped by bending the distal end portion inward, whereby the metallic shell (50) and an insulator (10) are fixed together with a first packing (6), a second packing (7), and talc (9) being present therebetween. The first packing (6) assumes an annular shape and has a circular cross section. A minimum diameter portion of the crimp portion (53), which portion is closest to the outer circumferential surface (17) of a trunk portion (18), is located at the position of the center line of the first packing (6) or inward thereof with respect to the axis O. The crimp portion (53) does not come into contact with the insulator (10), and the first packing (6) comes into contact with the insulator (10). Furthermore, the first packing (6) has a hardness that is lower than that of the crimp portion (53).
US07847465B2

A stator has conductor segments serially wound on a core. Each segment inserted in one of slots of the core has a slanting portion protruding from the slot and inclined toward circumferential and axial directions of the core. Each slanting portion has an oblique portion with a film removal surface and a film removal portion with a film removed surface to have a slanting removal area covered with no insulation film and extending on the oblique portion. Each film removal portion has a connection portion on an end thereof. The connection portions are aligned along a radial direction of the core to form a plurality of end pairs. The connection portions of each end pair are connected with each other so as to serially connect the segments with one another.
US07847460B2

This invention provides a soft magnetic yoke-integrated bonded magnet in which a soft magnetic yoke has been integrally compression molded in such a state that the soft magnetic yoke is engaged in a joined face formed by bringing a binding material-containing magnetic powder into contact with a binding material-containing soft magnetic powder. The soft magnetic yoke part and the bonded magnetic part are constructed so that, when the soft magnetic yoke part and the bonded magnet part are compression molded separately from each other, the spring back level is identical upon the release of the compression force.
US07847453B2

There is provided a bearingless step motor in which a rotating shaft can rotate while rising from a main body by a magnetic force without using a mechanical bearing. The bearingless step motor comprises a stator including stator cores having winding portions and a rotor including a rotating shaft and rotor cores. The rotor rotates by a magnetic interaction between the rotor cores and the stator cores. A first permanent magnet is mounted to the rotor and a second permanent magnet is mounted to the stator. The first permanent magnet and the second permanent magnet are arranged so that a repulsive force is generated between magnetic poles. There is little power consumption for raising the rotating shaft and a complicated system for controlling the rise of the rotating shaft is unnecessary. Thus, the motor can be manufactured with a light and compact structure.
US07847452B2

A motor has a stator, a rotor having a shaft, and a sleeve bearing in contact with the rotor shaft. The sleeve bearing also is fixedly secured to the stator. Additionally, the motor also has a movable support member axially supporting the shaft. The movable support member illustratively is movable relative to the shaft. The rotor center of gravity coincides approximately with the opening in the bearing-shaft interface.
US07847451B2

Provided is a spindle motor on which an optical disc is put, rotated and operated. The spindle motor includes a rotor, a stator, a stop washer, and a cap. The cap is put on a thrust supporter that supports a rotation shaft of the rotor, and the cap is pressed into a bearing housing and is closely attached to the bearing housing so that the cap can be easily, closely attached to the bearing housing and due to a press fit force, the cap can be coupled to the bearing housing without formation of a gap between the bearing and the bearing housing and leakage of oil can be prevented, and a press fit force of the bearing and a press fit force of the cap itself act on the cap so that the cap can be prevented from upward separation from the bearing housing.
US07847447B2

An electric motor and a speed reduction device for reducing a rotational speed of the motor are contained in a housing composed of a front housing and a rear housing. The motor is positioned in the housing at its rear side, and the speed reduction device at its front side. The speed reduction device is composed of a sun gear rotatably supported on an eccentric portion formed on a rotor shaft, a ring gear having inner teeth engaging with outer teeth of the sun gear, and an output shaft loosely coupled to the sun gear for outputting the rotational torque at a reduced speed. The ring gear made of a magnetic material is positioned in contact with an axial end of a stator core of the motor to provide an additional magnetic flux path and thereby to increase an output torque of the motor.
US07847446B2

The invention relates to a magnet module for fixing to a shaft (4), said module comprising a magnet holder (8) consisting of an injection moulded plastic material, and a magnet element (9). The magnet holder (8) and magnet element (9) are embodied as separate components, the magnet element (9) being injected into the plastic material of the magnet holder (8) and the magnet holder (8) being connected to the shaft (4).
US07847440B2

A smart dimmer for control of a lighting load from an AC power source can replace any switch in a three-way or four-way lighting control system. The smart dimmer can be connected on the line-side or the load-side of a three-way system with a standard three-way switch in the other location. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the dimmer includes two triacs to control the intensity of the connected lighting load. The dimmer preferably includes two gate drive circuits coupled to the gates of the triacs for rendering the triacs conductive each half-cycle of the AC power source. The gate drive circuits include sensing circuits for detect whether the gates currents are flowing after the triacs are rendered conductive. A controller is operable to determine the state of the lighting load in response to whether the gate current is flowing or not flowing.
US07847435B2

An intrinsically phase-balanced direct current (DC) uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is provided. The DC UPS includes first, second, and third alternating current (AC) phase inputs. First, second, and third rectifiers are coupled to the first, second, and third AC phase inputs. A common node is coupled to the first, second, and third rectifiers. At least one DC output is coupled to the common node. The at least one DC output is adapted for connection to at least one electrical load. A battery is coupled to the common node. A blocking diode is coupled between the battery and the common node.
US07847428B2

A fluid flow energy capture device for power generation has a rotor with a substantially vertical axis and a plurality of vanes. A mount for the rotor allows the rotor to rotate in response to fluid flow such as wind contacting the plurality of vanes, and the mount puts the rotor in rotationally driving communication with a generator. The rotor has an open center which allows fluid communication from spaces between the vanes to above the rotor. A plurality of guide surfaces define channels that bias fluid flow to be tangential to the rotor.
US07847423B1

A backup power system is connected in parallel to a load, which is powered via a power line connecting that load to a main power source, such as a utility. The backup system includes a generator/condenser unit that is coupled to a flywheel unit to maintain the flywheel of that flywheel unit rotating at a preset speed during normal power system operation and is also connected to a thermal engine to supply power to the load via the generator/condenser unit when there is an interruption of power from the main power source. A shaft-coupling unit couples the generator/condenser unit to the flywheel unit. The shaft-coupling unit includes a sensor plate. When there is a difference in rotational speed between the flywheel and the motor/generator, as would be caused due to a main power unit operating at a level other than a predetermined level, this differential rotational speed is translated by the coupling unit into linear movement of the sensor plate. The position of the sensor plate is monitored, and when the sensor plate moves linearly beyond a preset amount, a circuit generates a signal, which activates the thermal engine.
US07847421B2

A system for generating electrical energy from ambient motion that comprises two stages, a resonating electrical generator and a kinetic energy conversion system. The different stages have differing resonant frequencies to enable harvesting energy from low frequency ambient motion and converting it to high frequency resonant oscillation for efficiently generating electrical energy.
US07847420B2

A surface mounting structure applied to a BGA includes a substrate, a first soldering pad, a first lead, a second lead and a passivation layer. The substrate has a top surface for the first soldering pad to be disposed thereon. The first lead has a first end connected to the first soldering pad and a second end. The second lead has a third end connected to the first soldering pad and a fourth end connected to the second end of the first lead. A well is defined among the first lead, the second lead, and the first soldering pad. The passivation layer covers the top surface of the substrate, and has a first opening corresponding to the top of the first soldering pad to expose the first soldering pad and the well. Chip failure resulting from the warp occurring at four corners in the surface mounting procedure is prevented.
US07847419B2

The semiconductor package includes: a semiconductor chip module having multiple adjacently arranged or integrally formed semiconductor chips each with a bonding pad group and a connection member electrically connecting each of the bonding pads included in the first bonding pad group to the corresponding bonding pad in the second bonding pad group. In the present invention pad parts can be formed on the outside of the semiconductor chip module to conform with the standards of JEDEC. These pad parts are then connected to the semiconductor chips bonding pads through re-distribution layers. The pad parts of the semiconductor package can then conform to the JEDEC standards even while having a semiconductor chip with bonding pads smaller than the standards.
US07847411B2

An electronic device wherein an electronic element is electrically connected to a substrate through an interposer and a method of manufacturing the same are disclosed. The electronic device comprises an electronic element and an interposer including an interposer base to which the electronic element is joined and plural post electrodes connected to corresponding electrodes of the electronic element. In the electronic device, the electronic element and the interposer base are integrated with each other by being brought into direct contact with each other, and the post electrodes are formed directly on the corresponding electrodes of the electronic element.
US07847398B2

A semiconductor device has a semiconductor die having at least one bond pad formed on a first surface thereof. A substrate has at least one bond finger formed on a first surface thereof. A second surface of the semiconductor die is attached to the first surface of the substrate. A conductive wire connects the bond pad of the semiconductor die and the bond finger of the substrate wherein at least one end of the conductive wire has a stack bump. An encapsulant is provided to encapsulate the semiconductor die and the conductive wire.
US07847387B2

An electrical device and method is disclosed. One embodiment provides a substrate, a sensor chip disposed completely above a plane section of a surface of the substrate. A structurally homogeneous material layer is disposed above the substrate and the sensor chip. A cavity is formed between the substrate and the material layer. The sensor chip is disposed inside the cavity.
US07847379B2

A through-silicon via stack package contains package units. Each package unit includes a semiconductor chip; a through-silicon via formed in the semiconductor chip; a first metal line formed on an upper surface and contacting a portion of a top surface of the through-silicon via; and a second metal line formed on a lower surface of the semiconductor chip and contacting a second portion of a lower surface of the through-silicon via. When package units are stacked, the second metal line formed on the lower surface of the top package unit and the first metal line formed on the upper surface of the bottom package unit are brought into contact with the upper surface of the through-silicon via of the bottom package unit and the lower surface of the through-silicon via of the top package unit, respectively. The stack package is lightweight and compact, and can form excellent electrical connections.
US07847376B2

A semiconductor device of a multi-pin structure using a lead frame is provided. The semiconductor device comprises a tab having a chip supporting surface, the chip supporting surface whose dimension is smaller than a back surface of a semiconductor chip, a plurality of leads arranged around the tab, the semiconductor chip mounted over the chip supporting surface of the tab, a plurality of suspending leads for supporting the tab, four bar leads arranged outside the tab so as to surround the tab and coupled to the suspending leads, a plurality of wires for coupling between the semiconductor chip and the leads, and a sealing body for sealing the semiconductor chip and the wires with resin, with first slits being formed respectively in first coupling portions of the bar leads for coupling with the suspending leads.
US07847375B2

This application relates to a semiconductor device, the semiconductor device comprising a metal carrier, an insulating foil partially covering the metal carrier, a first chip attached to the metal carrier over the insulating foil, and a second chip attached to the metal carrier over a region not covered by the insulating foil.
US07847371B2

The present invention aims to provide an electronic component capable of reducing the occurrence of cracks at the joining portion with a board etc. A capacitor 1 (laminated ceramic capacitor) being one example of the electronic component of the present invention is provided with an element assembly 10 (ceramic) and a pair of external electrodes 20 formed on both side surfaces of the element assembly. In the element assembly 10, a dielectric layer 12 and an internal electrode 14 are laminated alternately. The external electrode 14 has such constitution that a first electrode layer connected with the internal electrode 14, a second electrode layer (electroconductive resin layer) including a hardened product of epoxy resin containing an epoxy compound having a molecular weight of 2000 or more and plural epoxy groups as the base compound, a third electrode layer composed of Ni and a fourth electrode layer composed of Sn are formed in this order from the element assembly side.
US07847359B2

A MEMS device includes a first insulating film formed on a semiconductor substrate, a vibrating film formed on the first insulating film, and a fixed film above the vibrating film with an air gap being interposed therebetween. The semiconductor substrate has a region containing N-type majority carriers. A concentration of N-type majority carriers in a portion of the semiconductor substrate where the semiconductor substrate contacts the first insulating film, is higher than a concentration of N-type majority carriers in the other portion of the semiconductor substrate.
US07847356B2

Disclosed is a method to fabricate a semiconductor device, and a device fabricated in accordance with the method. The method includes providing a substrate comprised of silicon; performing a shallow trench isolation process to delineate nFET and pFET active areas and, within each active area, forming a gate structure over a surface of the substrate, the gate structure comprising in order from the surface of the substrate, a layer of high dielectric constant oxide, a layer comprised of a metal, a layer comprised of amorphous silicon, and a layer comprised of polycrystalline silicon. The layer comprised of amorphous silicon is provided to substantially prevent regrowth of the high dielectric constant oxide layer in a vertical direction during at least a deposition and processing of the polycrystalline silicon layer and/or metal layer.
US07847353B2

Techniques are disclosed that facilitate fabrication of semiconductors including structures and devices of varying thickness. One embodiment provides a method for semiconductor device fabrication that includes thinning a region of a semiconductor wafer upon which the device is to be formed thereby defining a thin region and a thick region of the wafer. The method continues with forming on the thick region one or more photonic devices and/or partially depleted electronic devices, and forming on the thin region one or more fully depleted electronic devices. Another embodiment provides a semiconductor device that includes a semiconductor wafer defining a thin region and a thick region. The device further includes one or more photonic devices and/or partially depleted electronic devices formed on the thick region, and one or more fully depleted electronic devices formed on the thin region. An isolation area can be formed between the thin region and the thick region.
US07847352B2

A semiconductor device includes: a semiconductor layer formed on a semiconductor substrate by performing epitaxial growth; a first buried insulating layer which is buried in the first region under the semiconductor layer; and a second buried insulating layer which is buried in the second region under the semiconductor layer in the position lower than the first buried insulating layer.
US07847347B2

A gate trench 13 is formed in a semiconductor substrate 10. The gate trench 13 is provided with a gate electrode 16 formed over a gate insulating film 14. A portion of the gate electrode 16 protrudes from the semiconductor substrate 10, and a sidewall 24 is formed over a side wall portion of the protruding portion. A body trench 25 is formed in alignment with an adjacent gate electrode 16. A cobalt silicide film 28 is formed over a surface of the gate electrode 16 and over a surface of the body trench 25. A plug 34 is formed using an SAC technique.
US07847346B2

A trench MOSFET with trench source contact structure having copper wire bonding is disclosed. By employing the proposed structure, die size can be shrunk into 30%˜70% with high cell density, and the spreading resistance is significantly reduce without adding expensive thick metal layer as prior art. To further reduce fabricating cost, copper wire bonding is used with requirement of thick Al alloys.
US07847343B2

Provided is a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device having a split gate structure, wherein a memory gate is formed over a convex shaped substrate and side surfaces of it is used as a channel. The nonvolatile semiconductor memory device according to the present invention is excellent in read current driving power even if a memory cell is scaled down.
US07847341B2

Methods and apparatuses for electronic devices such as non-volatile memory devices are described. The memory devices include a multi-layer control dielectric, such as a double or triple layer. The multi-layer control dielectric includes a combination of high-k dielectric materials such as aluminum oxide, hafnium oxide, and/or hybrid films of hafnium aluminum oxide. The multi-layer control dielectric provides enhanced characteristics, including increased charge retention, enhanced memory program/erase window, improved reliability and stability, with feasibility for single or multi state (e.g., two, three or four bit) operation.
US07847337B2

A semiconductor device including a semiconductor substrate, and a memory cell and a peripheral circuit provided on the semiconductor substrate, the memory cell having a first insulating film, a first electrode layer, a second insulating film, and a second electrode layer provided on the semiconductor substrate in order, and the peripheral circuit having the first insulating film, the first electrode layer, the second insulating film having an opening for the peripheral circuit, and the second electrode layer electrically connected to the first electrode layer through the opening for the peripheral circuit, wherein a thickness of the first electrode layer under the second insulating film of the peripheral circuit is thicker than a thickness of the first electrode layer of the memory cell.
US07847334B2

A non-volatile semiconductor storage device has a plurality of memory strings with a plurality of electrically rewritable memory cells connected in series. Each of the memory strings comprises: a first columnar semiconductor layer extending in a vertical direction to a substrate; a charge accumulation layer formed around the first columnar semiconductor layer via a first insulation layer; and a first conductive layer formed around the charge accumulation layer via a second insulation layer. Each of the first conductive layers is formed to expand in a two-dimensional manner, and air gaps are formed between the first conductive layers located there above and there below.
US07847325B2

A discrete trap memory, comprising a silicon substrate layer, a bottom oxide layer on the silicon substrate layer, a Fullerene layer on the bottom oxide layer, a top oxide layer on the Fullerene layer, and a gate layer on the top oxide layer; wherein the Fullerene layer comprises spherical, elliptical or endohedral Fullerenes that act as charge traps.
US07847322B2

This disclosure concerns a semiconductor memory device comprising a semiconductor substrate; a first dielectric film provided on the semiconductor substrate; two Fins provided on the first dielectric film and made of a semiconductor material; a second dielectric film provided on facing inner side surfaces among side surfaces of the two Fins; a third dielectric film provided on outer side surfaces among side surfaces of the two Fins; a gate electrode provided via the second dielectric film between the inner side surfaces of the two Fins; and a plate electrode provided via the third dielectric film on the outer side surfaces of the two Fins, wherein the two Fins, the gate electrode, and the plate electrode are included in one memory cell.
US07847318B2

Mesh holes 35a and 59a of upper solid layers 35 and upper solid layers 59 are formed to overlie on one another, so that the insulating properties of interlayer resin insulating layers 50 are not lowered. Here, the diameter of each mesh hole is preferably 75 to 300 μm. The reason is as follows. If the diameter of the mesh hole is less than 75 μm, it is difficult to overlay the upper and lower mesh holes on one another. If the diameter exceeds 300 μm, the insulating properties of the interlayer resin insulating layers deteriorate. In addition, the distance between the mesh holes is preferably 100 to 2000 μm. The reason is as follows. If the distance is less than 100 μm, the solid layer cannot function. If the distance exceeds 2000 μm, the deterioration of the insulating properties of the interlayer resin insulating film occurs.
US07847317B2

A reduced capacitance diode. A first conductive layer provides conductive interconnects for pad and supply diffusion regions in a diode. A second conductive layer includes a first portion to couple the pad diffusion regions to a pad and a second portion to couple the supply diffusion regions to a voltage supply. Lines of the first and second conductive layers are substantially parallel to each other in a diode region of the diode. Further, for one aspect, a tap for the diode to be coupled to a supply is wider than a minimum width.
US07847310B2

Semiconductor lasers, such as VCSELs having active regions with flattening layers associated with nitrogen-containing quantum wells are disclosed. MEE (Migration Enhanced Epitaxy) is used to form a flattening layer upon which a quantum well is formed and thereby enhance smoothness of quantum well interfaces and to achieve narrowing of the spectrum of light emitted from nitrogen containing quantum wells. A cap layer is also formed over the quantum well.
US07847302B2

A technique for forming a white light LED is disclosed. In one embodiment, the LED emits blue light. A first phosphor for producing red, yellow, yellow-green, or green light is formed to conformably coat the LED die. One suitable deposition technique is electrophoretic deposition (EPD). Over the resulting LED structure is deposited another phosphor (to add the remaining color component) in a binder (e.g., silicone) for encapsulating the die. The blue LED light combines with the two phosphor colors to create white light. Since the two different deposition techniques are independent and easily controllable, the resulting white light temperature is highly controllable and the color emission is substantially uniform.
US07847301B2

By adding light reflective and/or transparent and/or translucent material within a micro-electronic circuit housing, improved light transfer is achieved between a light generation source and a light utilization device. In one embodiment, the reflective material is placed on the inside surface of a non-metallic housing lid and the light from the light source (typically an LED) reflects from the reflective material and impacts the device (typically an FET). In another embodiment, the LED and FET are encased in a clear (low light-loss) material (typically silicone overcoat) so as to allow the light from the LED to reflect from the top of the clear material onto the FET. If desired, an opaque encapsulant surrounds the clear material and fills out the volume within the housing. In another embodiment, clear or translucent (as opposed to opaque) encapsulant can be used to serve dual purpose as both the structural (volume filling, defined package share/outline) agent as well as to permit the internal light transmission and reflections to illuminate the device.
US07847294B2

There is provided a method in which a TFT with superior electrical characteristics is manufactured and a high performance semiconductor device is realized by assembling a circuit with the TFT. The method of manufacturing the semiconductor device includes: a step of forming a crystal-containing semiconductor film by carrying out a thermal annealing to a semiconductor film; a step of carrying out an oxidizing treatment to the crystal-containing semiconductor film; a step of carrying out a laser annealing treatment to the crystal-containing semiconductor film after the oxidizing treatment has been carried out; and a step of carrying out a furnace annealing treatment to the crystal-containing semiconductor film after the laser annealing. The laser annealing treatment is carried out with an energy density of 250 to 5000 mJ/cm2.
US07847292B2

A flat panel display that can prevent a voltage drop of a driving power and, at the same time, minimizes the characteristic reduction of electronic devices located in a circuit region where various circuit devices are located includes: a substrate; an insulating film arranged on the substrate; a pixel region including at least one light emitting diode, the pixel region arranged on the insulating film and adapted to display an image; a circuit region arranged on the insulating film and including electronic devices adapted to control signals supplied to the pixel region; and a conductive film interposed between the substrate and the insulating film in a region corresponding to the pixel region and electrically connected to one electrode of the light emitting diode.
US07847285B2

Configurable power segmentation using a nanotube structure is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes patterning a nanotube structure adjacent to a transistor layer in an integrated circuit, and coupling a power region in the transistor layer to at least one power source based on a state of the nanotube structure. Nanotube material may be sputtered over a plurality of layers to form the nanotube structure. The nanotube structure may be curved to flex to a conductive surface when a current is applied to the nanotube structure. The power region may be coupled with at least two power sources that are concatenated together to provide cascaded current to the power region. One or more power regions in the integrated circuit may be enable based on the patterning the nanotube structure and the coupling of the power region to at least one power source.
US07847279B2

A nitride semiconductor light emitting diode according to the present invention, includes: a substrate; a buffer layer formed on the substrate; an In-doped GaN layer formed on the buffer layer; a first electrode layer formed on the In-doped GaN layer; an InxGa1-xN layer formed on the first electrode layer; an active layer formed on the InxGa1-xN layer; a first P—GaN layer formed on the active layer; a second electrode layer formed on the first P—GaN layer; a second P—GaN layer partially protruded on the second electrode layer; and a third electrode formed on the second P—GaN layer.
US07847272B2

An electron beam exposure system is designed to correct a proximity effect. The electron beam exposure system includes: an electron beam generation unit for generating an electron beam; an electron beam exposure mask having opening portions that are arranged so that sizes of the opening portions change at a predetermined rate in order of arrangement; a mask deflection unit for deflecting the electron beam on the electron beam exposure mask; a substrate deflection unit for deflecting and projecting the electron beam onto a substrate; and a control unit for controlling deflection amounts in the mask deflection unit and the substrate deflection unit. The direction or directions of the change may be any one of a row direction and a column direction or may be the row and column directions.
US07847270B2

According to the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus having: a process flow information creating section which registers an exposure device as a device for performing the pattern writing processing and an electron beam direct writing device as an alternative to the exposure device, when creating process flow information by sequentially registering processing conditions of processings in a semiconductor manufacturing process; and a control section which searches for information on the pattern writing processing based on the process flow information before the pattern writing processing, determines whether or not a mask used by the exposure device for performing the pattern writing processing searched for is installed in the exposure device, and sets the exposure device to perform the pattern writing processing in the case where it has been determined that the mask is installed in the exposure device, or sets the electron beam direct writing device to perform the pattern writing processing in the case where it has been determined that the mask is not installed in the exposure device.
US07847259B2

An image sensor has a plurality of pixels, each pixel including a photoelectric converter and a pixel circuit for processing signals from the photoelectric converter and outputting processed signals and a scanning circuit, disposed between the photoelectric converters, included in each of at least two adjacent pixels among a plurality of pixels aligned in a single direction. An edge pixel accommodates, in order from an edge of the image sensor toward an interior, a predetermined empty region, a photoelectric converter and a pixel circuit. There is at least one position at which two adjacent pixels, the first of the two pixels accommodating, in order, a pixel circuit, a photoelectric converter and predetermined empty region, the second accommodating, in order, a predetermined empty region, a photoelectric converter and a pixel circuit. The scanning circuit is disposed in the predetermined empty region between the two adjacent pixels.
US07847258B2

A radiation imaging device 12 has a phosphor film 8; a photoelectric conversion portion 13 including an upper electrode 6, a lower electrode 2, and a photoelectric conversion film 4 disposed between the electrodes; a signal output portion 14 including a field effect thin film transistor 10 having an active layer 24 formed from an amorphous oxide and that outputs a signal corresponding to electric charges generated by the photoelectric conversion portion; and a substrate 1 on which the signal output portion, the photoelectric conversion portion and the phosphor film are formed in this order. Each of pixel portions is made up of the signal output portion, the photoelectric conversion portion and the phosphor film, and the signal output portion and the photoelectric conversion portion in each of the pixel portions are formed so as to have an overlapping portion in a thickness direction.
US07847257B2

An apparatus and method for nuclear medical imaging (e.g., SPECT imaging) using cone-beam or multifocal collimators is disclosed. According to the embodiment of the invention, the detector/collimator is tilted in a fore-aft direction, with the tilt angle varying as a function of the orbital position of the detector assembly. The patient pallet may also be moved longitudinally as a function of the tilt angle (i.e., as a function of the orbital position) for optimal image quality.
US07847251B1

A graphical user interface for creating and organizing equipment inspection routes is provided. The interface can be used to retrieve thermographic images from a portable infrared imager. Viewed as thumbnails, these images can be annotated and placed in a user-specified linear order defining an inspection route. The route information can be transferred to portable infrared imager and displayed on the imager as thermographic image data with annotations.
US07847250B2

A substrate inspection apparatus includes: an electron beam irradiation device which emits an electron beam and causes the electron beam to irradiate a substrate to be inspected as a primary beam; an electron beam detector which detects at least one of a secondary electron, a reflected electron and a backscattered electron that are generated from the substrate that has been irradiated by the electron beam, and which outputs a signal that forms a one-dimensional or two-dimensional image of a surface of the substrate; a mapping projection optical system which causes imaging of at least one of the secondary electron, the reflected electron and the backscattered electron on the electron beam detector as a secondary beam; and an electromagnetic wave irradiation device which generates an electromagnetic wave and causes the electromagnetic wave to irradiate a location on the surface of the substrate at which the secondary beam is generated.
US07847240B2

An ion extraction method and system includes: i) confining ions within an ion trap extending along a longitudinal axis; ii) exciting a subset of the ions to cause them to oscillate along at least one transverse coordinate; iii) after the transverse excitation, applying a first field and a second field in the region of the transverse excitation to move the excited ions towards one end of the ion trap and extract at least some of the excited ions at the end of the ion trap.
US07847235B2

A novel laser obstacle warning and ranging system, for detecting hard-to-see long and thin obstacles in particular, comprises a fiber laser including a signal diode, a circulator, an erbium doped fiber, a wavelength division multiplexer, a narrow band reflector, a first fiber pump diode, an input combiner, an erbium-ytterbium co-doped fiber, a second fiber pump diode, an output combiner and a third fiber pump diode.
US07847231B2

To provide a small-size image sensor and electromagnetic radiation imaging device which can obtain a good image without relying on the condition of an object, the image sensor including a plurality of pixel units arranged two-dimensionally, wherein each of the plurality of pixel units includes: a first photodiode and a second photodiode; a readout circuit which reads a signal generated by the first photodiode and a signal generated by the second photodiode, and outputs the read signals, the readout circuit being connected to the first photodiode and the second photodiode; and a difference circuit which outputs a difference signal corresponding to a difference between the signal read from the first photodiode and the signal read from the second photodiode, the difference circuit being connected to the readout circuit.
US07847225B2

An input layer outputs light having a relatively narrow emission angle distribution to a middle layer as an output signal if the signal level of input signal is relatively high and outputs light having a relatively broad emission angle distribution to the middle layer as the output signal if the signal level of input signal is relatively low. The middle layer outputs light having a relatively narrow emission angle distribution as an output signal to an output layer if the signal level of the output signal from input layer is relatively high and outputs light having a relatively broad emission angle distribution to the output layer as an output signal if the signal level of the output signal from the input layer is relatively low.
US07847224B2

A microwave range having a hood for removing contaminated air includes a chamber having an inner chamber configured to receive items to be heated; an electric component room containing electric components; and at least one vent fan and a cooling fan that are driven by a common fan motor to generate air current for introducing and exhausting contaminated air and for cooling the electric components.
US07847218B2

An apparatus for heat treating semiconductor wafers is disclosed. The apparatus includes a heating device which contains an assembly linear lamps for emitting light energy onto a wafer. The linear lamps can be placed in various configurations. In accordance with the present invention, tuning devices which are used to adjust the overall irradiance distribution of the light energy sources are included in the heating device. The tuning devices can be, for instance, are lamps or lasers.
US07847207B1

An easy and controllable method and system to attach a carbon nanotube to a scanning probe tip such as a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tip using a focus ion beam (FIB) technique. The method and system includes selecting a carbon fiber by a Focus Ion Beam micromanipulator, picking up the carbon fiber with the nanotube tip, forming a slot on an SPM tip, and inserting the carbon fiber with the nanotube tip into the slot.
US07847205B2

The invention relates to a hinge actuator comprising a first part which is configured for connection with a second part via an electric drive. The first and the second part are provided with stops cooperating in a pivoting direction for defining a select or predetermined position of the actuator parts with respect to each other. In an embodiment, in a first position of a coupling between the first part and the second part, these parts can pivot via the electric drive. In a second position, the first part and the second part are not connected via the drive but can be pivoted relative to each other manually. Further, the first and the second part may be provided with stops only cooperating in the second position of the coupling in an opposing pivoting direction, for defining the select or predetermined position.
US07847199B2

One aspect of the present invention provides a poke-through assembly for installation in a hole in a floor structure. The floor structure defines a floor in a first working environment and a ceiling in a second working environment. The poke-through assembly includes at least one intumescent member, a base plate and an intumescent enclosure. The intumescent member is disposed at least partially between the floor of the first working environment and the ceiling of the second working environment. The base plate supports and is disposed below the intumescent member for limiting the expansion of the intumescent member toward or into the second working environment. The intumescent cover supports the intumescent member and circumferentially surrounds at least a portion of the intumescent member, wherein expansion of the intumescent member is impeded by the cover.
US07847189B2

An electric component, in particular an electric switch placed in a liquid-filled housing of an electrical installation, in particular a transformer, is filled with an insulating and cooling medium. The use of a compensating element, for example in the form of a bellow, makes it possible to transmit volume variations produced in the electric component directly to the surrounding liquid contained in the housing.
US07847188B2

A method of applying a premold to a cable. The cable may have a plurality of shielded pairs, where the shielded pairs have conductors. A premold is applied to the cable, where the shielded pairs are aligned within the premold. A deformable material is wrapped over the premold. A shell is applied over the deformable material. The premold is sufficiently hard so as to protect the conductors from deformation when applying the shell. A portion of the conductors may be deformed before being welded.
US07847179B2

A process for producing bulk thermoelectric compositions containing nanoscale inclusions is described. The thermoelectric compositions have a higher figure of merit (ZT) than without the inclusions. The compositions are useful for power generation and in heat pumps for instance.
US07847173B1

A series of adjustable springs, rigidly suspended above the keys of a piano, provides a downward force which reduces the effort needed to depress the keys. Precise adjustment of the series, and its attachment to the piano are facilitated through the use of existing fastener hardware within the conventional piano architecture.
US07847171B1

A guitar with pick holder apparatus provides a coil spring that is attachable to the guitar strings at a position next to the tuners. The coil spring has end portions with handles that are positioned to provide left and right gripping surfaces or grasping surfaces for the hands of a user, thus enabling the user to grip and stretch or bend the spring and provide gaps between the spring coils. These gaps between spring coils enable strings of the guitar to occupy the gaps so that when the loops are released, the coils attempt to return to an original coil spring position, thus grasping each guitar string in between two coils of the coil spring.
US07847158B2

The present invention provides polynucleotides and related polypeptides of the ZmERECTA gene family. The invention provides nucleic acid sequences for the Zm ERECTA genes. ZmERECTA is responsible for controlling plant growth, organ size and yield in crop plants.
US07847156B2

The present invention concerns a method for altering characteristics of a plant. The invention describes the identification of a gene that is downregulated in transgenic plants overexpressing E2Fa/DPa and the use of such sequences to alter plant characteristics. A preferred way for altering characteristics of a plant comprises modifying expression of one or more nucleic acid sequences and or modifying level and/or activity of one or more proteins, which nucleic acids and/or proteins encoded thereby are essentially similar to SEQ ID NO 1835. The gene identified in the present invention have an E2Fa target consensus sequence in their 5′ upstream region. The identified gene is postulated to play a role as transcription factors.
US07847155B2

A transgenic plant transformed by a phosphatase stress-related protein (PHSRP) coding nucleic acid, wherein expression of the nucleic acid sequence in the plant results in increased tolerance to environmental stress as compared to a wild type variety of the plant. Also provided are agricultural products, including seeds, produced by the transgenic plants. Also provided are isolated PHSRPs, and isolated nucleic acid coding PHSRPs, and vectors and host cells containing the latter.
US07847153B2

The present invention relates to DNA molecules that encode transcription regulatory regions. Furthermore, this present invention relates to nucleotide sequences encoding transcription regulatory regions that promote early seed enhanced or seed coat enhanced transcription of contiguous nucleotide sequences.
US07847144B2

The present invention relates to absorbent articles comprising superabsorbent polymer particles especially suitable for use in the fluid acquisition zone of the absorbent core. The superabsorbent polymer particles are coated with cationic polymers having 1 to 25 mol/kg, referring to the total weight of the cationic polymers, of cationic groups, which can be protonated. The cationic polymers are not substantially covalently bound to the superabsorbent polymer particles.
US07847139B2

A method of synthesizing hydrocarbons from smaller hydrocarbons includes the steps of hydrocarbon halogenation, simultaneous oligomerization and hydrogen halide neutralization, and product recovery, with a metal-oxygen cataloreactant used to facilitate carbon-carbon coupling. Treatment with air or oxygen liberates halogen and regenerates the cataloreactant.
US07847129B2

A method for dehydrogenating primary or secondary alcohols having 1 to 12 carbon atoms to give the corresponding aldehydes or ketones in which the alcohol is brought into contact with a catalytically active composition comprising an active component of the formula PdaBibYcZd, where Y is selected from the group consisting of Co, Rh, Pt, Ag, Au, and Z is selected from the group consisting of Na, Cs, Mg, Ca, Ba, V, Cr, W, Fe, Ni, Cu, Sb where the indices a, b, c and d give the mass ratios of the respective elements to one another, where a=0.1-3, b=0.1-3, c=0-3, d=0-1.
US07847125B2

A compound having the formula: R1 and R2 together with the carbon atoms to which they are bonded are joined together to form a C3-C30 ring. The C3-C30 ring may be substituted with one or more substituents or unsubstituted. The C3-C30 ring may contain one or more heteroatoms. The C3-C30 ring may be saturated, partially unsaturated, or fully unsaturated.
US07847123B2

Compounds of the general formula and to the use thereof for controlling microorganisms are provided.
US07847119B2

A compound having the formula Y-A-Z, wherein: A is a phenyl group which is unsubstituted or substituted; Y and Z are substituents at adjacent positions on ring A; Y represents: Z represents: and wherein the remaining variables are as defined in the specification.
US07847118B2

A process for continuous heterogeneously catalyzed partial dehydrogenation of at least one hydrocarbon to be dehydrogenated in a reactor which is manufactured from a composite material which consists, on its side in contact with the reaction chamber, of a steel B with specific elemental composition which, on its side facing away from the reaction chamber, either directly or via an intermediate layer of copper, or of nickel, or of copper and nickel, is plated onto a steel A with specific elemental composition, and also partial oxidations of the dehydrogenated hydrocarbon and the reactor itself.
US07847099B2

A non-metallocene organometallic complex comprising a tridentate ligand and a metal bonded to a tridentate ligand, wherein two substituted aryl groups in the tridentate ligand are connected to a cyclic group at the ortho position via semi-rigid ring-ring linkages, and selected so to provide the resulting non-metallocene organometallic complex with a CS geometry, a C1 geometry, a C2 geometry or a C2v geometry. Method for performing olefin polymerization with a non-metallocene organometallic complex as a catalyst, related catalytic systems, tridentate ligand and method for providing a non-metallocene organometallic complex.
US07847098B2

The present invention provides a fluorescent amino acid derivative which can be synthesized by simple steps, can be excited particularly by a blue laser ray region of visible light, and has an improved light stability. These objects can be achieved by a fluorescent amino acid derivative which is an acridone derivative substituted with an amino acid to comprise an electrophilic substituent group between the amino acid and the acridone derivative. Instead of a conventional strategy that aminophenylalanine is used as a starting material to form a fluorescent group through a coupling reaction and an intramolecular cyclization reaction, a fluorescent acridone derivative is used as a starting material to furnish the material to a reactive group by a position-specific electrophilic substitution reaction, and then the acridone derivative having the reactive group is allowed to couple with an amino acid derivative.
US07847090B2

RNA interference using small interfering RNAs which are specific for the ICAM-1 gene inhibits expression of this gene. Diseases which involve ICAM-1-mediated cell adhesion, such as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, diabetic retinopathy and other complications arising from type I diabetes, age related macular degeneration and many types of cancer, can be treated by administering the small interfering RNAs.
US07847087B2

Primer sequences and a method of using such sequences for the genotyping of HIV-1-containing samples, particularly those which have failed genotyping analysis are provided using primer sequences designed for analysis of Group B subtype of the Group M type virus. For example, a combination of primers, including at least one species of forward primer and at least one species of reverse primer where the forward primer(s) can be represented by the degenerate sequence: RARRARGGGCTGYTGGARATGTS (Seq. ID No. 9) and the reverse primer(s) can be represented by the degenerate sequence: BCHTYACYTTRATCCCSGVRTARATYTGACT (Seq. ID No.: 10) or BCHTYACYTTRATCCCSGVRTARATYTGAC (Seq. ID No. 12) are suitably employed. The selected primers, one or more from each group, can be used as reverse transcription, amplification and sequencing primers and are suitably packaged in a genotyping kit. Such a kit may include reagents in addition to the primers, such as an RNase inhibitor, a reverse transcriptase, a polymerase, and/or dNTP and ddNTP feedstocks.
US07847085B2

A novel immunogenic HIV-1 Env, particularly gp120, DNA construct is disclosed in which either the V1/V2 loop and the V4 loop, or all three variable loops, including V3, are replaced with a V3 sequence each of which is from a different viral isolate. Preferably, each replacement V3 loop is a consensus sequence of V3 of a different clade. Such constructs are useful as immunogens as each presents three independent V3 epitopes, so that the immunized subject generates a more broadly reactive neutralizing antibody response than with conventional gp120 or V3 DNA or polypeptide immunogens. Also disclosed are methods of using the DNA construct to immunize a mammal, preferably a human, particularly in a priming regiment in which the DNA immunogen is followed by administration of a V3 fusion protein boosting immunogen.
US07847084B2

The present invention relates to DNA sequences encoding Vmp-like polypeptides of pathogenic Borrelia, the use of the DNA sequences in recombinant vectors to express polypeptides, the encoded amino acid sequences, application of the DNA and amino acid sequences to the production of polypeptides as antigens for immunoprophylaxis, immunotherapy, and immunodiagnosis. Also disclosed are the use of the nucleic acid sequences as probes or primers for the detection of organisms causing Lyme disease, relapsing fever, or related disorders, and kits designed to facilitate methods of using the described polypeptides, DNA segments and antibodies.
US07847082B2

The present invention encompasses novel antibodies and fragments thereof which immunospecifically bind to one or more RSV antigens and compositions comprising said antibodies and antibody fragments. The present invention encompasses methods preventing respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection in a human, comprising administering to said human a prophylactically effective amount of one or more antibodies or fragments thereof that immunospecifically bind to one or more RSV antigens, wherein a certain serum titer of said antibodies or antibody fragments is achieved in said human subject. The present invention also encompasses methods for treating or ameliorating symptoms associated with a RSV infection in a human, comprising administering to said human a therapeutically effective amount of one or more antibodies or fragments thereof that immunospecifically bind to one or more RSV antigens, wherein a certain serum titer of said antibodies or antibody fragments is achieved in said human subject. The present invention further encompasses compositions comprising antibodies or fragments thereof that immunospecifically bind to a RSV antigen, and methods using said compositions for detection or diagnosis a RSV infection.
US07847075B2

Within oligonucleotides, 2-azapurine and especially 2-azaadenine bases form specifically base pairs with guanine. This base pair is of analogous stability as an adenine-thymine but less stable than a guanine-cytosine base pair. Therefore, the incorporation of 2-azaadenine residues into oligonucleotides instead of cytosine leads specifically to hybridization complexes with nucleic acids with homogenous stability. This is useful for the adaptation of the stabilities of different oligonucleotide sequences in all kinds of hybridization techniques, for example in oligomer chip technology.
US07847062B2

The present disclosure relates to novel vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-binding polypeptides and methods for using these polypeptides to inhibit biological activities mediated by vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs). The present disclosure also provides various improvements relating to single domain binding polypeptides.
US07847060B2

The present invention provides peptides comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 8, 67, 89, as well as peptides comprising the above-mentioned amino acid sequences in which 1, 2, or several amino acids are substituted, deleted, or added, and having cytotoxic T cell inducibility. The present invention also provides drugs for treating or preventing tumors comprising these peptides. The peptides of the present invention can also be used as vaccines.
US07847059B2

The present invention relates to a peptide comprising amino acids according to Formula (I): ((X)l(Y)m)n wherein l, m and n are integers from 0 to 10; X and Y, which may be the same or different, are an amino acid selected from the group consisting of hydrophobic amino acids and/or cationic amino acids, for use as a medicaments.
US07847055B2

A polyphenylene sulfide resin treated by thermal oxidation has a generated gas amount of 0.23 wt % or less when the resin is heated and melted in vacuum at 320° C. for 2 hours; a residual amount of 3.0 wt % or less as a residue when the resin is dissolved in an amount corresponding to 20 times the weight of the resin, of 1-chloronaphthalene at 250° C. for 5 minutes and, as the 1-chloronaphthalene solution, pressure-filtered in a still hot state by a PTFE membrane filter with a pore size of 1 μm or less; and a melt flow rate (measured at a temperature of 315.5° C. and at a load of 5000 g according to ASTM D-1238-70) of more than 100 g/10 min to 500 g/10 min.
US07847050B2

A crosslinkable organopolysiloxane composition comprising (A) a keto-containing organopolysiloxane and (B) a compound having at least two hydrazido and/or semicarbazido groups cures at room temperature into a film having safety and weathering resistance.
US07847046B2

Disclosed are soft, high refractive index, acrylic device materials having improved strength. The materials contain a phenylene-siloxane macromer.
US07847045B2

Disclosed are an acrylic acid-based polymer which is a star polymer containing a repeating unit derived from an (α-lower alkyl)acrylic ester represented by formula (I): (wherein R1 represents a hydrogen atom or a lower alkyl group, and R2 represents an organic group having a polar group) in an arm portion; an acrylic acid-based polymer containing a repeating unit derived from an poly(α-lower alkyl)acrylic ester and a repeating unit derived from an (α-lower alkyl)acrylic ester represented by formula (I), and a method for producing a polymer through living polymerization, comprising forming an oligomer having a polymerization active end, which is an oligomer higher than an average 1.0-mer and lower than an average 4.0-mer or an average 4.0-mer, and polymerizing using the oligomer having a polymerization active end as an initiating species.
US07847041B2

Cobalt-catalyzed asymmetric cyclopropanation of electron-deficient olefins.
US07847035B2

A method is provided for obtaining crosslinked polymers having pendent sulfonic acid groups by crosslinking through the sulfonic acid groups or their precursors with aromatic crosslinkers or aromatic pendent crosslinking groups to form aromatic sulfones. Such crosslinked polymers may be used to make polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM's) that may be used in electrolytic cells such as fuel cells.
US07847021B2

A modified polyolefin resin comprising a copolymer having a structure that a propylene-based polyolefin segment (a) and a segment (b) containing a lactic acid as a constituent are bonded in a block state and/or a graft state through a vinyl monomer having a hydroxyl group, wherein a number average molecular weight of the propylene-based polyolefin segment (a) is from 1,000 to 100,000, a number average molecular weight of the segment (b) containing lactic acid as a constituent is from 1,000 to 200,000, and a weight composition of the propylene-based polyolefin segment (a) and the segment (b) containing lactic acid as a constituent is from 10/90 to 90/10. The modified polyolefin resin can be used in a resin composition containing an aliphatic polyester resin (A), a polyolefin resin (B) and the modified polyolefin resin (C). The composition can exhibit excellent heat resistance and impact resistance and can be used for molding various parts.
US07847017B2

The present invention has an object to provide a photosensitive resin composition for optical waveguide formation, which has low transmission loss and can form a waveguide pattern with high shape accuracy at low cost; an optical waveguide; and a method for producing an optical waveguide. The present invention provides a photosensitive resin composition for optical waveguide formation comprising at least: a polymer containing at least a (meth)acrylate structure unit having an epoxy structure, and a (meth)acrylate structure unit having a lactone structure and/or a vinyl monomer structure unit having an aromatic structure; and a photoacid generator, of which one or both of a core layer and a cladding layer are formed of a cured product.
US07847014B2

A pressure sensitive adhesive for medicinal application purposes, based on ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers is characterized in that it contains as polymer component (A) an ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer or a combination of at least two ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers, and as component (B) an adhesive resin or a combination of adhesive resins at a portion of up to 55%-wt, relative to the sum of components (A) and (B) without active substances or other auxiliary substances.
US07847009B2

The present invention claims that a carbon black with unique morphological properties provides improved carbon black dispersion and improved rubber compound properties, such as improved fatigue life and abrasion resistance. The carbon black of current invention has a ratio of aggregate size HI and particle size HI greater than 1.70, the surface area STSA of 100-180 M2/g and the structure OAN less than 140 cc/100 g.
US07847006B2

A modifier material and method for making the same is characterized by the addition of a partitioning agent to a polymer material such as synthetic rubber to prevent reagglomeration of the rubber. The partitioning agent reduces the time required to disperse the modifier material in a material to be modified and also reduces the viscosity of the modified material so that the modified material is easier to handle. The partitioning agent preferably includes a mixture of phenyl formaldehyde resin and precipitated silica gel.
US07847003B2

The present invention provides a positive photosensitive resin composition which can form a cured film excellent in process resistance such as heat resistance, solvent resistance or long-time baking resistance and transparency, and which is excellent in photosensitive properties such as resolution and sensitivity, and which has high storage stability and a wide process margin. Further, the present invention provides a positive photosensitive resin composition having such high reliability that no deterioration of electrical characteristics will be led in its application for liquid crystal display devices.A positive photosensitive resin composition characterized by comprising an alkali-soluble resin which is a copolymer essentially comprising an unsaturated carboxylic acid derivative and an N-substituted maleimide and which has a number average molecular weight of from 2,000 to 20,000, a 1,2-quinone diazide compound represented by the formula (1): (wherein each of D independently is a hydrogen atom or an organic group having a 1,2-quinone diazide group, R1 is a tetravalent organic group, provided that at least one of D is an organic group having a 1,2-quinone diazide group), and from 5 to 50 parts by weight, per the alkali-soluble resin, of a crosslinking compound represented by the formula (2): (wherein n is an integer of from 2 to 10, m is an integer of from 0 to 4, and R2 is a n-valent organic group).
US07847000B2

The present invention provides a composition comprising at least one halobutyl elastomer, at least one mineral filler and at least one protected thiol modifier. In another aspect the present invention provides a process which comprises mixing a halobutyl elastomer with at least one mineral filler, in the presence of at least one protected thiol modifier, and curing the resulting filled halobutyl elastomer.
US07846991B2

The present invention relates to a biodegradable resin composition containing a resin component comprising polylactic acid and polybutylene terephthalate, and a powdered vegetable fiber component comprising corn starch, and relates to a method for producing the same. The present biodegradable resin composition contains the resin component (A) comprising 20 to 50 parts by weight of polylactic acid and 10 to 40 parts by weight of polybutylene terephthalate, and the powdered vegetable fiber component (B) comprising 10 to 70 parts by weight of corn starch, the total of the resin component (A) and the powdered vegetable fiber component (B) amounting to 100 parts by weight. The present biodegradable resin composition can be suitably used for producing a molded article.
US07846988B2

An ink, method of inkjet printing the ink and game ball utilizing the ink are disclosed. The ink preferably comprises a diacrylate oligomer. The ink more preferably comprises an acrylate monomer in an amount ranging from 15 to 40 parts of a solid component of the ink, a diacrylate oligomer in an amount of 20 to 40 parts of a solid component of the ink, a pigment in an amount of 5 to 15 parts of a solid component, and a thinning agent.
US07846985B1

Methods and systems for processing waste materials and for manufacturing composite materials are disclosed herein. According to some embodiments, the heterogeneous waste includes a plastic component and a non-plastic component, and the non-plastic component includes a plurality of pieces of waste. The heterogeneous waste is heated to melt at least a portion of said plastic component and reducing a volume of said heterogeneous waste, and then mixed (e.g. by rotating a mixing chamber or by stirring) until at least some said pieces are each encapsulated by the melted plastic component. Upon cooling, the mixture optionally sets into a composite material. The presently disclosed invention does not require pre-sorting of the heterogeneous waste and is operative to process “as is” waste. Optionally, the waste is pre-sorted. Exemplary uses for the composite material include but are not limited to flooring sheets, construction bricks, thermal insulation, acoustic walls, road paving materials, road beds, ballistic shields shock absorbing flooring, artificial islands, artificial reefs, and marine docks.
US07846981B2

A proton conductive copolymer includes styrene repeating units that have proton conductive functional groups and dimethylsiloxane repeating units. A polymer electrolyte membrane includes the proton conductive copolymer and a fuel cell uses the polymer electrolyte membrane. The proton conductive copolymer has excellent chemical and mechanical properties, excellent ability to form membrane with dimethylsiloxane repeating units, and superior ion conductivity with styrene repeating units that have proton conductive functional groups. Polymer electrolyte membranes that have properties appropriate for the fuel cell electrolyte membrane can be obtained using the proton conductive copolymer. Fuel cells that have improved efficiencies can be obtained using the polymer electrolyte membrane.
US07846975B2

The inventive molecular transporter compound shows significantly high permeability through a biological membrane such as a plasma membrane, nuclear membrane and blood-brain barrier, and accordingly, can be effectively used in delivering various biologically active molecules.
US07846972B2

The present invention relates to multimeric oleamide derivatives having connexin 26 inhibitory activities and embraces the dimer oleamide derivatives represented by the following formula (1) or a pharmacologically acceptable salt thereof: where n denotes an integer of 3, 5, or 8. The novel oleamide derivatives of the present invention can be used not only as research reagents, but also in a wide industrial field because they exhibit useful bioactivities such as cancer metastasis/growth inhibition. Thus they have various applications, such as in medicines, supplements, and functional foods, in addition to cancer-preventive and cancer-therapeutic drugs.
US07846971B2

The present invention relates to active bactericidal, antibacterial, anti-infective, antimicrobial, sporicidal, disinfectant, antifungal and antiviral compounds and compositions and to new uses of these compositions in therapy. This specification also describes methods of use for the new compounds and compositions. The specification further describes methods for preparing these compounds. FIG. 1: A dual chamber apparatus for the preparation of NNDCT on site.
US07846970B2

Hydroxycitric acid derivatives and salts thereof are provided which are useful as active ingredients of skin external preparations and cosmetics. Also provided are processes for production of the hydroxycitric acid derivatives, and skin external preparations and cosmetics containing the hydroxycitric acid derivatives. Specific hydroxycitric acid derivatives or salts thereof are produced wherein at least one of the hydroxyl groups of hydroxycitric acid or least one of the hydroxyl groups and at least one carboxyl group of hydroxycitric acid are modified to linkage moieties breakable by biological enzyme reaction. The hydroxycitric acid derivatives or salts thereof are added in skin external preparations and cosmetics.
US07846967B2

The present invention relates to cosmetic compositions and more particularly to skin-whitening cosmetic compositions comprising senkyunolide A as an active ingredient. The present invention discloses the novel inhibitory function of senkyunolide A isolated from Cnidium officinale and Ligusticum chuanxiong on the melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), and provides MSH-inhibitory compositions and skin-whitening cosmetic compositions comprising the senkyunolide A. The compositions of the present invention show significantly enhanced skin-whitening effect owing to its efficient inhibition of MSH even in lower concentration.
US07846958B2

The use of benzophenones of the formula I in which R is hydrogen or C1-C4-alkyl and Hal is fluorine, chlorine or bromine for controlling Pseudocercosporella herpotrichoides in crop plants is described.
US07846940B2

Medical devices, and in particular implantable medical devices, may be coated to minimize or substantially eliminate a biological organism's reaction to the introduction of the medical device to the organism. The medical devices may be coated with any number of biocompatible materials. Therapeutic drugs, agents or compounds may be mixed with the biocompatible materials and affixed to at least a portion of the medical device. These therapeutic drugs, agents or compounds may also further reduce a biological organism's reaction to the introduction of the medical device to the organism. In addition, these therapeutic drugs, agents and/or compounds may be utilized to promote healing, including the formation of blood clots. Therapeutic agents may also be delivered to the region of a disease site. In regional delivery, liquid formulations may be desirable to increase the efficacy and deliverability of the particular drug. Also, the devices may be modified to promote endothelialization. Various materials and coating methodologies may be utilized to maintain the drugs, agents or compounds on the medical device until delivered and positioned. In addition, the devices utilized to deliver the implantable medical devices may be modified to reduce the potential for damaging the implantable medical device during deployment. Medical devices include stents, grafts, anastomotic devices, perivascular wraps, sutures and staples. In addition, various polymer combinations may be utilized to control the elution rates of the therapeutic drugs, agents and/or compounds from the implantable medical devices.
US07846937B2

The present invention provides compounds of Formula (I), pharmaceutical compositions thereof, methods of using the same, processes for preparing the same, and intermediates thereof.
US07846936B2

The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical combination for the treatment of diseases which involves cell proliferation, migration or apoptosis of myeloma cells, or angiogenesis. The invention also relates to a method for the treatment of said diseases, comprising co-administration of effective amounts of specific active compounds and/or co-treatment with radiation therapy, in a ratio which provides an additive and synergistic effect, and to the combined use of these specific compounds and/or radiotherapy for the manufacture of corresponding pharmaceutical combination preparations.
US07846935B2

The present invention relates to compounds of formula (I), and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof, wherein: X is CH or N; and R4 is optionally substituted C3-8 alkyl or optionally substituted C3-8 cycloalkyl. The invention further relates to pharmaceutical compositions comprising compounds of formula (I), and the use of such compounds in the treatment of a disease selected from osteoporosis, Paget's disease, Chagas's disease, malaria, gingival diseases, hypercalaemia, metabolic bone disease, diseases involving matrix or cartilage degradation, and bone cancer disorders such as bone metastases and associated pain.
US07846933B2

The present invention relates to a compound of the formula [I]: wherein G1 is an alkyl which is substituted by a halogen atom or an alkoxy, or a group of the formula: wherein ring B is benzene ring which may be substituted, etc., Q1 and Q2 may be the same or different, and each is hydrogen atom, a halogen atom or an alkyl, n is 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4, R1 is hydrogen atom, an alkyl which may be substituted, a cycloalkyl which may be substituted, a phenyl which may be substituted, etc., Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4 may be the same or different, and each is CH or N, provided that 3 or more of Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4 should not be N at the same time, G2 is hydrogen atom, —NR3R4, —OR5, etc., where R3 to R8 each is independently hydrogen atom, an alkyl which may be substituted, an alkenyl, an alkynyl, etc., or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof.
US07846931B2

The present invention provides compounds of formula I and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof. The formula I compounds inhibit tyrosine kinase activity of growth factor receptors such as HER1, HER2 and HER4 thereby making them useful as antiproliferative agents. The formula I compounds are also useful for the treatment of other diseases associated with signal transduction pathways operating through growth factor receptors.
US07846924B2

This invention provides a progesterone receptor antagonist of formula 1 having the structure wherein, T is O, S, or absent; R1, and R2 are each, independently, hydrogen, alkyl, substituted alkyl; or R1 and R2 are taken together form a ring and together contain —CH2(CH2)nCH2—, —CH2CH2CMe2CH2CH2—, —O(CH2)pCH2—, —O(CH2)qO—, —CH2CH2OCH2CH2—, or —CH2CH2NR7CH2CH2—; n=1-5; p=1-4; q=1-4; R3 is hydrogen, OH, NH2, alkyl, substituted alkyl, alkenyl, substituted alkenyl, alkynyl, substituted alkynyl, or CORA; RA is hydrogen, alkyl, substituted alkyl, alkoxy, substituted alkoxy, aminoalkyl, or substituted aminoalkyl; R4 is hydrogen, halogen, CN, NH2, alkyl, substituted alkyl, alkoxy, substituted alkoxy, aminoalkyl, or substituted aminoalkyl; R5 is hydrogen, alkyl, or substituted alkyl; R6 is hydrogen, alkyl, substituted alkyl, or CORB; RB is hydrogen, alkyl, substituted alkyl, alkoxy, substituted alkoxy, aminoalkyl, or substituted aminoalkyl; R7 is hydrogen or alkyl; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof.
US07846921B2

The invention relates to a method for relieving or ameliorating symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease by administering a medicament that includes the cholecystokin-2 (CCK-2) receptor antagonist itriglumide and a proton pump inhibitor (PPI).
US07846920B2

The invention relates to heterosubstituted N-thiolated beta-lactams, compositions comprising these compounds, methods for their production, and methods of use as antibiotics to inhibit the growth of bacteria. In one embodiment, the compounds have the structure shown in formula (A) or formula (B) or formula (C): wherein the R groups are as defined in the specification. The antibacterial agents of the invention can be administered to a human or animal to treat or inhibit bacterial infection, such as that of Staphylococcus species, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
US07846918B2

6-Methyloxaalkyl exemestane compounds and related compositions, as can be used, chemotherapeutically, to inhibit growth and proliferation of cancer cells.
US07846910B2

The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition for the prevention and treatment for β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation in brain comprising GCP-II (Glutamate carboxypeptidase-II) as an active ingredient, a composition for screening method of the same. GCP-II of the present invention not only degrades Aβ monomer and oligomer but also degrades soluble Aβ and insoluble Aβ, particularly aggregated Aβ, so that it can prevent the accumulation of Aβ in brain or reduce the accumulation, making it an excellent candidate for the therapeutic agent for Alzheimer's disease and Down's syndrome.
US07846908B2

The present invention concerns methods of treatment using transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) modulators. More specifically, the invention concerns methods of treating disorders associated with undesirable TGF-beta signaling, by administering short interfering RNA which down-regulate the expression of TGF-beta, and agents useful therein.
US07846903B2

A cubic liquid crystal composition comprising at least one amphiphilic compound having the following general formula (1) and having an IV/OV value of 0.65 to 0.95, and water or an aqueous medium: wherein R represents a hydrophilic group; X and Y each independently represent a hydrogen atom or together form an oxygen atom; n is an integer of 0 to 4; and m is an integer of 0 to 3.
US07846891B2

The present invention provides methods and compositions for enhancing regeneration and/or repair of neural tissue. One method include providing a nanoscale structured material at the site of injury, wherein the nanoscale structured material provides an environment that is permissive for regeneration of neural tissue and allows axon growth from a location on one side of a site of injury or barrier to a location on the other side of the site of injury or barrier. A second method includes introducing a composition comprising self-assembling peptides into the subject at the site of injury, wherein the peptides are amphiphilic peptides that comprise substantially equal proportions of hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids and are complementary and structurally compatible. A variety of compositions comprising a nanoscale structured material or precursor thereof, and an additional substance such as a regeneration promoting factor, are also provided. In certain embodiments of the invention the nanoscale structured material or precursor thereof comprises self-assembling peptides. The invention further provides compositions and methods for repair of an intervertebral disc, including nucleus pulpusos repair.
US07846886B2

A mixture of 17-oxabicyclo[14.1.0]heptadec-8-ene and its isomers as an odoriferous substance and an odoriferous or aroma substance mixture comprising 17-oxabicyclo[14.1.0]heptadec-8-ene and one or more further odoriferous or aroma substances are described.
US07846883B2

A hydrodynamic bearing device, comprising a shaft structure, a sleeve, a dynamic pressure-generating groove which is formed on surface of at least one of a shaft structure and a sleeve, and a lubricant present in a gap between the shaft structure and the sleeve; wherein the lubricant contains a diester with a total carbon number of 20 to 28 obtainable by a divalent alcohol that has three ether bond, and one or more types of a saturated monovalent fatty acid with carbon number of 6 to 10.
US07846882B2

Electrical oil formulation comprising a base oil component and an additive, wherein (i) at least 80 wt % of the base oil component is a paraffin base oil having a paraffin content of greater than 80 wt % paraffins and a saturates content of greater than 98 wt % and comprising a series of iso-paraffins having n, n+1, n+2, n+3 and n+4 carbon atoms and wherein n is between 20 and 35; and (ii) an anti-oxidant additive; wherein the base oil component has a flash point of at least 170° C., as determined by ISO 2592.
US07846871B2

A heat-sensitive recording medium is presented, comprising a substrate (2) with a first side and a second side remote therefrom a heat-sensitive recording layer (4) which is placed on the first side of the substrate (2) and comprises at least one colorant precursor and colour acceptor, the colorant precursor and colour acceptor reacting with one another under the influence of heat to form a colour, a printed protective layer (9) which covers the recording layer (4), is crosslinkable and crosslinked under the influence of energy-rich radiation and is based on (meth)acrylates, characterised in that the protective layer (9) contains from 65 to 95% by weight of one or more (meth)acrylates, selected from the group comprising polyether(meth)acrylate, epoxy(meth)acrylate and urethane(meth)acrylate from 0 to 20% by weight of photoinitiators and from 0.5 to 20% by weight of wax, at least one (meth)acrylate from the aforementioned group being an amine-modified (meth)acrylate and the percentages by weight adding up to form from 65.5 to 100% by weight of the layer (9), the protective layer (9) is printed on from a non-aqueous phase, at least one pigmented print layer (5,6) is applied between the recording layer (4) and the protective layer (9) and/or, in the case of a multi-ply protective layer (9), between the at least two plies of the protective layer (9).
US07846866B2

Methods for forming porous anatase titanium dioxide coatings are disclosed. Sol-gel compositions are prepared having at least one porosity agent, are applied to a substrate, and at least one porosity agent is removed. Porous anatase titanium dioxide coatings having at least one of improved antimicrobial properties, self-cleaning properties, hydrophilicity, and/or temperability are also disclosed. Substrates comprising such coatings are also disclosed.
US07846865B2

In the present invention, it is an assignment to optimize a loading density of noble metal on catalyst.Pt is loaded in such an amount that a loading amount per 1 liter of a support substrate exceeds 0.75 g on an exhaust-gas upstream side of a coating layer, and a loading density of Rh in the coating layer is made so that it becomes higher on an exhaust-gas downstream side than on the exhaust-gas upstream side. The purifying performance after warming up improves by loading Rh with high density on the exhaust-gas downstream side that is likely to become rich atmosphere.
US07846858B2

The invention concerns a glaze for annealing surfaces, particularly of ceramic parts used in the field of medicine, comprising the components 30 to 55% SiO2, 0 to 7% Al2O3, 10 to 30% R2O, 5 to 10% R′O, 0.5 to 15% B2O3, 5 to 10% Bi2O3, 1 to 10% P2O5, 0 to 5% Sb2O3, 0 to 5% SnO2, 0 to 5% TiO2 and 5 to 10% ZrO2 by mass, wherein (R) is one or several alkali metals and (R′) is one or several bivalent metals from the group comprising alkaline earth metals and zinc, and wherein the glaze is obtained by melting or sintering the components.
US07846853B2

An electrical insulation paper that is made of mica flakelets (22), having an average size range of 0.01 to 0.05 mm in their thinnest dimension, hexagonal boron nitride (26), which has an average size range of 10 to 1,000 nm in their longest dimension, and a resin matrix. The mica flakelets and the hexagonal boron nitride are mixed and formed into a paper (17), and the resin is added to the paper after formation, the ratio by weight of the hexagonal boron nitride to the mica flakelets is directly proportional to the average size of the hexagonal boron nitride compared to the average size of the mica flakelets, within an adjustment factor.
US07846852B2

As for electrode pads for a semiconductor integrated circuit element, some of electrode pads for signal transmission are coupled to Ti films. Others of the electrode pads for signal transmission are coupled to electrode pads through wiring routed in multilayer wiring. Electrode pads for power supply are coupled to electrode pads to which power lines at potentials different from each other are coupled through wiring. The electrode pads are also coupled to Al foils (anodes). Electrode pads for grounding are coupled to electrode pads to which ground lines are coupled through wiring. The electrode pads are also coupled to conductive polymer films (cathodes).
US07846851B2

A semiconductor wafer having no photoresist craters at the completion of a two-step post-apply resist bake (soft bake) in the fabrication of an integrated circuit. A process and method for soft baking the semiconductor wafer so that photoresist layers are free of surface voids or craters. The semiconductor wafer is coated with resist and then baked at both a low-bake temperature and a high-bake temperature. It is theorized that the lower temperature bake either hardens the resist layer before trapped air expands through the resist or displaces the trapped air while the resist layer remains fluid and returns to its conformal shape.
US07846846B2

High aspect ratio contact openings are etched while preventing bowing or bending of the etch profile by forming a highly conductive thin film on the side wall of each contact opening. The conductivity of the thin film on the side wall is enhanced by ion bombardment carried out periodically during the etch process.
US07846835B2

A method for depositing a barrier layer onto a substrate is disclosed. A layer of titanium (Ti) is deposited onto the substrate using an ionized metal plasma (IMP) physical vapor deposition process. The IMP process includes: generating gaseous ions, accelerating the gaseous ions towards a titanium target, sputtering the titanium atoms from the titanium target with the gaseous ions, ionizing the titanium atoms using a plasma, and depositing the ionized titanium atoms onto the substrate to form the layer of Ti. A first layer of titanium nitride (TiN) is deposited onto the layer of Ti using a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) process. A second layer of TiN is deposited onto the first layer of TiN using a thermal chemical vapor deposition process. The newly completed barrier layer is annealed in the presence of nitrogen at a temperature of between about 500° C. to about 750° C.
US07846833B2

An interlayer insulating film having a concave portion is formed on a semiconductor substrate. A tight adhesion film is formed on the inner surface of the concave portion and the upper surface of the insulating film. The surface of the adhesion layer is covered with an auxiliary film made of Cu alloy containing a first metal element. A conductive member containing a second metal element other than the first metal element is embedded in the concave portion, and deposited on the auxiliary film. Heat treatment is performed to make atoms of the first metal element in the auxiliary film segregate on the inner surface of the concave portion. The adhesion layer contains an element for enhancing tight adhesion of the auxiliary film more than if the auxiliary film is deposited directly on a surface of the interlayer insulating film. During the period until the barrier layer having also the function of enhancing tight adhesion, it becomes possible to retain sufficient tight adhesion of a wiring member and prevent peel-off of the wiring member.
US07846831B2

An uppermost one of multilayered electrode pads, on which a bump and a plating coat will be formed, is made of metal having high ionization tendency, particularly, Al. On the other hand, an uppermost one of multilayered electrode pads, on which none of the bump and the plating coat will be formed, is made of metal having low ionization tendency, particularly, Cu.
US07846830B2

The objects of the present invention is to improve the impact resistance of the semiconductor device against the impact from the top surface direction, to improve the corrosion resistance of the surface of the top layer interconnect, to inhibit the crack occurred in the upper layer of the interconnect layer when the surface of the electrode pad is poked with the probe during the non-defective/defective screening, and to prevent the corrosion of the interconnect layer when the surface of electrode pad is poked with the probe during the non-defective/defective screening. A Ti film 116, a TiN film 115 and a pad metal film 117 are formed in this sequence on the upper surface of a Cu interconnect 112. The thermal annealing process is conducted within an inert gas atmosphere to form a Ti—Cu layer 113, and thereafter a polyimide film 118 is formed, and then a cover through hole is provided thereon to expose the surface of the pad metal film 117, and finally a solder ball 120 is joined thereto.
US07846829B2

A semiconductor device is provided that includes a semiconductor chip, a plurality of solder bumps that electrically couple the semiconductor chip to the outside, and a metal bump being provided on the surface of each first solder bump which is at least a part of the plurality of solder bumps and being made of a metal having a melting point higher than that of the first solder bump. The wettability of the first solder bump is improved as each metal bump serves as a core when the corresponding first solder bump melts. Thus, the connection reliability of the first solder bump can be improved.
US07846826B2

A gate dielectric film, a poly-silicon film, a film of a refractory metal such as tungsten, and a gate cap dielectric film are sequentially laminated on a semiconductor substrate. The gate cap dielectric film and the refractory metal film are selectively removed by etching. Thereafter, a double protection film including a silicon nitride film and a silicon oxide film is formed on side surfaces of the gate cap dielectric film, the refractory metal film, and the poly-silicon film. The poly-silicon film is etched using the double protection film as a mask. Thereafter, the semiconductor substrate is light oxidized to form a silicon oxide film on side surfaces of the poly-silicon film. Accordingly, a junction leakage of a MOSFET having a gate electrode of a poly-metal structure, particularly, a memory cell transistor of a DRAM, can be further reduced.
US07846825B2

In a method of forming a contact hole and a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device having the same, a first insulation interlayer is formed on a substrate. A dummy pattern is formed on the first insulation interlayer. A second insulation interlayer is formed to cover the dummy pattern. A photoresist pattern is formed on the second insulation interlayer. The photoresist pattern has an exposed portion. The dummy pattern under the photoresist pattern is arranged to cross over the exposed portion of the photoresist pattern. The first and second insulation interlayers are etched using the photoresist pattern and the dummy pattern as an etching mask, to form a plurality of contact holes on both sides of the dummy pattern. Accordingly, the contact holes may be formed to have a smaller width.
US07846821B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes providing a semiconductor wafer and forming at least one first trench in the wafer having first and second sidewalls and a first orientation on the wafer. The first sidewall of the at least one first trench is implanted with a dopant of a first conductivity at a first implantation direction. The first sidewall of the at least one first trench is implanted with the dopant of the first conductivity at a second implantation direction. The second implantation direction is orthogonal to the first implantation direction. The first and second implantation directions are non-orthogonal to the first sidewall.
US07846812B2

A method of forming trench isolation includes etching first trench lines into semiconductive material of a semiconductor substrate. First isolation material is formed within the first trench lines within the semiconductive material. After forming the first isolation material within the first trench lines, second trench lines are etched into semiconductive material of the substrate between the first trench lines such that the first trench lines and second trench lines alternate. Second isolation material is formed within the second trench lines within the semiconductive material. Alternate and additional aspects are contemplated.
US07846800B2

A circuit having a circuit control terminal, a primary circuit and a protection circuit is provided. The primary circuit includes a primary control terminal and a primary gate oxide of a thickness T1. The primary control terminal is coupled to the circuit control terminal. The protection circuit having a protection control terminal is coupled to the primary circuit. The protection circuit includes a protection gate oxide of a second thickness T2 which is less than T1. The protection gate oxide reduces plasma induced damage in the primary circuit.
US07846798B2

The invention includes methods in which an angled implant is utilized to self-align a source/drain region implant with the top edge of a gateline of a vertical transistor structure. The invention also includes methods in which an angled implant is utilized to implant dopant beneath the gateline of a vertical transistor structure. Vertical transistor structures formed in accordance with methodology of the present invention can be incorporated into various types of integrated circuitry, including, for example, DRAM arrays.
US07846797B2

The present invention discloses a tunnel insulating layer in a flash memory device and a method of forming the same, the method according to the present invention comprises the steps of forming a first oxide layer on a semiconductor substrate through a first oxidation process; forming a nitride layer on an interface between the semiconductor substrate and the first oxide layer through a first nitridation process; forming a second nitride layer on the first oxide layer through a second nitridation process; forming a second oxide layer on the second nitride layer through a second oxidation process; and forming a third nitride layer on the second oxide layer through a third nitridation process.
US07846796B2

A semiconductor device includes a plurality of channel structures on a semiconductor substrate. A bit line groove having opposing sidewalls is defined between sidewalls of adjacent ones of the plurality of channel structures. A plurality of bit lines are formed on corresponding ones of the opposing sidewalls, and the plurality of bit lines are electrically isolated from each other
US07846794B2

flash memory cell includes a silicon substrate having a main surface, a source region in a portion of the silicon substrate proximate the main surface and a drain region in a portion of the silicon substrate proximate the main surface. The drain region is spaced apart from the source region. The memory cell includes a first dielectric layer formed on the main surface, a floating gate disposed above the first dielectric layer, an inter-gate dielectric layer disposed above the floating gate, a control gate disposed above the inter-gate dielectric layer, a second dielectric layer and a low-k dielectric spacer layer disposed on the second dielectric layer. The first dielectric layer covers a portion of the main surface between the source and the drain. The second dielectric layer surrounds outer portions of the first dielectric layer, the control gate, the inter-gate dielectric layer and the floating gate.
US07846792B2

A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device that controls the influence of a thickness of a stopper film even if there is a change in the thickness of the stopper film by measuring the thickness prior to etching to a predetermined thickness.
US07846786B2

Provided is a method of fabricating a nano-wire array, including the steps of: depositing a nano-wire solution, which contains nano-wires, on a substrate; forming a first etch region in a stripe shape on the substrate and then patterning the nano-wires; forming drain and source electrode lines parallel to each other with the patterned nano-wires interposed therebetween; forming a plurality of drain electrodes which have one end connected to the drain electrode line and contact at least one of the nano-wires, and forming a plurality of source electrodes, which have one end connected to the source electrode line and contact the nano-wires that contact the drain electrodes; forming a second etch region between pairs of the drain and source electrodes so as to prevent electrical contacts between the pairs of the drain and source electrodes; forming an insulating layer on the substrate; and forming a gate electrode between the drain and source electrodes contacting the nano-wires on the insulating layer. Accordingly, even in an unparallel structure of nano-wires to electrode lines, a large scale nano-wire array is practicable and applicable to an integrated circuit or display unit with nano-wire alignment difficulty, as well as to device applications using flexible substrates.
US07846782B2

A method of making a non-volatile memory device includes providing a substrate having a substrate surface, and forming a non-volatile memory array over the substrate surface. The non-volatile memory array includes an array of semiconductor diodes, and each semiconductor diode of the array of semiconductor diodes is disposed substantially parallel to the substrate surface.
US07846772B2

A layered chip package includes a main body including a plurality of layer portions, and wiring disposed on a side surface of the main body. Each layer portion includes a semiconductor chip, an insulating portion covering at least one side surface of the semiconductor chip, and a plurality of electrodes connected to the semiconductor chip. The insulating portion has an end face located at the side surface of the main body on which the wiring is disposed. Each electrode has an end face surrounded by the insulating portion and located at the side surface of the main body on which the wiring is disposed. To manufacture the layered chip package, a layered chip package substructure is fabricated by: processing a semiconductor wafer to form a plurality of pre-semiconductor-chip portions aligned; forming at least one groove extending to be adjacent to at least one of the pre-semiconductor-chip portions; forming an insulating layer to fill the groove; and forming the electrodes.
US07846770B2

The method of coating the area of hybridization of a component that is constituted by two elements bonded to one another by means of a soldering material, including depositing proximate to the component a coating substance capable of filling by capillarity action the volume defined between the hybridized elements of the component. Further, along the periphery of the hybridization area on the lower element of the component is an area of non-wettability in regards to the coating substance, that is defined by depositing an anti-wetting covering of PECVD in regards to the coating substance, whereby the anti-wetting covering on the first element encompasses the hybridization area and surrounds a wetting surface for the coating substance.
US07846767B1

Semiconductor-on-diamond (SOD) substrates and methods for making such substrates are provided. In one aspect, a method of making an SOD device is provided that includes etching depressions into an etch surface of a semiconductor substrate to a uniform depth, depositing a diamond layer onto the etch surface to form diamond-filled depressions, and thinning the semiconductor substrate at a thinning surface opposite the etch surface until the diamond filled depressions are exposed, thus forming a semiconductor device having a thickness substantially equal to the uniform depth.
US07846761B2

Provided is an image sensor and method for manufacturing the same. In the image sensor, a first substrate has a lower metal line and a circuitry thereon. A crystalline semiconductor layer contacts the lower metal line and is bonded to the first substrate. A photodiode is provided in the crystalline semiconductor layer and electrically connected with the lower metal line. A light shielding layer is formed in regions of the photodiode.
US07846758B2

A semiconductor imaging device includes a photodetection region formed of a diffusion region of a first conductivity type formed in an active region of a silicon substrate at a first side of a gate electrode such that a top part thereof is separated from a surface of the silicon substrate and such that an inner edge part invades underneath a channel region right underneath the gate electrode, a shielding layer formed of a second conductivity type at a surface of the silicon substrate at the first side of the gate electrode such that an inner edge part thereof is aligned with a sidewall surface of the gate electrode at the first side, a floating diffusion region formed in the active region at a second side of the gate electrode, and a channel region formed right underneath said gate electrode, wherein the channel region includes a first channel region part formed adjacent to the shielding layer and a second channel region part formed adjacent to the floating diffusion region, wherein the second channel region part contains an impurity element with a concentration level lower than the impurity concentration level of the first channel region part.
US07846757B2

A method for growth and fabrication of semipolar (Ga,Al,In,B)N thin films, heterostructures, and devices, comprising identifying desired material properties for a particular device application, selecting a semipolar growth orientation based on the desired material properties, selecting a suitable substrate for growth of the selected semipolar growth orientation, growing a planar semipolar (Ga,Al,In,B)N template or nucleation layer on the substrate, and growing the semipolar (Ga,Al,In,B)N thin films, heterostructures or devices on the planar semipolar (Ga,Al,In,B)N template or nucleation layer. The method results in a large area of the semipolar (Ga,Al,In,B)N thin films, heterostructures, and devices being parallel to the substrate surface.
US07846740B2

The invention relates to a method for detecting an explosive substance which contains chlorate, bromate and/or organic peroxide, wherein a suspect substance is contacted with a first reagent, which is a strongly acid solution of at least one primary or secondary aromatic amine, whereby chlorate or bromate type explosive affords a distinct coloration; and in the absence of such coloration, contacting the same sample (in contact with the first reagent) with a second reagent, which is a solution comprising cations of at least one transition metal, whereby the presence of organic peroxides in the sample, which has been hydrolyzed at least partly to hydrogen peroxide by the strong acid of the first reagent, affords a distinct coloration. The invention further relates to a kit containing separate first and second reagents; a container of mixed reagents for detecting peroxide; and a kit including such container.
US07846738B2

The invention features methods for evaluating the conformation of a polymer, for example, for determining the conformational distribution of a plurality of polymers and to detect binding or denaturation events. The methods employ a nanopore which the polymer, e.g., a nucleic acid, traverses. As the polymer traverses the nanopore, measurements of transport properties of the nanopore yield data on the conformation of the polymer.
US07846716B2

An object of the present invention is to provide a microchip whereby, when chemical analysis is conducted, a specimen liquid can be directly collected and weighed without using any collecting and weighing devices. The present invention provides a microchip for analyzing liquid samples, which has a measuring structure for weighing and collecting a given amount of a specimen liquid within a range of 0.05 to 10 μl from an excessive amount of the specimen liquid which was introduced in the chip, wherein the measuring structure is located at the upstream side of an analysis element for analyzing a target substance in the specimen liquid inside the microchip.
US07846709B2

A new bacterium Chryseobacterium sp. No. 9670 belonging to the genus Chryseobacterium, which has the ability to produce an enzyme having a property to deamidate amido groups in protein, thereby effecting production of the enzyme, and subsequently collecting the enzyme from the culture mixture.
US07846708B2

The present invention describes a method for increasing the survival of the bacteria of Rhizobium genus, comprising the steps of: making the bacteria to grow in a chemically defined medium; keeping the bacteria in growth stationary phase for a proper period of time; exposing the bacteria to effective quantities of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Within the invention scope there is an alternative method to increase the survival of the bacteria of the Rhizobium genus by means of genetic engineering comprising the steps of: making a recombinant vector codifying enzymes able to produce IAA to express in effective way in said bacteria; making the bacteria to grow in chemically defined culture medium; keeping the bacteria in growth stationary phase for a proper period of time.
US07846707B2

Alanine 2,3-aminomutase sequences are disclosed, as are cells having alanine 2,3-aminomutase activity and methods of selecting for such cells. Methods for producing beta-alanine, pantothenate, 3-hydroxypropionic acid, as well as other organic compounds, are disclosed.
US07846700B2

Disclosed herein are a method for preparing a transformant which carries a gene encoding benzaldehyde dehydrogenase derived from Sphingomonas aromaticivorans KCTC 2888 and expresses the enzyme, and biological purification of the crude naphthalene dicarboxylic acid, obtained upon the oxidation of 2,6-dimethylnaphthalene with the concomitant production of 2-formyl-6-naphthoic acid, by applying a transformant for the conversion of FNA into naphthalene dicarboxylic acid.
US07846693B2

A method for determining the methylation status of a potential methylation site in genomic nucleic acid comprising treating genomic nucleic acid with an agent which modifies cytosine bases but does not modify 5methyl-cytosine bases under conditions to form a. modified nucleic acid template containing a potential methylation site; providing a first clamp containing a first capture sequence complementary to a region flanking one side of the potential methylation site in the modified nucleic acid template, providing a second clamp containing a second capture sequence complementary to a region flanking the other side of the potential methylation site in the modified nucleic acid template; allowing the first clamp and the second clamp to hybridise to the modified nucleic acid template; ligating the hybridised first and second clamps to form a probe spanning the potential methylation site in the modified nucleic acid template; digesting the modified nucleic acid template to obtain the probe; and detecting the probe and determining the methylation status of the potential methylation site in the modified genomic nucleic acid.
US07846684B2

A protein system is described in which a protein is bound within a matrix material that has pores that are sized to achieve excellent properties such as: activity, protein density, and stability. In a preferred embodiment, the pore sizes range from 50 to 400 Å. One protein that has demonstrated surprisingly good results in this system is OPH. This protein is known to degrade organophosphorus compounds such as are found in chemical weapons and pesticides. Novel methods of forming the protein system and methods of making OPH are also described.
US07846682B2

The invention provides methods of coupling protein ligands to a solid support. The invention also provides affinity chromatography matrices and methods of using affinity chromatography matrices to purify a target molecule.
US07846678B2

Provided herein are methods for detecting gram negative bacteria or lipopolysaccharide in a sample. Kits for detecting gram negative bacteria or lipopolysaccharide in a sample are provided.
US07846677B2

Peptides comprising an Rpt1 domain of an INI1/hSNF5 which inhibit HIV-1 production in a human cell, and vectors encoding those peptides are provided. Also provided are methods of inhibiting HIV-1 production in a cell, or spread of the HIV-1 to another cell, by treating the cells with the above peptides or vectors. Other methods of inhibiting HIV-1 production in a cell, or spread of the HIV-1 to another cell, by inhibiting production of INI1/hSNF5 are provided. Additionally, methods of determining whether a test compound inhibits HIV-1 virion production in a mammalian cell, or spread of the HIV-1 to another cell, are provided. Those methods comprise determining whether the test compound inhibits the production of INI1/hSNF5 or disrupts the interaction of HIV-1 integrase with INI1/hSNF5.
US07846676B2

Methods for detecting one or more analytes, such as a protein, in a fluid path are provided. The methods include resolving, immobilizing and detecting one or more analytes in a fluid path, such as a capillary. Also included are devices and kits for performing such assays.
US07846663B2

The present invention relates generally to viral variants exhibiting reduced sensitivity to particular agents and/or reduced interactivity with immunological reagents. More particularly, the present invention is directed to hepatitis B virus (HBV) variants exhibiting complete or partial resistance to nucleoside or nucleotide analogs and/or reduced interactivity with antibodies to viral surface components including reduced sensitivity to these antibodies. The present invention further contemplates assays for detecting such viral variants, which assays are useful in monitoring anti-viral therapeutic regimens and in developing new or modified vaccines directed against viral agents and in particular HBV variants. The present invention also contemplates the use of the viral variants to screen for and/or develop or design agents capable of inhibiting infection, replication and/or release of the virus.
US07846661B2

The present invention is directed to methods of generating a signal indicative of the presence of said target nucleic acid sequence in a sample, comprising, incubating a sample comprising a an amplified target nucleic acid and a nucleic acid polymerase which substantially lacks 5′ to 3′ exonuclease activity, adding a thermostable fen nuclease consisting of 5′ to 3′ exonuclease and/or endonuclease activity so as to cleave a cleavage structure and generate a signal.
US07846657B2

A pair of oligonucleotide probes comprising a first oligonucleotide probe that comprises a first clamp section that is capable of hybridising to a second clamp section of a second oligonucleotide probe and a first target section that is capable of hybridising to a first section of a target DNA sequence to be detected, a second oligonucleotide probe that comprises a second clamp section that is capable of hybridising to the first clamp section of the first oligonucleotide probe and a second target section that is capable of hybridising to a second section of the target DNA sequence to be detected.
US07846652B2

Interleukin-22 interacts with its receptor, referred to as IL-22R, and instigates a series of reactions, leading to activation of various molecules, such as JAK-1, Tyk2, and others. One can identify molecules which mediate this interaction by measuring the activity of one or more of the molecules in the pathway, to identify agonists and antagonists. These, in turn, are useful therapeutic agents, where inappropriate expression of one of the activated molecules is at issue, and requires amelioration.
US07846646B2

A resist pattern forming method comprises the steps of plasma-processing a surface of an acid-feedable resist layer formed and patterned on a surface of a substrate in a gas atmosphere containing a fluorocarbon; attaching a resin composition crosslinkable in the presence of an acid to the plasma-processed surface of the resist layer; crosslinking the resin composition in a part in contact with the resist layer by feeding an acid from the resist layer, so as to form a crosslinked layer covering the resist layer; and removing the resin composition from a part excluding the crosslinked layer, so as to yield a resist pattern comprising the resist layer and the crosslinked layer covering the resist layer.
US07846644B2

An atomic-layer-deposition process for forming a patterned thin film comprising providing a substrate, applying a photopatternable deposition inhibitor material to the substrate, wherein the deposition inhibitor material comprises an organosiloxane compound; and patterning the deposition inhibitor material. The thin film is substantially deposited only in the selected areas of the substrate not having the deposition inhibitor material.
US07846640B2

A developer composition for resists which has a high dissolution rate (high developing sensitivity). The developer composition for resists comprises an organic quaternary ammonium base as a main component and a surfactant containing an anionic surfactant represented by formula (I).
US07846636B2

The present invention relates to a process for readily producing a toner for electrophotography which contains toner particles having a small particle size and a narrow particle size distribution, and a toner for electrophotography having a small particle size and a narrow particle size distribution which is produced by the above process. There is provided a process for producing a toner for electrophotography which includes the steps of (A) finely dispersing a resin binder in an aqueous medium in the presence of a nonionic surfactant to prepare a dispersion of resin binder-containing fine particles; (B) aggregating the resin binder-containing fine particles obtained in the step (A) together to prepare a dispersion of mother particles; (C) adding a dispersion of a resin binder-containing fine particles at one time or sequentially in several divided parts to the dispersion of the mother particles obtained in the step (B) to prepare aggregated particles thereof; and (D) coalescing the aggregated particles obtained in the step (C), as well as a toner for electrophotography which is produced by the above process.
US07846634B2

A developing agent including a toner particle obtained by using a dispersion containing a solvent, a granular mixed compound having a binder resin and a coloring agent dispersed in the solvent, and, as an additive to disperse a compound, a combination of a surfactant and a basic compound or a combination of a sulfone-based surfactant and a polycarboxylic acid-based surfactant, wherein the additive remaining in the developing agent is within a predetermine range.
US07846629B2

An imaging member has a crosslinked overcoat layer. The overcoat layer is formed from an overcoat solution comprising a trisilanol polyhedral oligomeric polysilsesquioxane; two crosslinking agents; a hole transport molecule; an acid catalyst; and an alcohol solvent. The overcoat layer provides excellent wear resistance at a low cost.
US07846627B2

A photoconductor that includes, for example, a supporting substrate, a photogenerating layer, and at least one charge transport layer comprised of at least one charge transport component, and wherein the at least one charge transport layer contains at least one α-aminoketone.
US07846624B2

An apparatus and method for the simultaneous determination of focus and source boresighting error for photolithographic steppers and scanners is described. A reticle containing custom arrays of box-in-box test structures specifically designed for performing source or exit pupil division using an aperture plate is exposed onto a resist coated wafer several times. The resulting exposure patterns are measured with a conventional overlay tool. The overlay data is processed with a slope-shift algorithm for the simultaneous determination of both focus and source telecentricity as a function of field position. Additionally, methods for ameliorating metrology induced effects and methods for producing precision Bossung curves are also described. This Abstract is provided for the sole purpose of complying with the Abstract requirement rules, it shall not be used to interpret or to limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.
US07846620B2

The phase shift mask according to the present invention is a phase shift mask for manufacturing a semiconductor device. The phase shift mask includes a light-blocking portion, a light-transmitting portion, a phase shift portion, and an auxiliary pattern portion, the light-blocking portion, the light-transmitting portion, the phase shift portion, and the auxiliary pattern portion being concentrically arranged, wherein a width of the auxiliary pattern portion in a radius direction is less than a width of the light-transmitting portion and a width of the phase shift portion in a radius direction. Furthermore, it is possible that a phase of exposure light which passes through an auxiliary pattern portion is opposite to a phase of exposure light which passes through a light-transmitting portion or a phase shift portion, the light-transmitting portion or the phase shift portion being the closest to the auxiliary pattern portion.
US07846619B2

A photomask includes a first region, a second region and a third region. The first and second regions are spaced apart by the third region. A first photomask type is disposed in the first region and a second photomask type, different from the first photomask type, is disposed in the second region. A dummy photomask pattern is disposed in the third region and is structured to form a dummy wafer pattern on a wafer.
US07846617B2

A light-shielding layer over a transparent substrate is processed into a predetermined pattern by first etching and then a recess is formed in an underlying layer below the light-shielding layer by second etching using at least the light-shielding layer as a mask. Subsequently, a defect inspection of the recess is performed. If, as a result of the inspection, a residue defect is detected at the recess otherwise formed in the underlying layer below the light-shielding layer, defect portion data of a pattern of a region including a residue-defect portion is produced and a repairing resist pattern is formed on the light-shielding layer based on the defect portion data. Then, third etching is applied to the underlying layer below the light-shielding layer using the light-shielding layer and the repairing resist pattern as a mask, thereby repairing the residue-defect portion.
US07846614B2

An electrode for solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell comprising a catalyst layer comprising at least electrocatalyst particles (3), a supporting substance therefor (4) and proton-conductive polymers (1) and (2), wherein the proton-conductive polymer (1) is present in a primary presence state in which the proton-conductive polymer (1) covers the electrocatalyst particles (3) or the supporting substance therefor (4), or both at least partly; the proton-conductive polymer (2) is present in a secondary presence state in which the proton-conductive polymer (2) binds the electrocatalyst particles (3) to one another or binds particles of the supporting substance (4) to one another or to the solid polymer electrolyte membrane; and the melt viscosity of the proton-conductive polymer (1) is lower than the melt viscosity of the proton-conductive polymer (2).
US07846613B2

A power generation cell includes a membrane electrode assembly and first and second metal separators sandwiching the membrane electrode assembly. Ridge members are formed integrally on the second metal separator, and these ridge members contact a first seal member of the first metal separator under pressure to form an inlet connection channel and an outlet connection channel. The coolant supply passage and the coolant flow field are connected through the inlet connection channel and the coolant discharge passage and the coolant flow field are connected through the outlet connection channel.
US07846596B2

A fuel cell system enables time required for purging to be reduced without a major increase in discharge gas concentration at a time of purging. It comprises a fuel cell; a fuel gas supply path for supplying the fuel gas to an anode; an oxidizing gas supply path for supplying an oxidizing gas to a cathode; a fuel gas circulating path for returning an unreacted fuel gas to an anode inlet side; a dilution box for diluting the fuel gas by the oxidizing gas and for discharging it to outside; and a fuel gas discharge path connecting the fuel gas circulating path and a dilution box discharge gas inlet. A drain valve, a purge valve and an air discharge valve are provided, opening areas of which are different from one another. The drain valve with a smallest opening area is initially opened.
US07846595B2

A system for a vehicle having an engine with an exhaust comprises a fuel cell coupled in the engine exhaust wherein the fuel cell has an output circuit; a battery coupled with the fuel cell; and a controller receiving a signal indicative of an electric output of the fuel cell output circuit, and adjusting one of the fuel amount and the air amount supplied to the engine in response to said signal to affect air-fuel ratio of the exhaust of the engine.
US07846589B2

A fuel cell stack includes unit cells. At one side of the unit cells, an oxygen-containing gas supply passage and a fuel gas discharge passage having different opening areas are provided. At the one side of the unit cells, a recess is provided near the fuel gas discharge passage having a relatively small opening area. A cell voltage terminal is provided in the recess such that the cell voltage terminal does not protrude outwardly from the side of the unit cells.
US07846586B2

A lithium-nickel complex oxide material for active material for positive electrode of a lithium secondary battery is provided and expressed by the general formula Lix(Ni1-yCoy)1-zMzO2 (where, 0.98≦x≦1.10, 0.05≦y≦0.4, 0.01≦z≦0.2, M=at least one element selected from the group of Al, Zn, Ti and Mg), wherein according to Rietveld analysis, the Li site occupancy rate for the Li site in the crystal is 98% or greater, and the average particle size of the spherical secondary particles is 5 μm to 15 μm, and wherein the difference in specific surface area between before and after the washing process is 1.0 m2/g or less.
US07846585B2

This invention relates to electrodes for non-aqueous lithium cells and batteries. More specifically, the invention relates to silver manganese vanadium oxide positive electrodes for such cells and batteries. The silver manganese vanadium oxide electrodes may contain substituents or dopants to improve the electrochemical properties of the electrodes, cells and batteries. The silver manganese vanadium oxide electrodes optionally contain silver powder and/or silver foil to assist in current collection at the electrodes and to improve the power capability of the cells or batteries. The invention also includes a method for preparing the electrodes by decomposition of a permanganate salt, such as AgMnO4, KMnO4, NaMnO4 or LiMnO4 in the presence of a compound or compounds containing silver and/or vanadium.
US07846581B2

The field of the present invention relates to the field of batteries and of polymer electrolytes for batteries and more particularly to the field of lithium batteries.The invention relates to a composition which can be polymerized and/or crosslinked by dehydrocondensation for a battery electrolyte comprising: a) at least one organohydropolysiloxane (POS) (A) having, per molecule, at least 2 hydrogen atoms directly bonded to silicon atoms; b) at least one organohydroxypolysiloxane (POS) (B) having, per molecule, at least 2 —OH groups directly bonded to silicon atoms; c) an effective amount of a dehydrocondensation catalyst (C); and d) at least one electrolyte salt (D); with the condition that the POS (A) and/or the POS (B) comprise(s), per molecule, at least one siloxyl unit comprising at least one group directly bonded to a silicon atom comprising a polyoxyalkylene (Poa) ether functional group.
US07846573B2

A battery assembly may include a cooling system assembly having first and second battery modules and a coolant manifold in fluid communication therewith. The first battery module may include a first coolant flow path and the second battery module may include a second coolant flow path. The coolant manifold may include first and second ports and a main body portion to provide expansion and contraction between the first and second ports. The first port may be in communication with the first flow path and the second port may be in communication with the second flow path.
US07846568B2

A power supply unit in a hybrid structure of a fuel cell and a power storage unit and a control method for the power supply unit, in which a small-size light-weight power storage unit is used and chances of incomplete functioning have been eliminated. In addition to the downsizing of the power storage unit and a reduction of the system price, it also becomes possible to start the fuel cell at high speed and raise the fuel cell temperature quickly, monitor output and remaining mounts of fuel and power, and take measures against fluctuations of output, and provides immediate availability of portable devices like the ones using a conventional secondary cell.
US07846563B2

A perpendicular magnetic recording system and medium has a multilayered recording layer that includes an exchange-spring structure and a ferromagnetic lateral coupling layer (LCL). The exchange-spring structure is made up of two ferromagnetically exchange-coupled magnetic layers (MAG1 and MAG2), each with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. MAG1 and MAG2 may have a coupling layer (CL) located between them that permits ferromagnetic exchange coupling of MAG1 with MAG2. The LCL is located either above or below MAG1 and in direct contact with MAG1 and mediates an effective intergranular exchange coupling in MAG1. The ferromagnetic alloy in the LCL has significantly greater intergranular exchange coupling than the ferromagnetic alloy in MAG1, which typically will include segregants such as oxides. The LCL is preferably free of oxides or other non-metallic segregants, which would tend to reduce intergranular exchange coupling in the LCL. Because the LCL grain boundaries overlay the boundaries of the generally segregated and decoupled grains of MAG1, and the LCL and MAG1 grains are strongly coupled perpendicularly, the LCL introduces an effective intergranular exchange coupling in the MAG1.
US07846556B2

Methods and compositions relating to the preparation of structurally and compositionally modulated composite surfaces that can potentially reduce friction and increase resistance to wear and scuffing in rolling, rotating and sliding bearing applications. Preparation of nano-to-micro size pores, holes, or dimples on a given solid surface and filling them with soft or hard coatings at desired thickness to achieve such properties.
US07846545B2

An object of the present invention is to provide a glass fiber package where a glass fiber aggregate which contains alkali-containing glass wool fiber of a very small diameter having an average fiber size of 5 μm or less or, particularly, less than 1 μm and containing 5% or more by weight or, particularly, 10% or more by weight of alkali metal oxide components is packed in a compressed state to give a form which is able to be handled as a freight, and in which, fiber breakage (lowering in the fiber length) and fiber adhesion caused by compression packing is hardly resulted even upon a long-term storage whereby the properties inherent to the glass fiber immediately after its manufacture is apt to be maintained; to provide a method for packing the glass fiber; and to provide a glass fiber product using the same.A glass fiber package of the present invention includes a glass fiber aggregate which contains alkali-containing glass wool fiber having an average fiber size of 5 μm or less and containing 5% or more by weight of alkali metal oxide components is packed in a compressed state so as to give a form which is able to be handled as a freight where the bulk density is 80 to 135 kg/m3.
US07846535B2

Edge stiffened corrugated polymeric sheet material can be utilized as storm panels for mounting about a perimeter surface of an opening so as to protect the opening from wind and impact loads. The panels can include a corrugated sheet material having a corrugated contiguous band horizontally extending at about an end of the top and the bottom, wherein the corrugated contiguous band is complementary and contiguous to the plurality of corrugations of the corrugated sheet panel. The complementary and contiguous corrugated band can be configured to sandwich the sheet material. The panel may also include, individually or in combination, a contiguous band sandwiching the polymeric sheet material at a terminal end of each side and extending vertically from the top to the bottom. The panels provide wind and impact load protection for the opening.
US07846528B2

A method and apparatus for forming an improved pultruded and clinched Z-axis fiber reinforced composite laminate structure. The upper and lower skins and the core are pulled automatically through tooling where the skin material is wetted-out with resin and the entire composite laminate is preformed in nearly its final thickness. The preformed composite laminate continues to be pulled into an automatic 3-dimensional Z-axis fiber deposition machine that deposits “groupings of fiber filaments” at multiple locations normal to the plane of the composite laminate structure and cuts each individual grouping such that an extension of each “grouping of fiber filaments” remains above the upper skin and below the lower skin. The preformed composite laminate then continues to be pulled into a secondary wet-out station. Next the preformed composite laminate travels into a pultrusion die where the extended “groupings of fiber filaments” are all bent over above the top skin and below the bottom skin producing a superior clinched Z-axis fiber reinforcement as the composite laminate continues to be pulled, catalyzed, and cured at the back section of the pultrusion die. The composite laminate continues to be pulled by grippers that then feed it into a gantry CNC machine that is synchronous with the pull speed of the grippers and where computerized machining, drilling, and cutting operations take place. This entire method is accomplished automatically without the need for human operators.
US07846521B2

According to the invention, the resin film to be divided is finely divided along the grooves, whereby the ends of images or characters of photos or the like can be cut off finely. The resin film to be divided is provided with the grooves, thereby finely cutting off the ends of images or characters output on the surface thereof. Further, the resin film is as the lowermost layer, the adhesive layer is provided thereon, and the paper or plastic film with the image receiving layer coat is provided thereon. The grooves formed by cutting the paper or plastic film with image receiving layer coat are previously provided, and the grooves enter a portion of the resin film to be divided, whereby after an image is received, the ends of the film can be finely cut off.
US07846518B2

A liquid-absorbing, impact-absorbing packaging container for protecting packaged items such as bottled liquids, while providing absorbency in the event of a liquid spill. The container material is created from a mixture of an inorganic liquid-absorbing agent such as vermiculite, and a cellulosic material such as paper pulp, which mixture is then formed into a container material, for packaging an article such as a glass bottle. The containers and container materials of this invention are substantially free of dust and/or loose particles.
US07846515B2

To provide a liquid crystal optical modulation element which is excellent in durability against blue laser and which can maintain the characteristics for a long period of time.A liquid crystal optical modulation element to modulate a laser beam having a wavelength of at most 500 nm, which comprises a layer of a polymer liquid crystal composition sandwiched between a pair of transparent substrates facing each other, characterized in that each of the pair of transparent substrates has an alignment film on the surface which faces the other transparent substrate, and the polymer liquid crystal composition is a polymer liquid crystal containing a hindered amine compound and a hindered phenol compound.
US07846511B2

A transparent film comprises: a transparent support; and a hard coat layer on the transparent support, wherein the hard coat layer is a layer which is obtained by: applying on a transparent support an applying composition comprising an ionizing radiation curable compound and at least one kind of active halogen compound; drying; and hardening by irradiation of ionizing radiation.
US07846508B2

The invention relates to a method for the treatment of surfaces of wood or woodbase materials with surface treatment compositions, and the timbers or woodbase materials thus treated by impregnating with a curable aqueous composition of α) low molecular weight compounds V which have at least two N-bonded groups and/or β) precondensates of the compound V and/or γ) reaction products or mixtures of the compound V with at least one alcohol which is C1-C6-alkanols, C2-C6-polyols or oligoalkylene glycols; treating that impregnated material at elevated temperature and) treating at least one surface of the wood or woodbase material to be treated with a surface treatment composition.
US07846504B2

The invention is a die for dispensing flowable material. The die is comprised of a die block. An external face is disposed on the die block. At least one slot extends perpendicularly into the external face. The slot has a longitudinal dimension, a first longitudinal side and a second longitudinal side. At least one support member extends from the external surface into the slot. The support member extends continuously from the first longitudinal side to the second longitudinal side. At least a portion of the support member is disposed in a direction other than perpendicular to the longitudinal dimension. The support member is disposed to such that at least a portion of any plane extending from the first longitudinal side to the second longitudinal side, in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal dimension of the slot, passes through a void area.
US07846501B2

Methods for making packaged consumer products are described. The methods generally include the steps of providing an opaque printed substrate, providing a plurality of individually wrapped disposable absorbent articles, and forming a package for containing the wrapped articles with the opaque printed substrate. The opaque printed substrate has a window section that contains ink that causes the over-wrapping material of the articles to appear to have a different color when viewed from outside of the package.
US07846500B2

Compositions, systems, and methods for protecting an ink-jet produced image printed on a substrate are provided. The composition can comprise a liquid vehicle and latex particulates dispersed in the liquid vehicle, wherein the latex particulates have a surface dielectric constant from 2.0 to 3.0 at room temperature, and a bulk density from 0.90 g/cm3 to 1.10 g/cm3. An alternative composition can comprise a liquid vehicle and latex particulates dispersed in the liquid vehicle, wherein the latex particulates have a reactive surfactant covalently attached thereto.
US07846495B2

An inkjet head having a hydrophobic coating layer and a method of forming the hydrophobic coating layer on a surface of a nozzle plate of the inkjet head. The method includes filling a wax into a plurality of nozzles formed in the nozzle plate while coating the surface of the nozzle plate with wax, removing the wax from the surface of the nozzle plate, forming a hydrophobic coating layer on the surface of the nozzle plate, melting the wax filled in the nozzles, and removing portions of the hydrophobic coating layer covering the nozzles by discharging the melted wax through the nozzles using heat and/or pressure. Therefore, the hydrophobic coating layer is uniformly formed only on an outer surface of the nozzle plate, without forming the hydrophobic coating layer in an inner surface of the nozzles, thereby improving an ink ejecting performance of the nozzles.
US07846492B2

Certain example embodiments of this invention relate to a photocatalytic coated article and a method of making the same. In certain example embodiments, a coated article includes a zirconium nitride and/or oxide inclusive layer before heat treatment (HT). The coated article is heat treated so that following heat treatment (e.g., thermal tempering) a zirconium oxide based layer is provided. A photocatalytic layer (e.g., of an oxide of titanium) may be formed over zirconium oxide based layer following heat treatment.
US07846477B2

The invention concerns a method for producing solid galenic formulations which consists in: forming a processable paste comprising a) 50 to 99.4 wt. % of at least one non-thermoplastic carrier, b) 0.5 to 30 wt. % of at least an adjuvant selected among thermoplastic polymers, lipids, sugar alcohols and solubilizing agents, c) 0.1 to 49.5 wt. % of at least one active principle, at a temperature not less than the softening temperature of the adjuvant but rising to at least 70° C.; then in cooling the resulting paste. Said solid galenic formulations quickly disintegrate in an aqueous medium.
US07846469B2

Methods and pharmaceutical compositions are disclosed for reversibly inhibiting sperm receptor activity in animals. Nicarbazin, its derivatives and modifications which retain pharmacological activity are shown to inhibit activity of zona pellucida proteins and concomitant synthesis and/or assembly of the sperm receptor on the oocyte surface necessary for fertilization. Nicarbazin is easily administered, for example by simple addition to feed of an animal and is and non-toxic to the animals, providing a safe and efficient means for controlling populations of mammals and avian species.
US07846467B2

The present invention relates to a device and methods for culturing stem cells, and in particular, for culturing ocular stem cells and the use of stem cells cultured using the devices and methods of the invention for the treatment of diseases.
US07846453B2

The invention concerns a novel neuregulin related ligand (NRG3) including fragments and variants thereof, as new members of the neuregulin family of compounds. The invention also concerns methods and means for producing NRG3. The native polypeptides of the invention are characterized by containing an extracellular domain including an EGF-like domain, a transmembrane domain and a cytoplasmic domain. Isolated nucleotide sequences encoding such polypeptides, expression vectors containing the nucleotide sequences, recombinant host cells transformed with the vectors, and methods for the recombinant production for the novel NRG3s are also within the scope of the invention.
US07846452B2

Immunostimulatory compounds can be extracted from microalgae or algae using various procedures. The resulting preparations exhibit extremely potent immunostimulatory activity. The extraction of these immunostimulatory agents is dependent on the solvent used and the extraction temperature. These preparations are potentially useful as a botanical or pharmaceutical preparation to improve immune function.
US07846447B2

The pharmaceutical composition is useful for treating epithelial tumors in a subject and contains at least two antigens and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier, where each of the antigens induces or is capable of inducing a cutaneous delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) response in the subject. This composition is particularly useful in treating epithelial tumors, such as warts or verrucae, that are induced by or related to papillomavirus. Antigens useful in the present pharmaceutical composition are anergy panel antigens, such as killed mumps virus, candida extract, trichophyton extract or comparable antigenic extracts. An additional pharmaceutical composition, also useful for treating epithelial tumors, contains at least one antigen that induces or is capable of inducing a cutaneous DTH response in a subject, at least one cytokine or colony stimulating factor and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. Kits containing these pharmaceutical compositions are useful for this immunotherapy.
US07846443B2

Engineered antibodies to human IL-17A are provided, as well as uses thereof.
US07846441B1

The present invention concerns the treatment of disorders characterized by the overexpression of ErbB2. More specifically, the invention concerns the treatment of human patients susceptible to or diagnosed with cancer overexpressing ErbB2 with a combination of an anti-ErbB2 antibody and a chemotherapeutic agent other than an anthracycline, e.g. doxorubicin or epirubicin.
US07846432B2

The present invention relates to antigen binding molecules (ABMs). In particular embodiments, the present invention relates to recombinant monoclonal antibodies, including chimeric, primatized or humanized antibodies specific for human EGFR. In addition, the present invention relates to nucleic acid molecules encoding such ABMs, and vectors and host cells comprising such nucleic acid molecules. The invention further relates to methods for producing the ABMs of the invention, and to methods of using these ABMs in treatment of disease. In addition, the present invention relates to ABMs with modified glycosylation having improved therapeutic properties, including antibodies with increased Fc receptor binding and increased effector function.
US07846431B2

The invention relates to the discovery of novel soluble neutral active Hyaluronidase Glycoproteins (sHASEGPs), methods of manufacture, and their use to facilitate administration of other molecules or to alleviate glycosaminoglycan associated pathologies. Minimally active polypeptide domains of the soluble, neutral active sHASEGP domains are described that include asparagine-linked sugar moieties required for a functional neutral active hyaluronidase domain. Included are modified amino-terminal leader peptides that enhance secretion of sHASEGP. The invention further comprises sialated and pegylated form of a recombinant sHASEGP to enhance stability and serum pharmacokinetics over naturally occurring slaughterhouse enzymes. Further described are suitable formulations of a substantially purified recombinant sHASEGP glycoprotein derived from a eukaryotic cell that generate the proper glycosylation required for its optimal activity.
US07846428B2

The present invention relates to recombinant vectors expressing the BMP-7 polypeptide in host cells and to pharmaceutical compositions comprising such recombinant vectors. The invention also encompasses methods for prevention and/or treatment of osteoarthritis in mammals, advantageously in humans, dogs, horses and cats, by intra-articular administration of the recombinant vectors and pharmaceutical compositions of the invention.
US07846421B2

The present invention relates to styling wax composition applied as aerosol spray with improved styling benefits, especially with excellent shine and hold and also excellent elasticity. The inventors of the present invention have found out surprisingly that an aqueous or aqueous-alcoholic hair styling composition based on at least one film forming polymer selected from anionic, non-ionic, amphoteric and cationic ones comprising at least one polyalkyleneglycol ether of fatty acid glyceride or partial glyceride with at least 30 alkylene glycol units at a concentration of 3 to 25% by weight calculated to total composition, at least one ethoxylated fatty alcohol with saturated or unsaturated alkyl chains of 12 to 18 C atoms and with 1 to 3 ethoxy units as the wax component at a concentration 1 to 15% by weight calculated to total composition, is possible to spray onto hair from an aerosol can containing further a propellant selected from dimethylether, 1,2-difluoroethane and their mixture at a concentration of at least 30% by weigh calculated to total composition.
US07846418B2

An MCM-22 family molecular sieve having an X-ray diffraction pattern of the as-synthesized MCM-22 family molecular sieve including d-spacing maxima at 12.4±0.25, 3.57±0.07 and 3.42±0.07 Angstroms and at least one peak between 26.6° and 29° (2θ). The peak between 26.6° to 29° (2θ) has a two theta (2θ) of about 26.9°. A method of manufacturing an MCM-22 family molecular sieve, said method comprising the steps of (a) combining at least one silicon source, at least one source of alkali metal hydroxide, at least one directing-agent (R), water, and optionally one aluminum source, to form a mixture having the following mole composition: Si:Al2=10 to infinity H2O:Si=1 to 20 OH−:Si=0.001 to 2 M+:Si=0.001 to 2 R:Si=0.001 to 0.34 wherein M is an alkali metal; (b) treating said mixture at crystallization conditions for less than 72 hr to form a treated mixture having said MCM-22 family molecular sieve, wherein said crystallization conditions comprises a temperature range from about 160° C. to about 250° C.; and (c) recovering said MCM-22 family molecular sieve.
US07846415B2

The invention provides a method of producing vapor grown carbon fiber by vapor-phase reaction conducted by supplying carbon source compounds and a catalyst or a catalyst precursor into a heating zone, wherein at least one of the carbon source compound and the catalyst or the catalyst precursor is solid at room temperature and the solid compound is supplied in gas form into the heating zone from a material supplier filled with the solid material alone at a constant amount. The production method according to the invention enables efficient and stable production of vapor phase carbon fiber even by using a high-volume production equipment.
US07846407B2

An process for efficiently deacidizing a gaseous mixture is described. The process utilizes a self-concentrating absorbent that absorbs an acid gas at reduced overall energy costs for the deacidizing operation.
US07846403B2

An apparatus is for directing a fluid into a radial reactor is and which maintains a bed of solid particulate material within a reactor. The apparatus comprises a duct for directing fluid into a reactor and has a screenless face for the egress of the fluid, while providing for the retention of solid particles.
US07846398B2

A micro reactor having micro flow-guiding blocks includes a first gas flow channel, a second gas flow channel and a catalytic converter. There are several flow-guiding portions disposed on the first gas flow channel. Each flow-guiding portion has micro flow-guiding blocks, flow-impact recesses, and catalytic portions. The function of the micro flow-guiding block is to guide a flowing direction of the flow toward the catalytic portion on the flow-impact recess in order to increase a possibility of contacting and chemical reaction with the catalytic portion. So, guiding the flow direction toward the catalytic portion can increase the overall reaction efficiency. More turbulence is generated to obtain a better mixing. Plus, its structure is simple.
US07846396B2

A droplet sample holder, especially a sample holder for use in a measuring instrument utilizing surface plasmon resonance. The sample holder reduces or minimizes the measurement distortion result of the droplet “pherpheral concentration effect” by surrounding the analysis zone with a wettable (hydrophilic) zone that captures the periphery of the droplet to keep the pheriphery of the droplet and the increased concentration of the analyte out of the analysis zone. The wettable zone is surrounded by a nonwettable (hydrophobic) zone that restricts the periphery of the droplet to analysis zone and the wettable zone.
US07846395B2

A closure for a container includes: (a) an inner cylindrical wall having first and second ends and defining a space; (b) an outer cylindrical wall opposite the inner cylindrical wall and having the first and second ends to form an outer surface of the closure; (c) a first end wall extending across said first end, wherein the first end wall comprises a recess extending a least partially into the space, and a first set of threads disposed on the recess. An apparatus usable on a diagnostic analyzer container and includes: a threaded rotatable spindle adapted for threading into a closure having a threaded depression and for applying a rotational force to remove the closure; and a clutch having an element adapted to engage the closure and apply a rotational to the closure.
US07846387B2

Analyte meter protectors, meters that include the same, and methods.
US07846384B2

A pathology distribution system 10 is provided for automated sample container 14, 15 distribution. The system 10 comprises a loading station 500 for loading samples in primary containers 14 of different types, a sample handling station 16 for receiving the containers 14 and identifying the container types and samples therein, and a container distribution station 38 for distributing the containers in areas or racks in the distribution station 38 marked for analyzing processes prescribed for the samples therein.
US07846383B2

A lateral flow assay device for testing a bodily fluid, such as urine, blood, mucous, saliva, etc., is provided. The lateral flow assay device includes a chromatographic medium (e.g., porous membrane) that defines a detection zone that provides a signal indicative of the presence or amount of bilirubin or urobilinogen. The device may also include a control zone that provides a signal indicative of whether a sufficient amount of bodily fluid has been provided and tested. In one embodiment, the device is integrated into an absorbent article to provide a user or caregiver with rapid information about a health condition. For example, the device may be integrated into a diaper to provide information about the presence of bilirubin and/or urobilinogen. This information may provide an early warning system to allow the user or caregiver to seek additional testing and/or treatment. Alternatively, semi-quantitative or quantitative results may be derived from the test.
US07846381B2

Disclosed are methods of making ferritic ductile iron castings (60-40-18) with high toughness (6 ft.lb minimum Charpy V at −20 F and 10 ft.lb minimum Charpy V at +72 F), without adding Nickel and without annealing.
US07846374B2

The present invention is directed to a method for preparing a nanofiber web by feeding a polymer solution, which has at least one polymer dissolved in at least one flammable solvent to a spinning nozzle, discharging the polymer solution from the spinning nozzle into a blowing gas or gas mixture that will not support combustion, wherein the blowing gas exits a jet at a lower end of the spinning nozzle, to form polymer nanofibers and collecting the polymer nanofibers on a collector under the spinning nozzle, wherein an applied high voltage differential is maintained between the spinneret and the collector.
US07846372B1

The present invention provides a method of making a candle from a vegetable oil-based candle wax that provides a smooth, solid vegetable oil-based candle having fully integrated color and fragrance.
US07846368B2

A memory element mounting method includes: a disposing step of disposing a memory element at a sheet of paper that is composed of plural layers including a first layer serving as a base and a second layer serving as a surface with a thermoplasticity; and a surface treatment step of melting at least the surface of the sheet of paper with the memory element disposed thereat and processing the molten surface of the sheet of paper into a predetermined surface shape. Since the memory element is mounted on the sheet of paper during the surface treatment of the sheet of paper rather than during production of the sheet of paper, the memory element can be mounted on the sheet of paper as required.
US07846362B2

A method for making a housing, comprising steps of: providing an mold, the mold including a first female mold and a second female mold setting beside the first female mold, a male mold matingly engageable with the first female mold and the second female mold; the first female mold mating the male mold to form a first mold chamber; injecting molten material into the first mold chamber to form a main body on the male mold; setting a decorative film in the second female mold; rotating the male mold into contact with the second female mold to form a second mold chamber; injecting some transparent resin material into the second mold chamber to form a transparent plate.
US07846353B2

There is described a method for the preparation of a green-emitting terbium and cerium co-activated gadolinium magnesium pentaborate phosphor that utilizes a hydrated magnesium hexaborate as a boron source. The hydrated magnesium hexaborate preferably may be represented by the formula MgB6O10.XH2O where X is from 4 to 6, preferably 4.8 to 5.5, and more preferably about 5. The hydrated magnesium hexaborate is combined with oxides of Gd, Ce, and Tb, and at least one magnesium compound selected from MgCl2, MgF2, and MgO, and then fired in a slightly reducing atmosphere to form the phosphor. The method results in a greater homogeneity of the fired cake and subsequently a higher brightness. In addition, the method preferably requires only one firing step and provides very little or no sticking of the fired cake to the firing boats.
US07846351B2

This invention provides a blue phosphor, which has higher blue brightness and larger half-value width in an emission spectrum as compared with the conventional rare earth-activated sialon phosphor and has better durability as compared with the conventional oxide phosphor. The phosphor comprises a metal element M, wherein M represents Ce, dissolved as a solid solute in a nitride or oxynitride crystal having a β-type Si3N4 crystal structure, an AlN crystal structure, or an AlN polytype structure, and emits fluorescence having a peak in a wavelength region of 450 nm to 500 nm upon exposure to light from an excitation source.
US07846350B2

The present invention provides a light emitting device comprising a semiconductor light source emitting radiation at about 250˜500 nm; and a phosphor composition radiationally coupled to the semiconductor light source, wherein the phosphor composition is selected from the group consisting of Mg14(Ge(5-a)Mna)O24, Sr(Ge(4-b)Mnb)O9, Mg2(Ti(1-c)Mnc)O4, Zn2(Ti(1-d)Mnd)O4, SrMg(Al(10-e)Mne)O17, and Y3(Ga(5-f)Mnf)O12.
US07846349B2

The present disclosure relates to a solution for selectively removing metal, such as Ta or TaN, from a substrate, such as an aluminum containing substrate. The solution comprises an acid, such as HF or buffered HF, an ingredient comprising a fluorine ion, such as ammonium fluoride (NH4F), ethylene glycol, and water. A method of selectively removing metal from a substrate using this solution is also disclosed.
US07846342B2

A mobile dehydration system that is operable to remove water from a supply of fluid, such as hydraulic fluid. The mobile dehydration system includes a fluid pump that draws the supply of hydraulic fluid from a storage tank. The flow of hydraulic fluid passes through a fluid heater that elevates the temperature of the hydraulic fluid. The fluid heater includes at least one flow restricting orifice that reduces the pressure of the flow of hydraulic fluid, thereby elevating the temperature of the hydraulic fluid. The outlet of the fluid heater is connected to a dehydrator that removes water from the flow of hydraulic fluid. A fluid feedback line is connected between the outlet of the fluid heater and the inlet of the fluid pump to return a portion of the hydraulic fluid flow when the flow rate through the dehydrator is less than the flow rate from the fluid pump.
US07846332B1

A method and components for heating and hydrating foods and beverages using an exothermic and pressure generating chemical reaction are described. The exothermic reaction can be initiated by water, spark, electrical impulse, squib, friction, or shock to heat non-potable water and force the water through a membrane filter, thereby producing heated, potable water.
US07846331B2

A vacuum truck has a cylindrical tank which can be pivoted to discharge through a rear door is arranged for transporting collected solids while liquid is extracted and returned. Two tank extraction outlets in the top wall at the front and rear are connected to the vacuum pump and each includes a float valve ball contained in a receptacle above the top wall as to allow the tank to be filled to the top wall. For separating the materials into liquid which is pumped away and solids for transportation, the tank includes a generally upstanding dividing wall across the tank having a bottom wall portion, which can pivot away as the tank is tilted, and has a top edge defining a weir over which liquid can flow into the liquid collection area, and an upper screening section defined by a support screen and a hanging chain curtain in front of the screen.
US07846325B2

The invention provides a process for the removal of COS and H2S from a synthesis gas stream comprising COS and H2S, the process having the steps of: removing H2S from a feed synthesis gas stream with a first solid adsorbent to obtain a first synthesis gas stream, converting COS in the first synthesis gas stream to H2S by contacting the first synthesis gas stream with a COS-hydrolysing catalyst in the presence of water in a hydrolysis zone to obtain a second synthesis gas stream depleted of COS and enriched in H2S; and removing H2S from the second synthesis gas stream by contacting the second synthesis gas stream with a second solid adsorbent in a H2S removal zone to obtain a third synthesis gas stream depleted of H2S and depleted of COS to very low levels.
US07846321B2

Measurement of the series track resistance of a working and counter electrode pair in an electrochemical test strip provide error detection for multiple variations in the quality of the test strip, as well as the operation of strip in the test meter. In particular, a single measurement of series resistance can be used to detect and generate an error message when an incorrect reading is likely to result due to (1) damaged electrode tracks, (2) fouled electrode surfaces, (3) dirty strip contacts, or (4) short circuit between the electrodes.
US07846320B2

A gas detector with a compensated electrochemical sensor exhibits altered sensitivity in response to decreasing stochastic noise in an output thereof. A gain parameter can be adjusted to alter sensitivity. A life-time estimate can be made based on sensitivity.
US07846317B2

A method of processing a printed wiring board. Initial processing steps are implemented on the printed wiring board. Copper is plated on the printed wiring board from a bath containing nickel and copper. Nickel is plated on the printed wiring board from a bath containing nickel and copper and final processing steps are implemented on the printed wiring board.
US07846309B2

A cell for electrowinning a metal, in particular aluminium, from a compound thereof dissolved in an electrolyte (30) comprises an anode (40) and a cathode (10,11) that contact the electrolyte (30), the cathode (10,11) being during use at a cathodic potential for reducing thereon species of the metal to be produced from the dissolved compound. The electrolyte (30) further contains species of at least one element that is liable to contaminate the product metal (20) and that has a cathodic reduction potential which is less negative than the cathodic potential of the metal to be produced. The cell further comprises a collector (50) for removing species of such element (s) from the electrolyte (30). During use the collector (50) is at a potential that is: less negative than the cathodic potential of the produced metal (20) to inhibit reduction thereon of species of the metal to be produced; and at or more negative than the reduction potential of the species of said element(s) to allow reduction thereof on the collector (50). The cell is so arranged that species of said element(s) are reduced on the collector (50) rather than on the cathode (10,11) so as to inhibit contamination of the product metal (20) by said element(s).
US07846308B2

An anode for electrowinning of aluminium from alumina comprises a cobalt-containing metallic outer part that is covered with an integral oxide layer containing predominantly cobalt oxide CoO. The integral oxide layer can be formed by surface oxidation of cobalt from the metallic outer part before use.
US07846307B2

The invention provides a high-pressure hydrogen production apparatus for preventing hydrogen gas from leaking toward an anode side and for obtaining excellent electrolytic efficiency. The apparatus includes a single cell having a solid polymer electrolyte membrane, power feeders, separators, and fluid channels provided in respective separators. High-pressure hydrogen gas accompanied by water is obtained in the fluid channel by supplying water to the fluid channel and applying current to each power feeder to electrolyze water. The obtained hydrogen gas and water are subjected to gas-liquid separation in a second compartment of a high-pressure vessel, and hydrogen gas thus separated is used to press a barrier member towards the single cell. The separated water is supplied to the fluid channel through the hydrogen gas guide channel.
US07846302B1

A system and apparatus for pyrolyzing solid wastes to recover there-from useful hydrocarbon distillates, carbon black, and other potentially commercially valuable by-products. Pyrolysis and distillation may be performed substantially continuously, rather than by batch processing. The pyrolysis unit including a distillation array featuring two or more parallel, heated, conveyors, arranged in alternative switch-backs, through which a feedstock is moved during pyrolysis. The feedstock moves from conveyor to conveyor, and thus may pass through zones of different temperature to optimize the distillation of various constituents from the feedstock. Friction-reducing components, such as rollers, are situated between adjacent pairs of conveyors so that temperature differentials, and the resulting contract or expansion of system components, are accommodated and associated stresses ameliorated.
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