US08146763B2
A collapsible container includes a plurality of wall panels, wherein each wall panel is connected to each adjacent wall panel at a hinged connection. The wall panels are arranged so as to articulate at the hinged connections between a collapsed position and an expanded position defining a bottom wall and a plurality of side walls extending upwardly from the bottom wall. The collapsible container also includes an anti-fold lock that is disposed proximate to a hinged connection between first and second adjacent side walls. The first side wall includes at least two wall panels defining a diagonal hinge extending substantially between diagonally opposite corners of the side wall and the anti-fold lock is articulable into a locked position across the diagonal hinge.
US08146761B2
An apparatus and method for transporting compressed gases or similar materials. The apparatus includes an exterior housing dimensioned for intermodal transportation that contains a rack that holds pressure vessels. The apparatus may be loaded with pressure vessels and the vessels filled within the apparatus. The apparatus may be transferred between modes of transportation along a delivery route without unloading the vessels from the apparatus.
US08146758B1
A compartmentalized baby bottle includes main and secondary interior compartments for housing and selectively introducing a soluble mix to a fluid, as needed by the caregiver. A plurality of conduits are formed along a bottom-most end of the main interior compartments for allowing the soluble mix to pass therethrough. A conduit-sealing mechanism is provided such that a care giver is permitted to selectively combine the mix and fluid together without prematurely exposing the mix. Advantageously, the conduit-sealing is selectively biased between open and closed positions for preventing the fluid and mix from undesirably mixing together until the care giver is ready to do same.
US08146757B2
A bottle for dispensing fluids, semi-solid, ointments, gels, paste, creams, powder, and the like. The substances in the container are naturally fed by gravity to a dispensing portion without the need for the dispenser to be placed in a vertical position, upside down position, or inclined position in order to allow the substances to move to the tip of the dispensing portion, all the while maintaining the container in a horizontal orientation.
US08146756B2
A bracket for connecting a slide assembly to a rack having any one of multiple hole standards. The bracket includes a first portion defining a first surface that contacts the rack and a second portion that defines a second surface that contacts the rack. The first portion and the second portion cooperate to capture a portion of the rack therebetween. The bracket further includes a first projection sized and shaped to engage a first rack hole standard and a second projection sized and shaped to engage a second rack hole standard. The bracket may also include additional projections configured to engage additional hole standards.
US08146747B2
A foldable box holding a plurality of pouches is described. The foldable box comprises a lid, a cavity, a means for indicating the medications in each pouch, a means for associating the medications in the foldable box with a particular patient, a means for closing the box, and a means for recording that the medications in the pouch have been consumed. The lid is adjacent to a back wall that is rotatable along a first fold line. The bottom wall is adjacent to the back wall, two side walls, and a front wall that forms a cavity configured to receive a plurality of pouches. At least one pouch comprises a plurality of different tablets corresponding to a plurality of different medications that are for a particular patient.
US08146744B2
Blister pack assemblies include a blister pack and a lenticular lens member. The blister pack includes a blister card, a blister attached to the blister card, and indicia of lenticular art. The lenticular lens member is attached to the blister pack and includes a lenticular lens array functionally aligned with the indicia of lenticular art.
US08146734B2
A belt unit includes a first roller; a second roller; a belt extended with at least the first roller and the second roller; a first supporting member for supporting the first roller; a second supporting member disposed to be freely rotatable relative to the first supporting member for supporting the second roller; a switching member for switching the first supporting member and the second supporting member between a first state for applying tension to the belt and a second state for loosening the belt; and a regulating member for regulating the second supporting member to rotate.
US08146726B2
A torque transmitting apparatus includes a cover portion generally defined by a first axis, and a flywheel coupled to the cover portion for rotation therewith. The flywheel is restrained from axial movement relative to the cover portion. The apparatus also includes a pressure plate coupled to the cover portion for rotation therewith, wherein the pressure plate is axially moveable relative to the cover portion. The apparatus also includes an intermediate plate coupled to the cover portion for rotation therewith. The intermediate plate is axially moveable relative to the cover portion and the pressure plate. The apparatus further includes a first clutch disk at least partially interposed between the pressure plate and the intermediate plate, a second clutch disk at least partially interposed between the flywheel and the intermediate plate, an axially acting biasing element for exerting an axial force between the pressure plate and the intermediate plate, and a support member extending through the biasing element.
US08146723B2
A hydraulic control apparatus for marine reversing gear assembly for watercraft includes a pressure-reducing valve for adjusting pressure of working oil supplied from a supply pump, and supplying working oil to forward and reverse clutches; a proportional electromagnetic valve for controlling the supply of working oil to a pilot chamber of the pressure reducing valve; and a spring-type switching valve for switching to a circuit for supplying working oil to a control piston chamber for controlling a spring force of the pressure-reducing valve or to a circuit for draining working oil from the chamber; wherein a pressure output from the proportional electromagnetic valve acts upon the switching valve as a pilot pressure; and, when the pilot pressure falls below a predetermined value, the switching valve switches to the circuit for supplying the working oil to the chamber via the spring of the switching valve, fully opening the pressure-reducing valve.
US08146713B2
A lifting apparatus including a travel platform moving along a support frame to transport people and objects, and a lifting method for moving the travel platform up and down along the support frame to transport people and objects.
US08146711B2
An assembly includes a reservoir for holding a fluid, and a scavenge passage connected to the reservoir at a reservoir inlet. The scavenge passage returns the fluid from a delivery location to the reservoir. A bleed passage is connected in fluid communication between the reservoir and the scavenge passage.
US08146708B2
Disclosed is a muffler (1, 21, 41) integrated with a catalytic converter bed (9, 32, 52) including a polymeric muffler body (2, 22, 42), an inlet pipe (3, 23, 43) in flow communication with engine exhaust, said inlet pipe connected to a first body mounting adapter (5, 25, 45) so as to hold the inlet pipe a heat insulating distance from said polymeric muffler body, said inlet pipe in flow communication with an inlet of said catalytic converter bed (9, 32, 52), and a perforated exhaust pipe (4, 34, 44) in flow communication with an outlet of the catalytic converter bed, said perforated exhaust pipe mounted on a second body mounting adapter (6, 26, 56) so as to hold the perforated exhaust pipe a heat insulating distance from the polymeric muffler body; said inlet pipe and said perforated exhaust pipe holding said catalytic converter bed a heat insulating distance from the polymeric muffler body, said first body mounting adapter, polymeric muffler body, and second body mounting adapter forming a sealed internal chamber to provide an insulating and noise abatement space (8, 28, 48).
US08146707B2
An air conditioner includes a cabinet configured to define an outer appearance of the air conditioner. The air conditioner also includes a front panel coupled to the cabinet and having an intake hole. The air conditioner further includes a fan assembly positioned within the cabinet and configured to guide a flow of air in the cabinet. The air conditioner further includes an intake panel configured to move to open or close the intake hole in response to a control signal. In addition, the air conditioner includes at least one noise reducing part positioned in the intake panel and configured to reduce a noise having at least one frequency bandwidth.
US08146696B2
A system and method for safely moving a vehicle up or down a sloped surface is provided. In one embodiment, a method involves operating the vehicle in a sloped surface mode when at least one ground contacting element for moving the vehicle is on the sloped surface. An amount of torque is provided to the at least one ground contacting element to prevent the vehicle from uncontrollably moving down the sloped surface while in the sloped surface mode of operation. An assist mechanism can be coupled to the propulsion system to enable an operator to guide the vehicle.
US08146694B2
A system for swappable battery pack for electric vehicle is disclosed. Each battery pack units is comprising a battery compartment housing, a battery carrier rack which is slidable within the battery compartment housing via at least one linear actuator. The battery carrier rack also contains a plurality of modulated battery packs nested into its docking enclosures. In order to transfer or swap the modulated battery packs, the slidable battery carrier rack must projects out from its compartment in predetermined direction and distance and then the nested modulated battery packs can easily be detached from its docking enclosures.
US08146687B1
Embodiments of the invention relate to PDCs including at least one thermally-stable PCD body disposed at least partially within a substrate, and methods of fabricating such PDCs. In an embodiment, a PDC comprises a substrate including a at least one substrate recess formed therein, and at least one thermally-stable PCD body including an upper surface, a back surface, and at least one lateral surface. The at least one thermally-stable PCD body is at least partially received by the at least one substrate recess. Other embodiments include applications utilizing the disclosed PDCs in various articles and apparatuses, such as rotary drill bits.
US08146685B2
A borehole network including first and second end surface locations and at least one intermediate surface location interconnected by a subterranean path, and a method for connecting a subterranean path between a first borehole including a directional section and a second borehole including a directional section. A directional drilling component is drilled in at least one of the directional sections to obtain a required proximity between the first and second boreholes. An intersecting component is drilled, utilizing magnetic ranging techniques, from one directional section to provide a borehole intersection between the first and second boreholes, thereby connecting the subterranean path.
US08146681B2
A drilling tool includes a hydraulically driven device (21) for advancing a drilling head (2) in a bore (5), and a flow limiter (30) arranged in a hydraulic conduit (25) of the advancing device (21) for adjusting an advancing speed of the drilling head (2) in the bore (5), with the flow limiter (30) having a pressure-actuated adjusting member (38) for adjusting flow of a hydraulic fluid in the hydraulic conduit means (25) in accordance with a flow volume of a rinsing fluid (7) for rinsing the bore.
US08146675B2
A fire suppression device including a fire suppression agent generator. The device further includes trigger mechanism adapted to begin generation of the fire suppression agent from the fire suppression agent generator. A container at least partially surrounds the fire suppression agent generator and the trigger mechanism, the container includes a discharge port that directs fire suppression agent in at least two opposed directions. In one example, the discharge port extends substantially around a perimeter of the container.
US08146674B2
Disclosed herein is an apparatus for storing hazardous material. The apparatus includes storage containers each of which stores a hazardous material storage box containing hazardous material. The hazardous material storage box is extracted from or retracted into the storage container by a transfer means. A fire sensor is provided in each storage container to detect a fire occurring in the storage container. A temperature sensor is provided in each storage container to sense a temperature in the storage container. An injection nozzle is provided in each storage container. The injection nozzle injects nitrogen into the storage container from a nitrogen supply unit when a fire is detected. An outlet pipe connection passage and a flexible outlet pipe connection tube are provided to exhaust gas from the storage containers. A collecting container is provided in the lower end of the apparatus to collect and store leakage liquid of hazardous material.
US08146669B2
A method for installing a horizontal or inclined subsurface heater includes placing a heating section of a heater in a horizontal or inclined section of a wellbore with an installation tool. The tool is uncoupled from the heating section. A lead in section is mechanically and electrically coupled to the heating section of the heater. The lead-in section is located in an angled or vertical section of the wellbore.
US08146667B2
The method of removing a first liquid from a subsea pipeline which has a central portion lower than each of the ends of the subsea pipeline by pumping a second lower density fluid into the pipeline and the either removing the second lower density fluid by either displacing it with gas or evaporating the second lower density fluid to a gas.
US08146666B2
A method to enhance oil recovery from a subterranean reservoir, the reservoir being accessible via a production well. The method includes injecting a surfactant solution that includes surfactants into the production well. The surfactant solution selected to increase an oil-to-water ratio of oil recovery from a porous matrix portion of the reservoir. The method also includes injecting a well-servicing volumetric solution into the production well to perform a second well treatment process. The second well treatment process is selected from the group consisting of a scale inhibition squeeze process, a well acidizing process, a chemical process to reduce water production rate, an acid fracturing process, and a hydraulic fracturing process. In the method, the surfactant solution and the second well treatment solution are injected into the production well within less than about six months of one another.
US08146651B2
A horizontally mounted heat exchanger with recessed fins is disclosed. The recessed fin configuration helps prevent damage to the fins that may occur when objects such as tools or soda cans are placed on the top surface of the heat exchanger.
US08146645B2
System for manufacturing frameless windows which comprise a transparent pane, the lower edge of which is fixed in the slot of one or more holders by at least one layer of adhesive, which system comprises a work-table suitable for supporting the pane with the lower edge turned upwards and one or more mobile supports suitable for moving downwards the holders toward the pane, so that the holders can be inserted astride the lower edge, turned upwards, of the pane. In addition, a process is disclosed which can be carried out with the system.
US08146643B2
To provide a lay-up apparatus capable of precision positioning and laying of thin strips of copper foil or insulation tape on a flat plane even when there are variations in the cut lengths of the strips. A lay-up apparatus lays first and second strips of tape 101, 102 on top of two electrodes 5, 6 deposited on a photovoltaic devices panel 1. The strips of tape are unwound by first and second grippers 112, 122 and cut to predetermined lengths by first and second cutters 113, 123. The cut strips of tape are laid one on top of the other and transported by rotatable moving means 130. The moving means 130 rotates in opposite directions when laying the strips of tape it holds from the electrode 5 toward the electrode 6 and when laying the strips of tape from the electrode 6 toward the electrode 5, while using one end of the strips of tape as a reference and keeping constant the relative positions of the reference end of the strips of tape and that electrode which is nearest the reference end.
US08146642B2
A laser strikes and aseptically heats or sterilizes the end of two flexible tube ends for connection. Tube holders are pushed toward each other to bring the tube ends into contact. A weld detector checks the characteristics of the weld. A laser optics assembly may be used to chance the direction of the lacer and focus the laser at the tube ends. In addition, a crimping device is used to compress a single flexible tube for disconnection. The laser strikes the compressed area. The crimping device continues to pinch the area and forms a seal in the tube. The tube is separated into two tube segments, each segment has a sealed end.
US08146635B2
Disclosed is a pneumatic tire which has an enhanced uniformity of the tire including an adhesive sealant layer disposed inside its tread portion. In a pneumatic tire T including an adhesive sealant layer 5 disposed inward of an inner liner 4 in a region corresponding to its tread portion 1, the adhesive sealant layer 5 is formed of a laminate including: an auxiliary rubber layer 5a disposed closer to the inner liner 4, the compression set of the auxiliary rubber layer 5a being set at 40% or less; and an adhesive sealant material 5b disposed inward of the auxiliary rubber layer 5a.
US08146626B2
A flexible container has a container body with container walls that define a container interior. A container socket is connected to the container body and has a container opening through which the container interior is filled. Carrying loops are connected to the container body for lifting the container. The container socket has an initial retracted position in the container interior and is transferable from the initial retracted position into an upright filling position. The container socket is at least partially comprised of an elastically expandable material. The flexible container is filled by inserting into the container socket a filling tube, contacting with the filling tube the container socket in the initial retracted position, and transferring the container socket to the upright filling position and keeping the container socket secured on the filling tube in the upright filling position. The bulk material is introduced through the filling tube into the flexible container.
US08146624B2
A system for controlling the loading of animal food into self-propelled mixing units by means of a mechanical shovel. The system includes a testing apparatus, which is mounted to the shovel to determine a series of chemical-physical information related to the chemical components contained in the food and a weighing apparatus, which is installed in a self-propelled unit to measure the weight of the food and is adapted to establish a wireless communication with the testing apparatus to receive the chemical-physical information related to the components contained in the food.
US08146615B1
A crutch device adapted for use as a leg support featuring a crutch frame with an underarm pad, a handle, and a bottom shaft; a leg support bar pivotally attached to the shaft, the leg support bar can move between a vertical position wherein the leg support bar is positioned above the shaft inside the crutch frame and a horizontal position wherein the leg support bar is pivoted out of the crutch frame and generally perpendicularly to the shaft; and a two-legged support component pivotally attached to the leg support bar, the two-legged support component can move between a storage position and a usage position wherein the two-legged support component is pivoted such that it is generally perpendicular to the leg support bar, wherein the support component is adapted to be received in the crutch frame when the support component is in the storage position.
US08146605B1
The quickness, relative effortlessness, and convenience associate with the an improved attachment for a hair styling iron or an improved hair styling iron, either one featuring interchangeable comb bristles assemblies located adjacent to and extended outwardly and perpendicular to a hair styling iron heating element for the purpose of contacting and positioning the hair strands in parallel arrangement before, during, and/or after application of heat from a hair styling iron heating element.The interchangeable comb bristle arrangements may be composed of different bristle densities, thicknesses, and/or material to accommodate different types and thicknesses of hair. The improved attachment may be slid over a hair styling iron arm element and be secured to the hair styling iron using a retaining lip which hooks to engage an inner surface of the heating element arm and a security clip that attaches onto one end of the interchangeable comb bristle assembly.
US08146604B2
A fluid delivery device includes an accumulator, a deformable fluid reservoir, a user-actuated valve, a fluid delivery channel and an application element. The accumulator accumulates pressure and houses the fluid reservoir. The fluid delivery channel couples the fluid reservoir on a proximal end and extends to a distal end. A user-actuated valve controls a flow rate of fluid passing through the fluid delivery channel from the fluid reservoir to the distal end in response to pressure in the accumulator being above a predetermined threshold. The application element is coupled to the distal end of the fluid delivery channel to facilitate dispersal of fluid from the fluid delivery channel.
US08146600B2
Apparatus and methods are provided for treating sleep apnea, snoring, and the like using an implant within an oropharyngeal region adjacent an anterior longitudinal ligament. The implant includes an endless loop defining a curved central region between first and second regions in a horizontal plane. The central region is vertically narrow relative to the first and second regions, and the first and second regions are compressible vertically to allow the first region to be directed through or behind the ligament adjacent the oropharyngeal region such that the central region is disposed within or behind the ligament. The first region is resiliently expandable after passing through or behind the ligament to contact tissue adjacent the oropharyngeal region. The first and second regions are compressible into a “C” shape within the horizontal plane, yet biased to expand and apply a force to dilate the tissue adjacent the oropharyngeal region.
US08146598B2
A medical device tube having opposing support ears for improved coupling of an inner cannula to an outer cannula. The medical device tube comprises an outer cannula having opposing support ears on an outer cannula connector flange attached to a proximal end of the outer cannula. The opposing support ears maintain locking ears of the inner cannula in substantially one position. The opposing support ears substantially prevent the locking ears in contact with the outer cannula connector flange from slipping therefrom by, e.g., rotation, axial displacement, torsional shear, etc.
US08146590B2
There is provided a humidification system for a breathing circuit that can detect abnormality in flow of intake air inside an inspiration tube. A humidification section is arranged inside an inspiration tube of a breathing circuit. Further, the humidification system is constructed capable of supplying moisture into intake air flowing inside the inspiration tube by using, for example, hydrophobic hollow fibers or a hydrophobic membrane. The flow section comprises a supply section for supplying moisture to the humidification section and a delivery section for delivering moisture that has been supplied to the humidification section. The control section detects intake air abnormality using difference information for water temperature of the supply section and water temperature of the delivery section.
US08146588B2
Described are dry powder inhalers composing an intake section, a mixing section and a mouthpiece. The mixing section can accommodate a capsule having a top keying portion and containing a dry powder medicament. The top keying portion of the capsules may fit within complementary keying structures in inhaler mixing sections.
US08146569B2
An engine control system for a vehicle comprises a combustion control module and an engine startup module. The combustion control module selectively controls a spark timing and airflow into an engine based on a counter value. The engine startup module, when the counter value is one of greater than and less than a predetermined final value, controls an equivalence ratio (EQR) of an air/fuel mixture provided to the engine during an engine cranking period based on a fuel rail pressure and controls the EQR during an engine running period based on the fuel rail pressure and an engine runtime period. The counter value is set to the predetermined final value after the engine is started for a first time after the engine is assembled.
US08146561B2
A dynamic engine oil pickup system is disclosed. The dynamic engine oil pickup system includes a scavenge pump and a pickup tube assembly in fluid communication with the scavenge pump. The pickup tube assembly includes at least two oil pickup portions operable to pickup engine oil from at least two different oil pickup locations and a flow control operable to control a flow of engine oil between the at least two different oil pickup locations and the scavenge pump. The flow control includes a suction valve, and movement of the suction valve is controlled by selectively applying a high pressure oil to a head of the suction valve.
US08146560B2
The present invention relates to a multi-part piston (10, 110) for an internal combustion engine, having an upper piston part (11, 111) having a piston crown (13), and a lower piston part (12), whereby the lower piston part (12) has pin boss supports (32) and pin bosses (18) connected with them, whereby the upper piston part (11) and the lower piston part (12) each have an inner (21, 25) and an outer (22, 26) support element, which elements delimit an outer circumferential cooling channel (29). According to the invention, it is provided that the inner support elements (21, 25) delimit a cavity (31) that is open toward the pin bosses (18), and that the cavity (31) is provided with a separate cooling oil collector (35, 135) that has at least one cooling oil opening (37, 38). The present invention furthermore relates to a method for the production of such a piston.
US08146559B2
A vehicle control system is programmed to stop the vehicle's internal combustion engine upon certain conditions including the vehicle being stopped and engine temperature having reached a minimum operating level. On vehicles equipped with air brakes and having an engine driven air compressor, engine restarts are provided by an air pressure supported hydraulic motor once triggered by operator actions such as releasing the brake and/or depressing the vehicle's accelerator indicative of the driver's intention to move the vehicle.
US08146554B2
A laser ignition apparatus including at least two laser light generating devices and a common optical coupling-in means for coupling laser light from the at least two laser light generating devices into a combustion chamber of a combustion machine, wherein the at least two laser light generating devices are so arranged that laser light given off by the laser light generating devices in the operating condition impinges on the optical coupling-in means and/or issues from the optical coupling-in means in parallel displaced relationship or at an angle to each other. A method of igniting a fuel/air mixture in a combustion chamber of a combustion machine.
US08146540B2
The invention relates to a continuous steam generator comprising a surrounding wall which forms a gas draught and whose lower section is configured from gas-tight evaporator tubes that are welded together and whose upper section is configured from gas-tight superheater tubes that are welded together. According to the invention, superheater tubes are connected downstream of the evaporator tubes on the flow medium side by means of a water separator system. The aim of the invention is to provide a system with particularly high degree of operational flexibility even in the start-up and off-peak periods, while keeping the production and installation expenditure relatively low. To achieve this, the water separator system comprises a large number of water separator elements, each of which is connected downstream or upstream of less than ten evaporator tubes, preferably one tube and/or less than ten superheater tubes, preferably one tube on the flow medium side.
US08146533B2
According to the invention, an apparatus for providing a frozen edible substance to an animal is disclosed. In one embodiment, the apparatus includes a container, a support element, a securing element, and a mounting element. The container may be configured to receive an edible substance and contain the edible substance during freezing of the edible substance, but be removable from the substance afterwards. The support element may be configured to receive and support the edible substance after freezing. The securing element may be configured to couple with the edible substance during freezing and secure the edible substance to the support element. The mounting element may be configured to couple with the support element and secure the support element to a surface.
US08146530B2
Embodiments generally provide an apparatus and method for processing substrates using a multi-chamber processing system (e.g., a cluster tool) that has an increased system throughput, increased system reliability, substrates processed in the cluster tool have a more repeatable wafer history, and also the cluster tool has a smaller system footprint. Embodiments also provide for a method and apparatus that are used to improve the coater chamber, the developer chamber, the post exposure bake chamber, the chill chamber, and the bake chamber process results. Embodiments also provide for a method and apparatus that are used to increase the reliability of the substrate transfer process to reduce system down time.
US08146522B2
Forward and backward movement apparatus for main body of sewing machine according to this invention comprises, in sewing machine comprising Main Body movable forward and backward and supported on both sides of a Base and Heads movable left and right and supported on the Main Body; Frame mounted on the Base; Timing Gears installed in the front and rear Fixed Frame of the Frame in multiple rows; Connecting Shat which connects Timing Gears beneath Front Fixed Frame; Forward and Backward Movement Frames is movable forward and backward on the Frame and connected to the Main Body; Rollers are installed in the Forward and Backward Movement Frames in multiple rows to correspond to the Timing Gears; Timing Belt which zigzags through Timing Gear and Roller and Timing Gear and Roller, and both ends of which are connected to the top of Front and Rear Fixed Frames; and electric motor which drives the Connecting Shat in forward and reverse directions.
US08146516B2
A skeletal substrate associated with a composite over spray or over molded article, such as a stackable pallet. The skeletal substrate includes a three dimensional article, such as a durable corrugated paperboard or other material, with a load supporting and planar upper surface and a recess configured and pallet fork receiving underside. The substrate incorporates a repeating pattern of cylindrical, polygonal, wave like or other shapes, such as which are coated in built up fashion with a polymeric material in order to provide insulating of the substrate from the environment as well as to provide additional strength.
US08146510B2
A workpiece support system has a driven, circulating traction device, a stationary base frame, and at least one workpiece support that has a load carrier and a traction carriage. The traction carriage has a clamping device with upper and lower clamping elements between which the traction means is arranged and with which the traction carriage is clamped by a clamping action onto the traction device. The traction carriage has a spring element that exerts a spring force on at least one of the upper and lower clamping elements for effecting the clamping action. The workpiece support has an actuating element arranged in a leading area in a travel direction of the workpiece support. The actuating element reduces a camping force of the clamping action when the workpiece support bumps into a leading workpiece support in the travel direction. The traction device is guided about two pulleys.
US08146505B2
A projectile of non-lethal composition includes an outer casing that is substantially sealed prior to impact with a target both when the projectile is in a static condition and when the projectile is in a dynamic condition. A marking material is encapsulated within the outer casing prior to impact. The outer casing is configured to deform and unseal upon impact such that the marking material disperses forward via hydraulic action.
US08146499B2
This invention relates to a method and a system for activating a munition charge. It also relates to a munition fitted with a high precision activation device. Finally, it relates to a system for neutralization of a target.A laser beam (21) is used for illuminating an object (3) located close to the target (X), firing of the charge (23) of the munition being activated using detection by the munition of the laser spot (24) reflected by the object (3). Firing is activated at a time t1 after the time t0 at which the laser spot (24) is detected.The invention is applicable particularly to hit hidden targets for which a direct impact with these targets is not necessary.
US08146498B2
A method for determining a position of a mechanical edge of a reference edge of a sheet of recording media relative to a first edge of a drum slot in a cylindrical surface of an imaging drum, the method includes: mounting the sheet of recording media on the imaging drum in an orientation wherein the reference edge extends along the cylindrical surface of the imaging drum in a substantially axial direction and wherein the reference edge extends over the first edge of the drum slot; establishing at least one acute apex diffuse light source in the slot; capturing at least one digital camera image of the reference edge and the at least one acute apex diffuse light source; and determining from the at least one digital camera image a location of at least one point on the mechanical edge.
US08146494B2
A graphic arts die assembly and chase for use in a graphic arts press are disclosed for use in conjunction with a press. The die assembly includes a die plate formed at least partially of ferromagnetic material and a chase with a plurality of magnet assemblies configured to provide a magnetic coupling force to selectively secure the die plate to the chase. The chase includes an actuatable releasing assembly to exert a disengagement force to separate the magnetic securement between the plates.
US08146492B2
A printing state automatic switching apparatus includes a printing state switching unit, abnormal end detection unit, and error recovery unit. The printing state switching unit automatically switches the printing state of a printing press from a first printing state to a second printing state through a plurality of switching steps. The abnormal end detection unit detects an abnormal end of each switching step of automatic switching from the first printing state to the second printing state. When the abnormal end detection unit detects an abnormal end of a switching step, the error recovery unit receives an error recovery instruction and eliminates the error of the switching step. A printing state automatic switching method is also disclosed.
US08146486B2
Provided is a dripper that is light-weight and deformable into an arbitrary shape to be stored compactly and that enables coffee extraction irrespective of the existence of a filter. Provided is a dripper 1 for extracting coffee, including: a filter portion 10 that is formed from fabric with permeability and that includes an opening 11 through which coffee powder can be added and a receiving portion 12 that receives the coffee powder added through the opening 11; and a frame 50 that is made of an super-elastic alloy and can define the respective shapes of the opening 11 and the receiving portion 12 in the filter portion 10.
US08146472B2
A paper cutting device, for cutting multiple sheets of paper stacked in layers on a table, comprises a paper retainer (2) descending from an upper side along a guide and a cutter (3) diagonally ascending from the lower side. A receiving part (18) is mounted on the lower surface of a paper retaining frame (20). The receiving part (18) is formed by joining a base plate (36) with a large elastic modulus such as a metal to a resin receiving plate (37). A slip prevention structure is installed on the junction surfaces of the base plate (36) and the receiving plate (37) to suppress the extension/retraction of the receiving part of the paper retainer so as to prevent wrinkles from occurring in the paper near a blade receiving surface when the paper is cut off.
US08146468B1
A device and method of cutting soft food material. The cutting is performed by an arrangement of cutting wire or ribbon that is pulled taut across a supporting frame. The cuts are made while the food material is lightly compressed and confined in a press. The press consists of a compression chamber having a bottom surface. The cutter is placed at the bottom of the compression chamber. Food material is then placed into the compression chamber atop the cutter. A compression plate is placed over the food material. The compression plate is pressed down to compress the food material. The compression squeezes the food material and liberates any excess fluids that may be present within the food material. This conditions the food material. The cutter is then pulled through the conditioned food.
US08146460B2
The invention is a tool for lifting building materials, such as shingles, while extracting nails that fastened those materials. The slots that grip the nails are a concatenation of overlapping holes, for smooth insertion of the tool past the nails, and the envelope of the tool is a surface of curves for smooth insertion of the tool under the building materials. The bottom surface is a rocker that provides a moving fulcrum for prying out the nail, giving maximum force when the nail is first gripped and smoothly moving to maximum speed of extraction as the fulcrum moves back towards the user.
US08146459B2
A device for enabling the unscrewing of a cap from a bottle or jar is disclosed. The device is in the form of a somewhat elongated body in which a releasably engageable cam member and a torsion spring are located. The body is arranged to be grasped by a user of the device. The body includes a pair of cavities, each arranged for receipt of a cap of a bottle or jar therein. The cam member has a pair of ridged or serrated surfaces which are normally biased into the cavities by the spring to releasably engage a portion of the periphery of a cap disposed within either cavity.
US08146446B1
A concentrator device and method of concentrating a liquid sample may be provided. The concentrator device may include a pressure vessel and a filter element disposed within the pressure vessel. The pressure vessel may include an inlet configured to introduce pressurized air into a first portion of the pressure vessel and a first outlet fluidly coupled with a second portion of the pressure vessel. The first outlet may be adapted to be selectively opened and closed. A second outlet may be configured to receive a capillary tube inserted into the first portion of the pressure vessel. The filter element may be configured to receive a liquid sample to be concentrated. The filter element may substantially separate the first portion of the pressure vessel from the second portion of the pressure vessel and may define a retentate side adjacent to the first portion and a filtrate side adjacent to the second portion. When pressurized air is introduced through the inlet and the first outlet is open, a filtrate of the liquid sample received in the filter element may pass from the retentate side to the filtrate side such that a concentrated retentate of the liquid sample remains on the retentate side. When the first outlet is closed, the concentrated retentate of the liquid sample may be forced out through the capillary tube.
US08146442B2
A device for determining a flow characteristic, in particular flow velocity, of a fluid in a conduit, comprises a conduit body (110), at least four pairs of ultrasonic transducers (116, 118; 122, 124; 128, 130; 132, 1340 defining swirl sensitive acoustic paths (128, 130; 132, 134). The ultrasonic transducers are arranged such that they define paired acoustic paths. The device also comprises means (142, 144) for measuring the transit times of transmitted ultrasonic waves and for determining a flow characteristic from the measured transit times.
US08146430B2
A method & apparatus for conveying an ultrasonic sensor about an outer peripheral surface of a tube to perform a non-destructive evaluation thereof is disclosed. The ultrasonic sensor is mounted on a flexible tension link and the method involves extending the flexible tension link while urging an extended portion of the flexible tension link towards the outer peripheral surface of the tube at a plurality of locations along it's length, thereby causing the ultrasonic sensor to move through an arc in a direction circumferentially around the tube while maintaining ultrasonic coupling between the ultrasonic sensor and the tube.
US08146425B2
A MEMS sensor includes a substrate and a MEMS structure coupled to the substrate. The MEMS structure has a mass movable with respect to the substrate. The MEMS sensor also includes a reference structure positioned radially outward from the MEMS structure. The reference structure is used to provide a reference to offset any environmental changes that may affect the MEMS sensor in order to increase the accuracy of its measurement.
US08146415B2
A downhole fluid property estimating apparatus includes an interface in communication with a fluid in a first pressure zone, a collector in communication with the interface, the collector having a second pressure zone, wherein a second pressure zone pressure is less than a first pressure zone pressure, and a gas chromatograph coupled to the collector. A method includes establishing a first pressure zone having a fluid in communication with an interface, establishing a second pressure zone in a collector in communication with the interface, wherein a second pressure zone pressure is less than a first pressure zone pressure, collecting a fluid sample of the fluid in the first pressure zone using the collector, and estimating the downhole fluid property in-situ using a gas chromatograph coupled to the collector.
US08146413B1
A two-port tire valve stem has a body, preferably of substantially rigid construction, with a first end portion adapted to be mounted to a wheel rim and a second end portion with at least two ports in a branched configuration, each supporting a valve. One of the valve ports may be used for inflation or deflation concurrently with the other being coupled to a pressure sensor for monitoring the air pressure in the tire. The two-port tire valve stem is adapted to be rigidly mounted to an outer of a pair of adjacent wheels, using a bracket, while its first end is adapted to be connected in fluid communication with the inner of the pair of wheels.
US08146402B2
The invention provides a device for measuring the dynamic coefficient of friction of a surface. The device includes a track having an arcuate portion which is shaped to mimic an arc of travel of a pendulum; a shoe mounted so as to be movable along the track, and a biasing device for biasing part of the shoe into contact with the surface as it moves along the arcuate portion of the track; a propulsion device for providing an initial propulsion force to propel the shoe along the track; a velocity detector for measuring the velocity of the shoe at a plurality of points during its travel along the track; and computing device for calculating the coefficient of friction from changes in velocity of the shoe as it moves along the track.
US08146399B2
A modular spring retainer and method for metal forming dies includes a base shaped for detachable connection with an associated die plate, having a threaded central aperture, and an adjacent lock dowel aperture which extends through the threaded central aperture to form a window. A cylindrically-shaped spring retainer is configured to receive a spring therein, and has a threaded exterior portion which engages the threaded central aperture of the base, such that mutual rotation of the same adjusts the longitudinal position of the spring. A locking dowel is closely received in the lock dowel aperture in the base, and has an unthreaded exterior surface which protrudes through the window and abuttingly engages an adjacent portion of the threaded exterior surface of the spring retainer to securely, yet detachably, retain the spring member in a selected longitudinal position.
US08146391B2
A multiple function lock comprising a body, an engaging element having a first end and a second end, a locking mechanism for securing the first end and the second end of the engaging element to the body, and a gate mechanism for selectively concealing or revealing a passage in the body through which the second end may move to unlock the lock. In certain embodiments, a multiple function lock may comprise a body, a U-shaped shackle having toe and heel portions, the heel portion rotatably secured within the body, a locking mechanism for locking the heel and the toe portions within the body, a passage through the body adjacent to the toe portion, the toe portion adapted to move through the passage to unlock the lock, and either a retaining cup, an adjustable gate, or an outer housing, each being adapted to selectively block or reveal the passage.
US08146389B2
Fiber used in wideband amplified spontaneous emission light source and the method of making the same
The present invention relates to a fiber having a core of crystal fiber doped with chromium and a glass cladding. The fiber has a gain bandwidth of more than 300 nm including 1.3 mm to 1.6 mm in optical communication, and can be used as light source, optical amplifier and tunable laser when being applied for optical fiber communication. The present invention also relates to a method of making the fiber. First, a chromium doped crystal fiber is grown by laser-heated pedestal growth (LHPG). Then, the crystal fiber is cladded with a glass cladding by codrawing laser-heated pedestal growth (CDLHPG). Because it is a high temperature manufacture process, the cladding manufactured by this method is denser than that by evaporation technique, and can endure relative high damage threshold power for the pumping light.
US08146385B2
Methods for separating glass sheets from glass ribbons are disclosed. One method includes forming a glass ribbon having a curvature in a lateral direction. A conformable nosing is engaged with a first surface of the glass ribbon such that the conformable nosing conforms to the curvature of the glass ribbon. The glass ribbon is scored along a scoring line on a second surface of the glass ribbon. The conformable nosing is then at least partially disengaged from the first surface of the glass ribbon by adjusting a bow of the conformable nosing. A bending moment is applied to the glass ribbon to separate a glass sheet from the glass ribbon at the scoring line. Application of the bending moment conforms the curvature of the glass ribbon to the bow of the conformable nosing prior to the glass sheet separating from the glass ribbon.
US08146378B1
A thermal transfer system, a heat sink, and a method for transferring heat are provided. The thermal transfer system includes a fuel cell that can produce a fluid. A wick is provided to transfer the fluid to a destination at which a heat source is present. An enclosure having a porous fluid-permeable external wall can surround the fluid at the destination. When the fluid permeates or condenses on the external wall exterior surface, air exposure of that external wall will cause evaporative cooling of the fluid, and thereby enhance the cooling effect at the heat source. The fluid is a natural byproduct of the fuel cell. Accordingly, the thermal transfer system not only cools a heat source, but produces electric current. The heat sink can be thermally coupled to the heat source, and can have a plurality of fins extending from a base. One or more fins can have a fluid-permeable external wall for evaporative cooling. Fluid can be transferred more efficiently using a wick placed somewhere within the internal radial dimension of a pipe that extends from the fuel cell to the heat source. The external wall of the pipe can also be porous to maximize the fluid entrapment on the inner surface and the evaporative cooling on the external surface.
US08146377B2
A zone-control unit adapted for facile inclusion in a building's ductwork includes a mechanical terminal unit, inlet and outlet piping assemblies that are mechanically coupled together. The structure also includes at least one handle so the zone-control unit may be conveniently and safely handled both during shipping, and during installation into a HVAC system. Prior to installation into a HVAC system the fully-functional zone-control unit also includes a pair of caps respectively sealing the ends of the piping assemblies, and a pressure gauge for sensing pressurization of the piping assemblies and coil which the caps seal. Sealed in this way a pressure gauge permits testing to assure that the piping assemblies and coil are leak free, and readily assessing that zone-control units remain leak free until they are about to be installed into a building's HVAC system.
US08146374B1
A system and method for improving the efficiency of an existing utility plant by constructing a data center nearby and retrofitting the utility plant to provide electric power and cooling to the data center. The system and method for cooling the data center uses a cooling fluid cooled using energy obtained from a heating fluid. The heating fluid is received from the utility plant. The system and method uses the cooling fluid to dissipate heat from electrical components contained in the data center, including a plurality of computer servers.
US08146372B2
An annular combustion chamber has an inner wall and an outer wall of ceramic matrix composite material, together with a chamber end wall that is connected to the inner and outer walls. Elastically-deformable link elements connect the inner wall and the outer chamber walls to inner and outer metal casings. Each of the inner and outer chamber walls is subdivided circumferentially into adjacent sectors along longitudinal edges, each sector extending continuously from the end wall to the opposite end of the chamber and being folded outwards from the chamber at each of its longitudinal edges to form a portion having a U-shaped cross-section terminated by a folded-back margin that is spaced apart from the outer face of the corresponding chamber wall. The link elements are connected to the inner and outer chamber walls by being fastened to the sector margins.
US08146361B2
A power-generating apparatus including an autocontrol electronic mechanical unit, a power-generating unit, a power transportation device, a liquid supply device, a shift device, and a discharge device. The power-generating unit includes a pair of interactive and coupled reverse-linked, hollow movement bodies. The relationship between the two movement bodies can be changed through filling liquid to one movement body or discharging liquid from the other. The movement body filled with liquid goes down and brings the other movement body without liquid up to generate power in cycle continuously utilizing lifting and drop movements of the two movement bodies. The power-generating apparatus can utilize objects' gravitational potential energy to generate power in cycle uninterruptedly so as to ensure the continuity and stability of power generation. The power-generating apparatus completely uses the ambient natural energy during its entire power generation process.
US08146355B2
A traveling device for crawler type heavy equipment is provided, which can improve manipulability by preventing an abrupt decrease/increase of a traveling speed of the equipment when a combined operation, in which a left/right traveling device and a working device are simultaneously driven, is performed. The traveling device for crawler type heavy equipment includes a variable orifice shifted to intercept the supply of the hydraulic fluid toward the traveling device in response to the signal pressure in the combined working mode if a load pressure of the working device is relatively higher than that of the traveling device.
US08146351B2
An exhaust control system includes a temperature sensor, a temperature estimation module, and an exhaust condition adjustment module. The temperature sensor measures an outlet temperature of an exhaust gas downstream from an emission reduction device. The temperature estimation module estimates a highest temperature of the emission reduction device. The exhaust condition adjustment module controls operation of the exhaust control system based on the highest temperature of the emission reduction device.
US08146345B2
An oxygen storage capacity (OSC) monitoring system for a vehicle having a catalytic converter includes a control module that determines a measured OSC based on an inlet sensor signal (ISS) that is responsive to an oxygen content of exhaust flowing into the catalytic converter. The control module determines a normalization ratio based the measured OSC and determines a PASS/FAIL status of the catalytic converter based on the normalization ratio.
US08146334B2
The invention relates to a device for placing sleeves on traveling articles, said sleeves being cut from a continuous sheath passing over a sheath-opening shaper, first outer wheels serving to advance the sheath along the shaper, and second outer wheels being provided downstream from cutter means for the purpose of ejecting the cut-off sheath segment, said wheels being driven in rotation by associated electric motors controlled synchronously by a virtual-shaft common electronic programmer. In accordance with the invention, the programmer is arranged to determine a continuous profile of speed variation for the associated electric motors, said profiles being bell-shaped and having a common end segment in which the profiles coincide, this corresponding to the motors having identical speeds, the length of the common end segment being selected so that the sheath is advanced beyond the point of tangential contact with the second wheels so that said sheath is pinched by said second wheels prior to being held stationary for the cutting and ejection pass.
US08146331B2
The present invention is an automated packaging apparatus utilizing a rotating assembly of elongated slats containing cavities to receive discrete pharmaceutical, vitamin, or food products. Quantities of discrete products such as tablets, capsules, or gels are deposited into the hopper of the apparatus. The apparatus then dispenses the discrete products into containers moving on a conveyor system such that each container receives a predetermined quality and quantity of pharmaceutical, vitamin, or food products. While operating at high speed, the apparatus inspects, counts, identifies and analyzes each product deposited into the containers and maintains electronic records describing the status of each product. In the event any errors occur the apparatus produces various alerts to inform the operator. The presence of foreign products or objects may cause the apparatus to instantly stop the entire system including peripheral equipment. A series of Good Manufacturing Practice protocols can then be enforced as per FDA requirements.
US08146318B2
Flooring material comprising sheet-shaped floor elements with a mainly square or rectangular shape. The floor elements are provided with edges, a lower side and an upper decorative layer. The floor elements are intended to be joined by means of joining members. The floor elements are provided with male joining members on a first edge while a second edge of the floor elements are provided with a female joining member. The male joining member is provided with a tongue and a lower side groove while the female joining member is provided with a groove and a cheek, the cheek being provided with a lip. The floor elements are provided with a male vertical assembly joining member on a third edge while a fourth, opposite, edge is provided with female vertical assembly joining member. The floor elements are alternatively provided with a male vertical assembly joining member on a third edge while a fourth, opposite, edge also is provided with male vertical assembly joining member. Adjacent male vertical assembly joining members are hereby joined by means of a separate vertical assembly joining profile. Two adjacent edges of a floor element can hereby, at the same time, and in the same turning motion, be joined with a floor element adjacent to the first edge and a floor element adjacent to the third or fourth edge.
US08146305B2
Herein are disclosed are apparatus and methods for forming firestopped through-penetrations in poured concrete partitions. The apparatus and methods use an intumescent firestop ring that can be used in combination with a removable sleeve. The firestop ring is detachably mounted on the outer surface of the sleeve form, near one end of the sleeve. The sleeve is positioned and concrete poured around it. After solidification of the concrete the sleeve can be removed to provide a through-penetration containing the firestop ring, secured to the solidified concrete. The firestop ring may optionally comprise one or more retainers and/or one or more insulating spacers.
US08146298B2
Fire-resistant structures, fire-resistant insulations and a method for fire-proofing and fire-protection of permanent or temporary structures or objects. The fire-resistant insulation withstands temperatures between 1200° C. and 2000° C. on the exterior side of the insulation, and the interior side provides a shield for fire-protected structure or object against temperatures not exceeding 300° C. A method for fire-protection comprises steps of providing a fire-protection for structures and objects subjected to fires, brush-fires or fire storms.
US08146282B2
A firearm may have a plurality of power-consuming accessories that can be attached to the weapon. In order to reduce the weight of these power-consuming accessories, as well as the proliferation of their batteries, the Weapons Accessory Power Distribution System provides a common power source to power the power-consuming accessories attached to the weapon. One or more powered rails are provided on the handguard, which encircles the barrel of the weapon, to provide a point of mechanical and electrical interconnection for the power-consuming accessories to provide quick connect mounting and dismounting of the power-consuming accessory, absent the use of connectors with their tethering cables, which are susceptible to entanglement. The powered rail(s) are electrically interconnected with a power source, which typically is a battery mounted in the butt stock of the weapon.
US08146280B2
A decorative frame assembly is provided. The frame assembly incorporates mechanically reproduced decorative components onto outwardly facing surfaces in order to provide an inexpensive mimic of a conventional frame. A method of assembly also is provided. A typical frame assembly includes a photographically reproduced decorative element.
US08146279B2
An advertising sign includes an advertising element having a base, mounting means pivotably connected to the base for securing the advertising sign to a mounting surface, and at least one protrusion extending between the base and the mounting means such that a range of pivotal motion of the mounting means relative to the base is more limited in an area of the protrusion than in other areas.
US08146275B2
The present invention discloses a steam iron comprising a housing with a handle, a water container, a steam control device and a vapor chamber provided with an electric heating plate, wherein the steam control device comprising a pressure sensor mounted on the handle of said housing, a control board with a microprocessor and an execution unit for providing the water into said chamber or providing the vapor generated by a evaporator into said chamber for secondly heated; the execution unit is controlled by the control board by the pressure signal provided by said pressure sensor.
US08146273B2
An article of footwear configured for use as a dance shoe is provided. The article of footwear can include an upper and a two-piece sole connected to the upper. The article can also include a cage support that surrounds a portion of the upper and aids in flexibility of the shoe. The article can also include a single piece liner with an integrated toe box. In addition, the shoe can include an offset lacing system. In another arrangement, the shoe can include an elastic wrap, connected to the bottom of the shoe on the inside of the upper. The wrap can act as a tongue to minimize contact between the offset lacing system and the dancer's foot. In yet another arrangement, the shoe can include different types of outsole supports.
US08146269B2
A diagonally twisted sole may include an undersole and a midsole bottom, the midsole bottom being connected to the undersole, and various hard inserts being able to be introduced into the undersole. Together with a twisted, flexible, rigid or elastic plate, the undersole can form a midsole, which may include several parts. The twisted plate may be a flat plate or a plate of different thicknesses.
US08146268B2
An air cushioning system for use in a shoe has a molded heel absorber member the includes a center member that forms a sealed center air chamber and a peripheral member that extends about at least a portion of the periphery of the center member and that forms a vented peripheral air chamber. A vented air conduit is in communication with the vented peripheral air chamber.
US08146262B1
A device locates an apparatus to the center of a hole in a structure. The device includes a hub adapted to have the apparatus mounted thereon and a plurality of locator elements spaced around the hub which extend at least partially into the hole. Means coupled with the locator elements and the hub are used to displace the locator elements outwardly into engagement with the edges of the structure and to move the hub into axial alignment with the center of the hole.
US08146259B2
A rotary encoder includes a stator and a rotor, the rotor being disposed in a manner allowing rotation relative to the stator with the aid of a bearing. The rotor has a shaft, a positive-locking device as well as a code disk being secured in rotatably fixed manner to the shaft. The stator has a body having a scanning device for scanning the code disk, a compensating coupling and a housing. The body is joined to the housing by the compensating coupling. The housing has a further positive-locking device, the rotary encoder being pre-adjusted such that in operation of the rotary encoder, at a predefined relative angular position between the positive-locking device of the shaft and the further positive-locking device of the housing, a predefined angle value is able to be output by the rotary encoder. A series of rotary encoders may be provided.
US08146254B2
A hair clipper (1) comprises a replaceable blade block (3) having a comb-shaped stationary blade (5) and a comb-shaped moving blade (6) which is reciprocally movable in a widthwise direction of the hair clipper (1), a main body (2) having a motor (8) and a driving member (14) to transfer and to transmit a driving force of the motor (8) to reciprocal motion of the moving blade (6), and to which the blade block (3) is detachably attached, and a pressing mechanism (4) to press the moving blade (6) toward the stationary blade (5). The pressing mechanism (4) is provided on the main body (2) and has at least one contact portion (4b) which reciprocally moves in synchronism with a reciprocal motion of the moving blade (6).
US08146253B2
An inner cutter of an electric shaver that cuts hairs by sliding along an inner surface of an outer cutter includes a base portion that is connected to a driving unit, a plurality of cutting pieces that are formed in a U-shape and whose both ends in the longitudinal direction are fixed to the base portion, and a plate member whose one end is fixed to the base portion and the other end is connected to the cutting piece. The plate member is elastically deformed corresponding to elastic deformation of the cutting piece.
US08146247B2
A method for packaging the sensor units is shown below. First step is providing a substrate, and each sensor area on the substrate is partitioned into two individual circuit areas. An emitter and a detector are installed on the two circuit areas respectively. Step two is forming a first packaging structure to cover the two circuit areas, the emitter and the detector by a mold. Next step is cutting the first packaging structure to form cut groove between and around the emitter and the detector. Next step is forming a second packaging structure in the cut grooves by the same mold. At last, the panel of sensor units is diced and separated as individual sensor units. As above-mentioned, the second packaging structure is used for isolating the signals of the emitter and the detector.
US08146243B2
A method of manufacturing a device-incorporated substrate as well as a printed circuit board. A transfer sheet is formed having a structure that includes two layers, a metal base material and a dissolvee metal layer and a conductor pattern is formed on the dissolvee metal layer by electroplating. After the transfer sheet on which the conductor pattern is formed is adhered onto an insulating base material, the transfer sheet is removed by separating the metal base material from the dissolvee metal layer and thereafter selectively dissolving and removing the dissolvee metal layer with respect to the conductor pattern.
US08146238B2
A winding method for winding a wire (2) fed from a nozzle (9) onto a stator (1) having a plurality of radially disposed teeth (4) includes a positioning step for positioning the wire (2) fed from the nozzle (9) relative to a tooth (4) while holding the wire (2) using a guide (7, 8) and a wire inserting step for moving the nozzle (9) relative to the stator (1) without passing the nozzle (9) between adjacent teeth (4A, 4B) while the wire (2) is held by the guide (7, 8) such that the wire (2) fed from the nozzle (9) is inserted between the adjacent teeth (4A, 4B).
US08146237B2
In a magnetic head manufacturing method, a floated surface of each block having plural magnetic head elements formed and arranged on a substrate is ground and lapped in a grinding/lapping step. The grinding/lapping step contains an angle adjusting step for adjusting the angle of the floated surface of the block with reference to a magnetic-head-element formed surface of a substrate and grinding the floated surface concerned, and a finishing lapping step of lapping the floated surface at an angle adjusted in the angle adjusting step.
US08146233B1
A multi-piece head suspension assembly is manufactured from a semi-finished suspension product. The semi-finished suspension product includes a load beam having two side edges, a distal end, and a proximal end opposite the distal end. The semi-finished suspension product also includes a beam carrier strip connected to the proximal end by one or more tabs. Each tab includes a detaching region that has a lower shear strength than other regions of the tab. Rails are formed on the side edges of the load beam, and the semi-finished suspension product is attached to a hinge assembly at the proximal end of the load beam. A shear load is applied to the one or more tabs to cause the one or more tabs to fracture at the detaching region.
US08146224B1
A method of manufacturing a custom sized plastic tote lighter in weight than heretofore known custom sized plastic totes is provided. The method comprises separating an injection molded tote into upper and lower portions by cutting the injection molded tote. A sleeve or middle portion of plastic material is secured to the upper and lower portions of the injection molded tote to create a custom sized plastic tote of a desired height. Alternatively, portions of different injection molded totes may be used to create a custom sized plastic tote. The sleeve may be made from different materials and may be made of multiple pieces.
US08146216B2
An urn for storage of ashes having a container and a lighting assembly. The container defines an internal chamber adapted for storage of ashes. The lighting assembly is fixed to the container and includes a hollow sleeve extending from the container, a light bulb socket mounted on an end of the sleeve, and electrical wiring having a first end connected to the light bulb socket and routed along a path within the sleeve, into the chamber and out of the chamber. A manual switch is included for controlling electricity flow to the light bulb socket. A second end of the electrical wiring terminates at an electrical plug adapted for connection to an electricity source.
US08146206B2
A furniture hinge has a door stop part, which includes an insertion cup and is attached on a furniture door, at least one pivoting arm that is connected to a furniture body being supported on the door stop part. A damping device including at least one damping cylinder engages in the door stop part. Each damping cylinder is disposed at least partially in a bore of the furniture door. The cylinder axis of the damping cylinder extends substantially perpendicularly to the door plane. The damping cylinder is moved during the pivoting thereof into the locking position of the furniture door by the pivoting arm.
US08146205B2
A hinge assembly incorporates an anti-tamper member that is selectively positionable to protect fasteners holding the hinge assembly to a mounting surface such as an access door. The hinge assembly may be incorporated into a bar lock assembly to provide additional tamper resistance for a shipping container, for example, to limit or prevent unauthorized access to the container.
US08146203B2
The present invention relates to castor wheel assemblies, in particular but not exclusively, to castor wheel assemblies of a type suitable for use with trolleys, for example supermarket trolleys or luggage trolleys. Embodiments of the invention provide a swivel castor wheel assembly configured to support an object to be moved across a surface, the assembly comprising a swivel castor wheel having an axis of wheel rotation and a steering axis and mounted on a first member, wherein the first member is configured for connection to the object in such a way that the steering axis can be moved between first and second different rake angles without substantially changing a height of the object over the surface.
US08146201B2
A vacuum cleaner comprises adjacent housings, which contain the filtration and suction fan motor assembly of the vacuum cleaner.
US08146198B2
An automatic debris removal apparatus for a wiper system that removes soluble and insoluble debris trapped between the wiper blade and the glass surface by lifting the wiper blade off the glass surface and then causing the wiper blade to drop onto the glass surface as a shake under urge of the biasing spring of the wiper arm, so as to thereby provide a shaking action which frees any trapped debris. An actuator selectively interacts with the pivotal portion of the wiper arm to effect shaking of the wiper arm to thereby free the wiper blade of the debris.
US08146192B2
The instant invention covers all areas of transportation emergency situation egress. Primarily intended for user self-evacuation from an enclosed space that has become Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) a version is specifically designed for use by First Responders for exterior rescue.
US08146190B1
An improved inclined support for a bed is provided having an adjustable ramp secured to a frame configured to fit between the bed frame and the mattress.
US08146189B2
A patient alignment device includes a table and a rotatable member positioned to rotate relative to the table. The rotatable member may be a head-support plate or a board which supports substantially all of a patient's body. A motor moves the board or plate so as to align the patient's body, or a part of the body, in a desired direction. The board may be formed in two segments, the segments being selectively connectable to each other, the segments also being selectively connectable to the table by pins, at various possible pivot points. Positioning of the pins determines the mode of rotation of the board. The invention allows an operator to align the patient's body with precision, by remote control, and without interrupting the medical procedure.
US08146179B1
A urination canal for females, consisting of a funnel assembly comprising first and second walls. The first and second walls are joined at a top ridge, a bottom ridge, and a rear ridge. A pocket assembly is mounted onto the first wall. The pocket assembly is defined by a third wall having first, second, third and fourth ends. The first end has a tab extending therefrom, and the pocket assembly houses a moist towelette.
US08146177B2
A protective helmet, particularly for sports and work use, including a rigid outer shell which itself comprises a front cap having a concavity able to cover at least the upper part of the cranium, and a rear cap having a concavity able to cover the rear part of the cranium. The caps are mutually movable, the rear cap being connected to the front cap in such a manner as to rotate relative to the front cap about an axis transverse to the vertical plane of symmetry of the cranium, between a raised position and a lowered position.
US08146176B2
An equestrian riding garment includes a pair of pants of elastic material having inner leg expanses and a butt expanse of durable material affixed to corresponding regions thereof, the inner leg and butt expanses being made of real or faux leather that is perforated to increase air permeability and to promote friction with a saddle. Preferably, the butt expanse is bifurcated into left and right sub-pieces corresponding with the equestrian's left and right buttocks. Optionally, a knee region of the inner leg expanses is articulated, as by segmenting. Optionally, an abdominal and/or inner calf region of the pair of pants includes an inner support layer of extra fabric for more flattering fit.
US08146172B2
A method for creating garment cuffs includes applying a high-polymer heat-sealable material on a cuff area of the fabric used for the garment. The heat-sealable material and the fabric underneath are then cut with an ultrasonic cutter to form the cuff and concurrently finish the lower edges of the cuff. The heat-sealable material has properties that allow it to stretch from an equilibrium point in response to tension applied on the material, and recover back towards the equilibrium point in response to release of the tension on the material. Reinforcing the cuff area with the heat-sealable material allows the cuff area to maintain its stretch and recovery properties even after the fabric has degraded after extended use and washing of the fabric. Furthermore, the ultrasonic cutting causes some of the heat-sealable film to melt into the cut edges of the fabric at the cuff to create substantially sealed edges at the cuff.
US08146171B2
Disclosed is a digital garment that can provide a high-speed communication path by using a digital band that is quickly and easily attachable to a conventional garment (clothes), and a fabricating method thereof. The digital garment includes: a garment formed of textile; a digital band provided along the outside or inside of the garment so as to provide a communication path; a sensor, attached to the garment, being electrically coupled to the digital band, converting a physical signal into an electrical signal; an operation device, attached to the garment, being electrically coupled to the digital band, receiving the electrical signal from the sensor and processing the signal; and a communication module, attached to the garment, being electrically coupled to the digital band so as to perform wireless communication.
US08151367B2
An information processing system includes a management apparatus having a transmission preventing part preventing transmission of a predetermined usage allowing signal allowing usage of a predetermined device, in response to receiving a predetermined usage preventing instruction for the predetermined device.
US08151366B2
An optical recording medium is provided for distributing content through a portable medium which can be transported by hand from one media player to another media player. The optical recording medium includes a read-only zone and a writable area. Copy control information is stored in the read-only zone. The copy control information specifies (a) an authorized content source and (b) content which is authorized to be downloaded from the authorized content source and recorded in the writable area of the optical recording medium.
US08151359B2
A content distribution system (300) has access control according to a predefined data access format. A studio (32) provides content data and related proprietary data on a record carrier (34) to be rendered by a rendering device (39). In the system applications (35) are executed on the device for manipulating the content data and related proprietary data. An access policy is set for each studio that controls access to said content data and related proprietary data. According to the invention a cross access policy is set for a virtual entity (42), and at least part of the proprietary data (43) is made available according to the cross access policy of the virtual entity. Also a cross studio application (41) is provided that complies with the access policy of the virtual entity for accessing said data for enabling the rendering device, when rendering the record carrier, to execute the cross studio application for accessing, for a multitude of studios, said at least part of the proprietary data.
US08151352B1
In some embodiments, antivirus/malware behavior-based scanning (emulation) is accelerated by identifying known code sequences and executing pre-stored native-code routines (e.g. decompression, decryption, checksum routines) implementing the functionality of the known code sequences before returning to the emulation. During emulation, target machine code instructions are compared to a set of known signatures. If a known code sequence is identified, the emulator calls a native code routine and caches the current instruction address. If the emulator subsequently reaches a cached address, a native code routine may be called without scanning the data at the address for known signatures. Signature scanning may be performed selectively for instructions following code flow changes (e.g. after jump, call or interrupt instructions). The emulator may also call native-code routines implementing virtual operating system calls, and native-code unpacked file reconstruction routines that reconstruct unpacked files from the contents of virtual memory for scanning by a content-based malware scanner.
US08151349B1
This disclosure presents a system that uses masking to safely execute native code. This system includes a processing element that executes the native code and a memory which stores code and data for the processing element. The processing element includes a masking mechanism that masks one or more bits of a target address during a control flow transfer to transfer control to a restricted set of aligned byte boundaries in the native code.
US08151332B2
One aspect relates to a process and associated device for managing digital ID lifecycles for application programs, and abstracting application programs for multiple types of credentials through a common Digital Identity Management System (DIMS) and Application Programming Interface (API) layer.
US08151327B2
The invention provides methods and apparatus for detecting when an online session is compromised. A plurality of device fingerprints may be collected from a user computer that is associated with a designated Session ID. A server may include pages that are delivered to a user for viewing in a browser at which time device fingerprints and Session ID information are collected. By collecting device fingerprints and session information at several locations among the pages delivered by the server throughout an online session, and not only one time or at log-in, a comparison between the fingerprints in association with a Session ID can identify the likelihood of session tampering and man-in-the middle attacks.
US08151326B2
A multi-factor authentication solution implements a recognizable voice in conjunction with a user address to increase login security and reduce user inconvenience. A user creates an online account, providing an address such as a telephone number or email address to which voice messages may be sent. The user selects a recognizable voice such as the user's own voice or the voice of a famous or well-known figure. When the user attempts to login to the online account, a random passphrase is generated and converted to a voice message employing the user's pre-selected voice and the voice message is sent to the user's address. The user listens to the voice message and if the user recognizes the voice rendering the passphrase the user's login request is granted.
US08151325B1
Methods and computer-readable media are provided to enable an Internet protocol (IP) data session to be established between a mobile device and a telecommunications network. To establish an IP data session, it may be determined, prior to authenticating the device, whether the device is authorized to communicate via IPv4, IPv6, or both. A mobile device may be capable of communicating via both IPv4 and IPv6, such as a dual-stack device, but the device may only be authorized for either IPv4 or IPv6. A request to establish the IP data session may first be received from a mobile device, and an IP version with which the mobile device is authorized to communicate may then be determined by querying a customer-profile database. This authorization information may be communicated to an authentication component that authenticates the devices, and subsequently, an IP data session is initiated.
US08151320B2
A remote access system comprises a remote terminal, an access server accommodating a connection from the remote terminal, and first and second logical channels logically connecting the remote terminal and the access server. The remote terminal comprises a flow search processing unit that classifies flows. The access server comprises a pass determining unit that determines whether a flow can pass or not, and a flow search processing unit that classifies flows. The first logical channel is used to transfer packets included in a flow that needs to be judged by the access server as to whether it can pass or not. The second logical channel is used to transfer packets included in a flow that has been permitted by the access server to pass.
US08151313B2
A system for delivering content to users from a content provider, the system comprising a transmission system for transmitting content in a series of segments and a plurality of receivers for receiving the series of segments transmitted from the transmission system, each of the receivers comprising a memory, a processor, and an output driver. The memory may have stored therein instructions that, when executed, will cause the processor to perform the following steps: (1) comparing each of the received segments to any previously stored segments to determine whether each received segment has been previously stored; (2) for a particular received segment that has not been previously stored, storing the segment in the memory; (3) for a particular received segment that has been previously stored, determining whether the received segment is missing data and, if it is, retrieving the missing data, if available, from the corresponding previously stored segment; and (4) providing each of the received segments to the output driver along with any missing data retrieved from the memory. In preferred embodiments, the system is useful for enabling the smooth provision of content to a user as any missing data contained in a received data stream can be obtained, if available, in the memory and used to compensate for the missing data in the transmission.
US08151309B2
A system for redistributing a multiple input audio/video and data signals having a redistributing device equipped to receive signals in a multiple formats and redistribute a selected signal to a user's premises over conductors, preferably existing twisted-pair telephone wire. The redistributing device is in interactive communication with a communications interface located in the user's premises which receives user-input control signals and contains switching circuitry which routes the selected signal to the user's premises where it is received by the receiving unit such as a television receiver. A single redistributing device services an entire multi-user network from a common distribution point, and services multiple users independently. The system of the invention does not interfere with normal use of the telephone network, so users can interactively access services provided by the system and use the telephone at the same time. In one preferred embodiment the system of the invention dynamically allocates frequencies and modulation techniques to various output signals, to maximize spectral efficiency and minimize interference and cross-talk.
US08151307B2
Operation history information in which information on an operation using multiple devices on a network performed in another system is recorded is acquired from the other system, and it is determined whether or not the operation performed in the other system is reproducible based on the operation history information. And the operation determined to be reproducible is presented to a user so as to reproduce the operation selected by the user. Reproduction can be executed simply and securely without being conscious of configurations and capabilities of devices in the system on the part of the user.
US08151305B2
A digital television broadcast system with transmission and/or reception of digital television signals for improved mobile reception. The communication layers in the transmit and receive portions of the transmission system can be dynamically modified, e.g., based on usage patterns or current channel characteristics. The transmission system also provides for cross layer control, whereby parameters in various of the communication layers are analyzed to determine appropriate updates to the system configuration.
US08151298B2
A method and system for embedding information into streaming media is disclosed. In order to avoid a prolonged waiting period between the time a video stream is selected for viewing and the time it actually begins to play, information relevant to the content of the video stream is independently obtained and locally stored. This information may be advertising, text, games or any other media which may be of interest to the user. The information is embedded into the video or other media stream to be presented to the viewer and played immediately, so that the user avoids any wait time in viewing the selected stream that may occur due to bandwidth shortages or other system considerations.
US08151297B2
Multimedia distribution and broadcast systems and related processes are provided for transmitting multimedia contents and control information from a central uplink facility to a remote downlink via a satellite. The system is preferably implemented in order to generate sequences of multimedia that are broadcast from the remote downlink facility to viewers. The display arrangements of the multimedia sequences are varied and customized by each downlink facility using the control information in order to better inform and entertain viewers.
US08151289B2
The present invention is directed to an optical disk having a projection that prevents full contact of the upper surface of the disk when engaging a supporting surface. The optical disk includes a projection formed in a central portion of the optical disk that abuts or is near the upper surface of a protecting layer.
US08151278B1
A system and method of processing data and managing protocol timers in a stateful protocol processing system configured to process multiple flows of messages is disclosed herein. The method includes receiving a first plurality of messages of a first of the flows comporting with a first stateful protocol. The method further includes assigning a first protocol processing core to process event information derived from the first plurality of messages. A first flow timer associated with the first of the flows is set, and a first timeout expiration event is generated upon expiration of the first flow timer. The first timeout expiration event is then forwarded to the first protocol processing core, and a first flow state associated with the first flow is retrieved in response thereto.
US08151273B2
An installation and configuration system consolidates workloads of multiple applications and services, including applications or services that may be installed or configured on multiple server devices or remotely hosted services. The system gathers environmental information, analyzes dependencies among the workloads, and populates the input data used by the workloads from a common database. The system then executes the workloads, allowing branching within the workloads or the sequence of workloads. An example of branching may include detecting an error condition, pausing the sequence, and presenting alternative fixes to a user.
US08151271B2
A heuristic algorithm for solving a load balancing problem that carries out scheduling of plurality of tasks in two phases. In the first phase some tasks of the plurality of tasks are assigned to resources, they are best on, on a per resource basis and in the second phase resources are chosen for the remaining tasks of the plurality of tasks such that the length of the schedule is minimized.
US08151270B2
A method for designing a time-sliced and multi-threaded architecture comprises the steps of conducting a thorough analysis of a range of applications and building a specific processor to accommodate the range of applications. In one embodiment, the thorough analysis includes extracting real time aspects from each application, determining optimal granularity in the architecture based on the real time aspects of each application, and adjusting the optimal granularity based on acceptable context switching overhead.
US08151268B2
A multithreading processor for concurrently executing multiple threads is provided. The processor includes an execution pipeline and a thread scheduler that dispatches instructions of the threads to the execution pipeline. The execution pipeline execution pipeline is configured for generating a thread context (TC) flush indicator associated with a thread context when one or more instructions of the thread context would stall in the execution pipeline. One or more instructions in the pipeline of the thread context associated with the thread context flush signal can be flushed or nullified.
US08151265B2
The present invention implements a mechanism to decide when it is beneficial to switch from the current virtual input/output mechanism to a different one. The present invention determines which input/output mechanism each virtual machine should use based on the available input/output resources of the virtual machines (with their respective available input/output adapters), the number of virtual machines running and their input/output needs, and the input/output needs of the virtual machine being considered. The present invention also provides a mechanism for virtual machine to seamlessly switch input/output mechanisms. When beneficial, the standard hot-plug mechanism of the virtual machine and the hypervisor is used to first remove the existing input/output mechanism and then add the new input/output mechanism.
US08151250B2
Disclosed is a method of tracing a program that comprises: providing a relational database data structure defining a plurality of fields configured to store program trace information; executing a program comprising a plurality of functions including calling a function from the program; extracting first trace data of the function and storing the first trace data in a portion of the plurality of fields; and after executing the program, extracting second trace data associated with the first trace data and storing the second trace data in remaining portions of the plurality of fields.
US08151247B2
Methods and apparatuses enable generating test content for test system from an executed transaction of an execution system. The data resulting from the execution of the transaction in the execution system is accessed and used to generate test content for a test case. The test case can include the transaction data unmodified, or the transaction data can be modified and stored as the test content. The test system executes the test case to generate a result, and the result can be compared against what is expected based on the test content.
US08151213B2
An apparatus, method and program product for providing dynamic visual cells in tabular data. A computer has an application for selecting a range of cells in said tabular data. A routine within the application recognizes a request for a graphical plot for data contained within the selected range of cells. The request may be from a user via a popup or a command menu. A routine within the application provides a graphical plot in a summary cell associated with the selected range of cells. The summary cell may be associated with the selected range of cells by being proximate the selected range of cells, or by location, color or a graphic property.
US08151203B2
A target audience for a marketing campaign is selected using a graphical user interface. A first graphical representation of a customer data attribute is dragged from a first window and dropped in a second window. A second graphical representation of a customer data attribute is dragged near the graphical representation of an initial profile that is created in the second window in response to the dropping of the first graphical representation. The second graphical representation is dropped in an action area presented when the second graphical representation is dragged near the graphical representation of the initial profile.
US08151202B1
A user request is received for a workflow guide that pertains to a workflow involving tasks of multiple applications that cooperate with database management software. In response to receiving the indication, the workflow guide is presented for display, where the workflow guide provides information regarding tasks associated with the multiple applications involved in the workflow. Interactive selections made by a user in the displayed workflow guide are received to cause further information to be retrieved.
US08151187B1
A signature for a page of text is generated. The signature serves as an identifier of the text page. Positions of words in a text page are determined. Positions of multiple second words in the text page are determined relative to the position of a first word in the text page. A signature value is generated that describes the second word positions relative to the first word position. The signature value is stored. Additional signatures for the text page can be generated, each signature describing positions of other words in the text page relative to a word in the text page for which the signature is being generated. The signatures can be used to compare the text page to another text page and generate a measure of similarity that describes the result of the comparison.
US08151182B2
A system and method for transferring annotations associated with a media file. An annotation associated with a media file is indexed to a first instance of that media file. By comparing features of the two instances, a mapping is created between the first instance of the media file and a second instance of the media file. The annotation can be indexed to the second instance using the mapping between the first and second instances. The annotation can be processed (displayed, stored, or modified) based on the index to the second instance.
US08151164B2
A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding high speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH) data are disclosed. For part 1 data encoding, a mask may be generated using a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) identity (ID) and a generator matrix with a maximum minimum Hamming distance. For part 2 data encoding, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits are generated based on part 1 data and part 2 data. The number of CRC bits is less than the WTRU ID. The CRC bits and/or the part 2 data are masked with a mask. The mask may be a WTRU ID or a punctured WTRU ID of length equal to the CRC bits. The mask may be generated using the WTRU ID and a generator matrix with a maximum minimum Hamming distance. The masking may be performed after encoding or rate matching.
US08151156B2
Repetitive transmissions in multi-carrier based wireless access techniques may be achieved by providing multiple cyclic delay values for a plurality of carriers, performing a cyclic delay procedure using the multiple cyclic delay values according to the number of repetitive transmission of data symbols to be transmitted to a receiver, and transmitting the cyclic delayed data symbols to the receiver using the plurality of carriers.
US08151145B2
A method for detecting lack of forward progress in a PCI Express includes a step in which a data flow measurement is received or performed. This data flow measurement provides the capacity of the connected Switch or Endpoint device to receive data packets from a Root Complex transmit channel. An error is logged when the data flow measurement does not substantially change in a predetermined period of time. A recovery protocol is executed after logging of the error. A system implementing the method of the invention is also provided.
US08151134B2
A method for transferring data between a serial peripheral interface (SPI) master device and an SPI slave device generates a first clock signal for the SPI master device and a second clock signal for the SPI slave device. Clock frequency of the first clock signal and the second clock signal is twice than a serial clock signal between the SPI master device and the SPI slave device. Data are transferred with double data rate or single data rate based on the first clock signal and the second clock signal.
US08151132B2
A memory device is provided. The memory device includes a plurality of memory chips coupled in series, and a register serially coupled to the memory chips. The register includes an integrated delay-locked loop. The memory device may be included in a processing system. Moreover, a method for improving timing budgets in a registered dual in-line memory module (RDIMM) may be implemented using the memory device having a register with an integrated delay-locked loop.
US08151124B2
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for forcibly shutting down a computer system, and more specifically, to an apparatus and method for forcibly shutting down a system when the system is determined to be in an abnormal state. An apparatus for forcibly shutting down a system according to a specific embodiment of the present invention comprises a reception unit 10 for receiving a power management control signal; a power state detection unit 20 for detecting a current power state of the system; a determination unit 30 for determining whether a system execution state is normal by comparing the power management control signal received by the reception unit 10 and a detection result of the power state detection unit 20; and a forced-shutdown unit 40 for forcibly shutting down the system when the system execution state is determined to be abnormal by the determination unit 30. According to the present invention so configured, there are advantages in that when an error occurs in a computer system and the system operation is inadvertently suspended while the system is not shut down, the system is forcibly shut down, whereby continuous consumption of battery power can be prevented, and danger of accident occurring due to an increase in battery temperature can be prevented.
US08151123B2
A circuit and method for generating an internal power supply voltage are disclosed. The circuit includes an internal power supply voltage pre-processing unit configured to generate a first internal power supply voltage in response to an external power supply voltage in a power-up mode and a deep power-down (DPD) exit mode to provide the first internal power supply voltage to an output node, and further configured to define a transition time for the first internal power supply voltage, an internal power supply voltage generating unit configured to generate a stable second internal power supply voltage in response to the external power supply voltage to provide the second internal power supply voltage to the output node, and an initialization signal generating unit configured to generate an internal initialization signal in response to the first internal power supply voltage and the second internal power supply voltage.
US08151118B2
A computer or other electronic device requiring physical integrity of its components, for example, a pay-per-use computer may use a master security device in communication with a plurality of slave security devices, known as security beans. Each security bean may be given a cryptographic key or keys for use in authenticating communication with the master security device. Each security bean may be coupled to an associated component and may have the ability to disable that associated component. In one embodiment, security bean has an analog switch that may be configured to block or attenuate a critical signal used by the associated component. The security bean may start up in the disable mode and respond to a verified signal from the master security device to enable its corresponding component.
US08151100B2
A handheld computing unit includes a processing module, a main memory interface coupled to main memory, a baseband processing module, an RF section, I/O interfaces, a bus structure, and a connection structure. The main memory includes an operating system section and a user section. The operating system section stores at least a portion of a remote mode operating system when in a remote mode and stores at least a portion of a docked mode operating system when in a docked mode. The docked mode operating system includes at least some of the remote mode operating system.
US08151096B2
An apparatus to generate a branch prediction of an instruction based at least in part on the address of the previous branch instruction, wherein the previous instruction is prior to the instruction in a program order. The prediction can also based on a branch history value with respect to the previous branch instruction and one or more previous branch predictions.
US08151094B2
The present invention includes a method for obtaining dynamic operating parameter information of a semiconductor device such as a processor, determining dynamic usage of the device, either as a whole or for one or more portions thereof, based on the dynamic operating parameter information, and dynamically estimating a remaining lifetime of the device based on the dynamic usage. Depending on the estimated remaining lifetime, the device may be controlled in a desired manner.
US08151087B2
Provided are a cache memory using a linear hash function and a method of operating the same. The cache memory includes: a first hash function module for converting a main memory address received from a central processing unit (CPU) into a first index value using a first hash function; a second hash function module for converting the main memory address into a second index value using a second hash function; a first comparator for comparing a tag value of a data block located at the first index value in the first bank with a tag value of the main memory address; and a second comparator for comparing a tag value of a data block located at the second index value in the second bank with the tag value of the main memory address. In a pair of linear hash functions according to the present invention, each constructed with a 2m×m binary matrix, even if m is an odd number, each of the linear hash functions has the highest degree of interbank dispersion and avoids conflicts in row, column, diagonal, anti-diagonal, and rectangular patterns, so that a 2-way skewed associative cache can be constructed in relatively wide ranges.
US08151074B2
A software protection method to protect the software in a host against an unauthorized usage of a memory unit used in software is provided. The software protection method comprises the steps of: starting the operation of the software; declaring the memory unit such that the software takes the control right of the memory unit; generating a status tag of the memory unit; setting the status tag as an initializing status to initialize the memory unit; setting the status tag as an access status to access the memory unit; and setting the status tag as a delete status to forgo the control right of the memory unit.
US08151069B1
Providing a multiple protection snapshot copy of a logical device includes creating the snapshot copy of the logical device, where, in response to a write to a section of the logical device, data is copied to a first alternative storage area prior to the write and, following creating the snapshot copy, pointing portions of the snapshot copy to a second alternative storage area having data that is a copy of the logical device, where data corresponding to the snapshot copy is stored in one of: the first alternative storage area and the second alternative storage area. Providing a multiple protection snapshot copy of a logical device may also include, prior to pointing portions of the snapshot copy to the second alternative storage area and after creating the snapshot copy, copying data from the logical device to the second alternative storage area.
US08151061B2
A platform may comprise a core coherency domain, graphics coherency domain and a non-coherent domain. A graphics acceleration unit (GAU) of the graphics coherency domain may generate data units from an application and the data units may comprise display data units. The GAU may annotate the display data units with an annotation value before flushing the display data units to an on-die cache. The GAU may identify modified display data units among the display data units stored in the on-die cache and issue flush commands to cause flushing of the modified display data units from the on-die cache to a main memory. The display engine of the non-coherent domain may use the modified display data units stored in the main memory to render a display on a display device.
US08151049B2
An input/output controller, including: a first/a second input/output units that sends and receives data to and from a first and a second external apparatus, a third input/output unit operating in one of a plurality of working modes including a first/a second working mode for sending and receiving data to and from the first/the second external apparatus, an abnormal state detecting unit which detects that the first input/output unit or the second input/output unit is in an abnormal state and a working mode setting unit which makes the third input/output unit operate in the first/the second working mode when it is detected that the first/the second input/output unit is in an abnormal state.
US08151048B1
A method is used in managing storage pool provisioning. One or more physical devices of a data storage system is configured for use in connection with provisioning a storage pool. A provisioning specification is received describing a RAID type and capacity. A rule is received describing one or more sets of data storage system best practices. Each of the one or more sets specifies data storage system best practices for a different type of data storage system including a first type associated with the data storage system. Configuration processing is performed in connection with initialization of the data storage system to configure a first portion of the one or more physical devices for use with the storage pool. A rules engine and best practices for the first type of data storage system specified in the rule are used in performing the configuration processing.
US08151045B2
A recording/reproducing apparatus, for conducting edition works, such as, addition, movement, and deletion, etc., of data, onto a postscript type medium, defective management of which is conducted with using a replacement area, is disclosed. The apparatus includes a media information management unit. The medium management information is recorded by a renewal unit within a medium management information area. The apparatus further includes a replacement address information management unit. This is included within the medium management information. Furthermore, the apparatus includes an available number of times of edition works calculation unit. The available number of times of edition works calculation unit calculates the remaining available number of times of edition works, upon basis of remaining capacity of the medium management information area and renewal units thereof. Accordingly, display or notification of a correct available number of times of edition works to a user occurs.
US08151042B2
A method and system for providing identification tags in a memory system having indeterminate data response times. An exemplary embodiment includes a memory controller in a memory system. The memory controller includes a mechanism for receiving data packets via an upstream channel, the data packets including upstream identification tags. The memory controller also includes a mechanism having instructions for facilitating determining if a received data packet is in response to a request from the memory controller. Input to the determining includes an upstream identification tag included in the received data packet. If the received data packet is determined to be in response to a request from the memory controller, then the received data packet is matched to the request, thereby allowing the memory controller to operate with indeterminate data response times.
US08151040B2
A non-volatile memory and erase block/data block/sector/cluster update and address translation scheme utilizing a version number is detailed that enhances data updating and helps reduce program disturb of the memory cells of the non-volatile memory device. The various embodiments utilize a version number associated with each erase block, data block, sector, and/or cluster. This allows for determination of currently valid data block, sector and/or cluster associated with the logical ID of the data grouping by locating the most recent version associated with the logical ID. With this approach, old data need not be invalidated by programming a valid/invalid flag, avoiding the risk of program disturb in the surrounding data rows.
US08151037B1
Devices, systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with an interface for solid state memory are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus is implemented with two or more input ports for receiving two or more different streams of disk drive commands. The apparatus is further implemented with an interface configured to aggregate the two or more different streams of disk drive commands into at least one aggregated command. The interface is configured to translate the at least one aggregated command into at least one solid state memory command for accessing solid state memory. The apparatus comprises a memory port to communicate the at least one solid state memory command to be performed on the solid state memory.
US08151029B2
A demodulator can include first data and clock pads to couple the demodulator to a host device via a first bus, and second data and clock pads to couple the demodulator to a radio frequency (RF) tuner via a second bus. The device may further include passthrough logic to couple host data and a host clock from the first bus to the second bus and to couple tuner data from the second bus to the first bus during a passthrough mode. During this mode, however, the two buses may remain electrically decoupled. When the passthrough mode is disabled, the RF tuner is thus shielded from noise present on the first bus.
US08151026B2
A system and method for writing, by a sender, a message into blocks of a memory space, the memory space being shared by the sender of the message and a receiver of the message, and sending, by the sender, an interrupt corresponding to the message.
US08151020B2
A storage subsystem includes a variable-size write buffer that temporarily stores write data received from a host system. The storage subsystem is capable of adjusting the size of the write buffer so as to vary both the performance (e.g., sustained write speed) of the storage subsystem and a risk of data loss. In one embodiment, the storage subsystem implements a command set that enables the host system to directly control the size of the write buffer. The storage subsystem may additionally or alternatively be capable of adjusting the size of the write buffer based on monitored operating conditions, such as the temperature, the stability/consistency of a power signal received from the host system, and/or the elapsed time since the storage subsystem was last powered up.
US08151013B2
A host I/F unit has a management table for managing an MPPK which is in-charge of the control of input/output processing for a storage area of an LDEV, and if a host computer transmits an input/output request for the LDEV, the host I/F unit transfers the input/output request to the MPPK which is in-charge of the input/output processing for the LDEV based on the management table, an MP of the MPPK performs the input/output processing based on the input/output request, and the MP of the MPPK also judges whether the MPPK that is in-charge of the input/output processing for the LDEV is to be changed, and sets the management table so that an MPPK which is different from the MPPK that is in-charge is to be in-charge of the input/output processing for the LDEV.
US08151008B2
A direct memory access (DMA) engine schedules data transfer requests of a system-on-chip data processing system according to both an assigned transfer priority and the deadline for completing a transfer. Transfer priority is based on a hardness representing the penalty for missing a deadline. Priorities are also assigned to zero-deadline transfer requests in which there is a penalty no matter how early the transfer completes. If desired, transfer requests may be scheduled in timeslices according to priority in order to bound the latency of lower priority requests, with the highest priority hard real-time transfers wherein the penalty for missing a deadline is severe are given the largest timeslice. Service requests for preparing a next data transfer are posted while a current transaction is in progress for maximum efficiency. Current transfers may be preempted whenever a higher urgency request is received.
US08151004B1
The present disclosure includes systems and methods relating to accelerating initialization of image viewers. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in a method that includes receiving a request to display an image, identifying a data component involved with displaying the image, modifying an existing electronic binary vector graphics file to include the data component, and transmitting the modified file.
US08151003B2
The present invention provides a method and system for routing data by a server. Specifically, the present invention provides a table-drive method and system for allowing parties to send and receive data in their own data formats and transfer protocols. In routing data from a source to a destination, the present invention does not require transformation of the data to an intermediate format and/or protocol before transformation into the format and protocol of the destination.
US08150994B2
Systems and methods for controlling the work load on a distributed system comprising a plurality of stages are provided. The capacity of a present stage is monitored, using either various resources of the present stage or rates of work completion and work receipt of the present stage. Information indicating the capacity of a succeeding stage are obtained and communicated to the present stage. The monitored capacity information of the present stage and the communicated information of the succeeding stage, either alone or in combination, are used to determine if a throttling action is necessary to control the load of work at the present stage. A provided throttling technique inserts an appropriate delay before the present stage to allow the present stage to process an amount of work without saturating the capacity of the present stage. This technique is applied at each stage of the distributed system to control the work load of the overall system by controlling the work load at each stage.
US08150992B2
In general, this disclosure describes techniques of dynamically selecting versions of media content based on data transfer policies of a media content provider that provides the media content. As described herein, a media content provider may establish a variety of data transfer policies for a variety of purposes. When requests are received, versions of media assets indicated by the requests are selected such that an overall bandwidth utilization of the media content provider is likely to be substantially equal to a desired bandwidth utilization established by one or more of the enterprise data transfer policies.
US08150990B2
A communications system particularly suited for a distributed network of computers such as the World Wide Web or the Internet. Connected to the distributed network is a broadcast computer which simultaneously communicates two streams of video. The first stream of video contains entertainment; the second stream of video contains commercial content. The receiver of the two streams has both streams displayed simultaneously and is able to select which stream's audio component is communicated to the user's computer's loudspeakers. In one embodiment of the invention, the user is also able to replace the commercial channel with another commercial channel.
US08150987B2
Automated file distribution is described. A member of a peer-to-peer network receives from a file server, a file to be distributed. The file is then distributed via the peer-to-peer network to other members of the peer-to-peer network. Members of the peer-to-peer network can choose whether or not to receive a file from another member based on a trust level or reputation associated with the member. The trust level may be based, at least in part, on a number of degrees of separation between the members. Furthermore the file is verified, for example, by validating a digital signature associated with the file.
US08150981B2
In an embodiment, a method is provided. The method of this embodiment provides in response to receiving a packet, looking up a packet characteristic in one of at least one protocol table to determine one or more fields of the packet to use as a hash value, applying a hash function to the hash value to obtain a hash result, and using the hash result to determine one of a plurality of processors on which to process the packet.
US08150970B1
Technologies relating to work load distribution. A request is received for access to one of n server processes, where n is an integer greater than one. A mixing function is applied to an identifier associated with the request to generate a reproducible output representative of the identifier. A modulo operation is applied to the output, where a dividend in the modulo operation is the output and a divisor in the modulo operation is n, to determine a remainder. The request is assigned to a server process from the n server processes in accordance with the remainder.
US08150967B2
A system and method for verified presence tracking. A request for a location is received over a network. The request comprises a request type, a request source and at least one request target. Location data relating to the request targets is retrieved from a plurality of location data sources. The reliability of the retrieved location data is determined. A response is formulated using based on the request type, the retrieved location data, and the determined reliability of the retrieved location data. The response is then transmitted over the network to the request source.
US08150964B2
A wireless data transmission system incorporates a process sensor providing an output for process monitoring data with a transmitter connected to the output of the sensor and transmitting the data in time gated intervals. A receiver receives the data from the transmitter and a determination is made if new data is received at a gated time interval. A processor connected to the receiver calculates process parameters based on the data received and a set of the calculated process parameters is stored. The processor estimates process parameters based on the stored set of calculated process parameters responsive to a signal from the determination that data packets have not been received at the gated interval. The process parameters front actual data, if present, or from the estimates made by the processor are then output for process control. A counter responsive to the determination of lost data, provides an emergency stop signal upon reaching a predetermined number of counts.
US08150962B1
Wireless devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants are automatically provisioned with a user interface skin, application logic, and/or wireless communications services based on demographics data acquired from the subscriber/user of the device. A computing system that implements the provisioning features acquires the demographics data and categorizes the subscriber/user into one of a predetermined demographics type or category, e.g., Baby Boomer, Teenager, Female-led family, Retiree, etc. Such demographic categories may also include business professions, e.g., Health Professional, Claims Adjuster, Attorney, Stock Broker, Real Estate Broker, etc. Such provisioning with a user interface skin, application logic, and/or services may occur initially, e.g., at the time of sale, and/or may occur later on as the subscriber demographics change and such changes are recorded in a subscriber profile database.
US08150958B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods for disseminating status information to computer resource users. Pursuant to these methods, status information regarding a number of different computer resources is stored in a message store. The computer resources may be monitored to determine when one of them stops responding. An inbound message from a user that is addressed to the non-responding computer resource may then be routed to the message store using a network address translation operation, and at least some of the status information regarding the non-responding computer resource may be sent from the message store to the user. The status information sent from the message store to the user may include a notification that alerts the user that it is unnecessary to notify an administrator that the non-responding computer resource has stopped responding.
US08150955B2
The present invention enhances the dynamic frequency selection 9DFS) algorithms used in Wireless LANs by adding a channel swapping mechanism. The aim of the traditional DFS algorithm is to dynamically select channels in a wireless LAN in such a way that the best performance is achieved. However, not always the optimal channel selection is achieved. This invention describes an addition to the DFS algorithm in such a way that two APs can decide to swap channels instead of one AP switching to another channel. To avoid the problem of sub-optimal channel selection, a requesting AP sends Swap Requests to other APs in order to sense the willingness of other APs to swap channels with the requesting AP.
US08150953B2
An information handling system includes a host including a central processing unit, a first management controller (MC) enabled to communicate with the host, and a network interface resource (NIR) in communication with the host and operable to enable the information handling system to communicate via an external network. The NIR includes a unified management module (UMM) operable to receive and route a local management packet, sent from the host, to the first management controller via a first unified management bus (UMB) and further operable to receive and route a remote management packet, sent from a remote resource via the external network, to the first management controller via the first UMB.
US08150950B2
An auto-discovery algorithm attempts a scattered-read of register addresses of a device in a utility monitoring system whose identity is unknown to a computer system. If the scattered read is successful, and data from the device includes a device ID code that is matched against a lookup table of devices. If unsuccessful, the algorithm attempts a block-read, and if unsuccessful, iteratively checks each register against the lookup table to determine whether a match exists until either one is found or the device reports an illegal data address exception, whereupon the algorithm stops attempting to read from subsequent addresses. The algorithm analyzes the response from the communications driver of the computer system to determine whether the response is valid, and if not, what type of exception is reported. If a timeout occurs, the algorithm flags the device for a later retry scan, and moves on to attempt to discover the next device.
US08150948B2
Systems and methods of deploying one or more software components to a target computer infrastructure are disclosed. A descriptor file that declares a desired state of one or more target computing devices of a target computer infrastructure is parsed. A live state of the one or more target computing devices is obtained. A set of target computing devices having the live state different from the desired state is identified. A plan script that includes deployment commands configured to deploy one or more software components to each computing device is generated. The plan script can be optimized such that when executed the software components are deployed with higher efficiency, system stability, minimum downtime, etc.
US08150945B2
A system and method for managing a user interface resource. Various aspects of the present invention comprise establishing a wireless communication link between a user interface resource and a first system. The user interface resource may, for example, be utilized to communicate user interface information with the first system. An inter-system communication link may be established between the first system and a second system. The user interface resource, or alternative source, may communicate a predetermined signal to the first system. The first system may, for example after receiving the predetermined signal, communicate a hand-off signal to the second system over the inter-system communication link. The hand-off signal may indicate that the user interface resource is to be used with the second system. The second system may establish a wireless communication link with the user interface resource, and the user interface resource may be utilized with the second system.
US08150944B2
An electronic apparatus and a method for managing access to data for a setting. The electronic apparatus includes a server device and at least one client device that is adapted to interact with the server device to access data for a setting. The data is stored in a memory device. The server device includes at least one interface module that is adapted to manage access to data for a specific setting.
US08150943B2
One embodiment of the invention is directed to automatically populating the cache of a web server. A webcrawler may send a request for a web page to the web server and receive the web page in response. The webcrawler may locate a link to a second web page in the received web page and determine if the link includes a predetermined pattern of characters. If the link includes the predetermined pattern of characters, the webcrawler may send a request to the webserver for the second web page. In another embodiment, the webcrawler may be made aware of changes to the content of a web site and revisit the web site after changes are made to repopulate the cache with the updated content.
US08150941B2
The present invention relates to interactive virtual reality networked computer systems and methods that facilitate communication and operation in a virtual reality environment. The virtual reality networked computer system has an infrastructure that includes a number of users, hosts and servers. The interconnected hosts and servers allow users to effectively locate, activate, access and interact within virtual reality environments in a variety of different ways. For example, users can establish user groups such that interaction within the virtual reality environment occurs between hosts (accessed by users) without the need of a central or dedicated server.
US08150940B2
Methods and systems are provided for communicating with a technician at a customer service location in a telecommunications system. One method embodiment includes generating an electronic message in an administration system; transmitting the generated electronic message from the administration system through a technician server operatively associated with the administration system; and, displaying the generated electronic message on a screen display adapted for viewing with an access device of the technician at the customer service location. One system embodiment includes an administration system configured for generating at least one electronic message; a technician server operatively associated with the administration system; and, a screen display adapted for receiving and displaying the generated electronic message for viewing on an access device of the technician at the customer service location. Computer-readable media embodiments of the present methods are also provided.
US08150938B1
A mediating server operates to interconnect a number of user devices to network servers. In order to receive customized content from the network servers, the user devices provide device profiles to the network servers via the mediating server within or in addition to requests for content. As the device profiles pass through the mediating server, the mediating server obtains the device profiles and stores the device profiles in a device profiles database. The mediating server may then classify the user devices based on the user profiles using a classification algorithm, which may include one or more classification rules for each of a number of classes. Thereafter, the mediating server may provide one or more services based on the device profiles, the classification of the user devices, or a combination thereof.
US08150936B2
A data storage management system includes a virtual provider for interacting with a coordinator to receive shadow copy requests from a requestor and for interfacing with a plurality of providers that support various logical units on which data volumes can be stored. The virtual provider appears to the coordinator as a provider and can generate a shadow copy of a first one of the data volumes that spans multiple ones of the logical units, which are supported by different ones of the plurality of providers.
US08150933B2
A method for transmitting data to a communication device that is configured to receive data through a plurality of alternative communications mediums. The method comprises: determining a priority associated with a data message that is to be provided to the communications device; selecting a desired communications medium for providing the data message to the communications device, wherein if the priority is a first priority, the desired communications medium is selected from a first set that includes at least one of the plurality of communications mediums, and if the priority is a second priority, the desired communications medium is selected from a second set that includes at least one of the plurality of communications mediums, the first set including at least one communications medium from the plurality of communications mediums that is not included in the second set; and providing the data message to the communications device over the desired communications medium if the desired communications medium is available.
US08150928B2
A spam resistant e-mail system employs communication via authenticated communication channels while providing a mechanism for rapidly growing a list of authenticated individuals and managing that list on a personal and collaborative basis to prevent spammers from joining the network.
US08150918B1
A system and method is disclosed for establishing an interactive multimedia application environment in which server-side streaming media may be controlled by a client using a programming model provided at both a communication server and an interactive multimedia runtime on the client. The application program interface (API) preferably provides methods for the client user to establish a stream of data from the client to the communication server in addition to allowing a stream from the communication server to the client. The API also preferably allows the user at a client to exert control over the broadcasting of the media streams. Streams may be built, edited, paused, stopped, augmented, and the like by the client user. Each function that the client user may operate on the broadcast media stream is preferably viewable by all of the other subscribing clients.
US08150912B2
Systems of the present inventions allow for providing customer-selected solutions for multiple datacenter website hosting. An exemplary system may comprise a first datacenter comprising at least one hosting server, a second datacenter comprising at least one hosting server, and a hosting services website hosted on at least one customer interaction server. The hosting services website may be configured to offer and implement hosting of at least one customer website in the first datacenter, second datacenter, or both the first datacenter and second datacenter. The system also may comprise a network communicatively coupling the first datacenter, second datacenter, and customer interaction server.
US08150903B2
Provided are a reconfigurable arithmetic unit and a processor having the same. The reconfigurable arithmetic unit can perform an addition operation or a multiplication operation according to an instruction by sharing an adder. The reconfigurable arithmetic unit includes a booth encoder for encoding a multiplier, a partial product generator for generating a plurality of partial products using the encoded multiplier and a multiplicand, a Wallace tree circuit for compressing the partial products into a first partial product and a second partial product, a first Multiplexer (MUX) for selecting and outputting one of the first partial product and a first addition input according to a selection signal, a second MUX for selecting and outputting one of the second partial product and a second addition input according to the selection signal, and a Carry Propagation Adder (CPA) for adding an output of the first MUX and an output of the second MUX to output an operation result. The arithmetic unit can operate as an adder or a multiplier according to an instruction, and thus can increase the degree of use of entire hardware.
US08150902B2
A processor or other device, such as a programmable and/or massively parallel processor or other device, includes processing elements designed to perform arithmetic operations (possibly but not necessarily including, for example, one or more of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) on numerical values of low precision but high dynamic range (“LPHDR arithmetic”). Such a processor or other device may, for example, be implemented on a single chip. Whether or not implemented on a single chip, the number of LPHDR arithmetic elements in the processor or other device in certain embodiments of the present invention significantly exceeds (e.g., by at least 20 more than three times) the number of arithmetic elements, if any, in the processor or other device which are designed to perform high dynamic range arithmetic of traditional precision (such as 32 bit or 64 bit floating point arithmetic).
US08150900B2
A random binary sequence generator for generating a random binary sequence adapted to be used for producing random numbers, includes at least one logic circuit corresponding to an associated finite-state machine having a state-transition function including states arranged to form cycles of states, wherein the at least one logic circuit has a set of logic circuit inputs and a set of logic circuit outputs fed back to the logic circuit inputs; the associated finite-state machine is autonomous and asynchronous; the state-transition function is void of loops; and any of the cycles of states has either a minimum length equal to three states, in case the cycle is stable, or a minimum length of two states, in case the cycle is meta-stable.
US08150898B2
A method and data structure for separating application data from user data in a namespace. The data structure provides an intuitive profile layout for developers or users while supporting legacy applications. The namespace utilizes a hierarchical structure allowing access by developers or users over a network to information contained in identified public folders and/or a user's profile.
US08150884B2
A system for information item categorization in which each non-leaf node in a hierarchical organization of nodes represents a category, and each leaf node represents an information item. A number P is associated with each node. For non-leaf nodes, the associated number P is selected from a subset of relatively prime elements chosen from an appropriate Unique Factorization Domain (UFD), such as a set of relatively prime numbers which are a subset of the familiar set of integers. For leaf nodes, P is set to 1. A number M is also associated with each node. For each root node, M is set to the value of P for that node. For each non-root node, M is set to the product of the M's of all parent nodes of the node and the P of that node.
US08150881B2
To provide a human relationships registering system, a method and a server for registering human relationships, a program for registering human relationships, and a medium storing human relationships registering program and readable by a computer, all of which are used to establish wide and close relationships with members having a variety of occupations or engaged in various technical fields and to obtain expert knowledge or information. The human relationships registering system comprises first data processing units 2 and 3 including sections for receiving personal data of a new member, and a second data processing unit including a section for storing the received personal data. The second data processing unit stores the personal data of the new member in correlation to an existing member when the existing member confirms the new member.
US08150879B2
A method and apparatus for creating custom dimension trees. The method may include receiving a user request to create a custom dimension tree, displaying a list of available dimensions, and receiving user selection of available dimensions from the list. The method may further include allowing the user to create virtual dimensions, mapping elements of the available dimensions to the virtual dimensions, and creating the custom dimension tree using the mapping. The custom dimension tree represents relationships between the virtual dimensions.
US08150878B1
A system for generating a feed, the system including: a memory unit adapted to store a web feed repository; and a processor, adapted to search for a web feed set that includes at least one web feed that is related to the web site or to a first web feed promoted when browsing to the web site; wherein the system enables a subscription to at least web feed of the web feed set.
US08150875B1
A method and an apparatus to store information regarding web pages have been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a predetermined type of information regarding a web page in a domain from a server, using a subset of the information to evaluate the web page based on one or more predetermined policies, and locally storing the subset of the information. Other embodiments have been claimed and described.
US08150869B2
Context information for a user of a device is identified and is used to identify a set of keywords based at least in part on a current Web page being displayed and one or more previous Web pages displayed for the user. The set of keywords and/or information regarding previous searches are used to identify a set of query terms. The set of query terms are displayed as part of a user interface. Additionally, a user selection of a search preview option can be received while displaying a Web page. In response to receiving the user selection of the search preview option, a user-entered query term is sent to a search engine. Search results based on the query term are received from the search engine, and both the search results and the Web page are displayed concurrently in a same window.
US08150867B2
The various disclosed techniques and equipment relate to synchronizing a subscriber's address books located in a portal and in the subscriber's mobile station, determining the subscription status of a directory number of another party with whom the subscriber intends to communicate, and/or for enabling the subscriber to make a referral to another party who might not be a qualified subscriber.
US08150865B2
Methods for transforming queries that contain EXISTS and NOT EXISTS subqueries are provided. The methods provided transform original queries that contain EXISTS and/or NOT EXISTS subqueries in conjunctive or disjunctive combinations into transformed queries that coalesce the original EXISTS and/or NOT EXISTS subqueries into a reduced number of EXISTS and/or NOT EXISTS subqueries, thereby eliminating duplicative table accesses and join operations.
US08150863B2
Methods for monitoring changes in objects on a computer system include receiving a request to generate a baseline snapshot of a plurality of objects having associated object types. The object types include at least one object having an object type not managed by a file system of the computer system. Current information is obtained, responsive to the request to generate a baseline snapshot, from a plurality of data collectors to determine at least one attribute of each of the objects to define the baseline snapshot. A request for a baseline report for the objects is received. Updated information is obtained, responsive to the request for a baseline report, from the plurality of data collectors to update the at least one attribute of each of the objects. The baseline snapshot is compared to the obtained updated information to determine if any of the objects have changed. Receiving the request to generate the baseline snapshot may be preceded by generating a baseline definition query that identifies object types to be included in the generated baseline snapshot and their associated attributes and the received request to generate the baseline report includes an identification of the baseline definition query.
US08150860B1
One or more server devices may simultaneously calculate first ranking scores for a group of users and second ranking scores for a group of comments authored by the group of users. The calculating may occur during a same process. The one or more server devices may further provide one of a first ranked list that includes information identifying the group of users, the information identifying the group of users being ordered based on the first ranking scores, or a second group of comments of the group of comments, the comments in the second group of comments being ordered based on the second ranking scores.
US08150850B2
A database management system stores data form a plurality of logical tables as independent copies in different format. In one specific example the system organizes tables into table groups and de-normalizes the table in each table group. It also organizes data in a second format including vertical column containers that store all the data for one attribute, there being one column container for each table and each attribute within that table. The receipt of a query causes the system to develop a query plan that can interact with either or both of the container sets.
US08150844B2
In one embodiment, a user of a social networking system requests to check in a place near the user's current location. The social networking system generates a list of places near the user's current location, ranks the places in the list of places near the user's current location by a distance between each place and the user's current location, as well as activity of the user and the user's social contacts for each place, and returns the ranked list to the user.
US08150843B2
Systems, methods and articles of manufacture are disclosed for generating search results based on user feedback. A request may be received to generate search results retrieved using a search string. The request may include user feedback for one or more selected documents of the search results. Improved search results may be generated based on the search results and the feedback for one or more selected documents of the search results. The improved search results may be output to a graphical display device.
US08150842B2
Methods, computer program products and systems are described for online-content management. Multiple online content items authored by multiple authors are received at one or more first computers for online publication. For each online content item, a reputation score is determined for the author of the online content item. The reputation score is based at least in part on one or more reviews of the online content item provided by one or more reviewers other than the author. In response to a query for online content received from a second computer, a set of search results is generated that includes an online content item from the multiple online content items. A ranking of the online content item in the set is determined based at least in part on the reputation score of the author.
US08150839B2
A method of providing a search result and a system for executing the method are provided. A method of providing a search result includes: setting a grade of a category associated with a keyword based on click information; creating a category list to maintain the category list in association with the keyword, wherein the category list includes the category that is arranged according to the grade; and providing a search result for the keyword in an order of the category in the category list, wherein the click information includes information regarding whether the category is clicked on and a clicked order.
US08150830B2
Personalized network searching, in which a search query is received from a user, and a request is received to personalize a search result. Responsive to the search query and the request to personalize the search result, a personalized search result is generated by searching a personalized search object. Responsive to the search query, a general search result is generated by searching the general search object. The personalized search result and the general search result are provided to a client device, an advertisement is selected based at least in part upon the personalized search object, and the advertisement, the personalized search result, and the general search result are displayed.
US08150827B2
Methods for reviewing a collection of documents to identify relevant documents from the collection are provided. A search of the collection can be run based on query terms, to return a subset of responsive documents. A probability of relevancy can be determined for a document in the returned subset, and the document is removed from the subset if it does not reach a threshold probability of relevancy. Documents in a thread of a correspondence (for example, an e-mail) in the responsive documents subset can be added to the responsive documents subset. Further, an attachment to a document in the responsive documents subset can be added to the responsive documents subset. A statistical technique can be applied to determine whether remaining documents in the collection meet a predetermined acceptance level.
US08150824B2
Systems and methods for direct navigation to and/or highlighting a specific portion of a target document such as query-relevant portion of the document are disclosed. The method may include generating a search result link to a search result document and generating an instruction to a client document browser to navigate directly to an intra-document portion related to the query within the search result document. The search result may include a snippet extracted from the search result document such that the instruction causes navigation directly to at least a portion of the snippet. The instruction may be an artificial anchor undefined in the search result document, e.g., designated by a preassigned artificial anchor designator. The client browser may have an artificial anchor module installed to execute the instruction to navigate directly to and optionally highlight the intra-document portion within the target document in response to the document link being selected.
US08150821B2
A system and method for performing database utilities on a DB2 database may include using a single procedure (proc) for each database utility function. At least one parameter may be provided, where the at least one parameter identifies a DB2 database name. A generic control card may be accessed, where the generic control card may be identified by a value of the parameter(s). A utility control card may be generated using the at least one parameter. A database utility may be executed on a DB2 database by using the generated utility control card.
US08150815B2
A system for identifying events includes a memory capable of storing a compressed event table including a number of events, the event table having been compressed by reducing the number of events in the event table without reducing the number of events represented by the event table. Each event of the event table includes a set of state parameters, and may also be associated with an output. The system also includes a processor capable of operating a fast state recognition (FSR) application. The FSR application, in turn, can receive a plurality of inputs, and identify an event of the compressed event table based upon the plurality of inputs and the state parameters of the compressed event table, event being identified in accordance with a state recognition technique.
US08150813B2
Techniques are disclosed for adding entities to a group of entity resolution candidates by selecting entities that have a minimum threshold of similarity to a candidate, allowing a greater number of resolutions in an entity resolution system. To resolve an incoming identity record, an initial group of candidates may be selected from known entities by identifying entities that match a candidate building attribute of the incoming identity record. Additional candidates may be selected by identifying entities with some information that is similar to one of the candidate entities.
US08150809B2
A proposed file delete method is a method used by a computer or a file processing device performing a process of outputting to a device driver a directive corresponding to a directive to delete a file satisfying a predetermined condition from an application, and includes: a step of obtaining in primary storage from an actual data area in secondary storage the directory entry information in a directory storing a file to be deleted; a step of adding in the primary storage a delete mark to the file in the obtained directory entry when the file in the obtained directory entry satisfies the predetermined condition; a step of writing a result of the delete mark adding process to a corresponding portion of the actual data area in the secondary storage; and a step of freeing FAT information stored in the secondary storage corresponding to the delete mark added file.
US08150807B2
An image sharing system, an image sharing device and a method for operating a plurality of image sharing devices are provided. Each image sharing device has a memory with image content files stored therein and a communication system to provide an image sharing system. The method comprises the steps of: identifying image sharing devices to be included in the image sharing system; establishing a communication link between the identified image sharing devices, said communication link providing the ability to transfer image content files; identifying sharable image content files in each of the image sharing devices; and determining manifest data useable in copying the sharable image content files from one of the image sharing devices to at least one other of the image sharing devices so that each of the shareable image content file is stored in at least two of the image sharing devices in the image sharing system.
US08150805B1
In-band commands may be associated with a particular consistency interval and may indicate requested actions to be performed for that consistency interval. An application may desire to perform actions, such as additional backup, snapshots, etc. on stored data, when that data is in a consistent state from the application's point of view. In order to ensure that the data is in a consistent state, a consistency interval may be created on demand. A node may request a consistency interval by sending a consistency request message to a consistency interval coordinator, which in turn, establishes the consistency interval with all nodes in the distributed environment. After sending all write requests for the consistency interval, the node may then send the command message. Command messages may be stored in consistency logs along with write requests and a replication target, or other device, may read both the write requests and the command message.
US08150801B2
Described is the backup and/or restore of virtual disks In general, metadata is backed up for restoring a virtual disk. To restore the disk, a physical disk is created, with the virtual disk the created on a partition of the physical disk. Backup and restore is described for nested virtual disks, including for block level restore. Further described is backing up of critical virtual disks and their containers, and virtual disk backup with respect to basic disks and dynamic volumes.
US08150798B2
A method and system for automated coordination and organization of electronic communications in enterprises optimizes a communications network, intelligently streamlining communications and enabling workflow within enterprise applications. The system allows a user to use whatever authoring tool the user is already familiar with, such as email or word-processing, to immediately publish that communication, making use of re-usable content and templates and then automatically routing that information vie the best channel to the intended recipient. The recipient is able to direct the format and mode of the incoming communications as well, based on sender, role, type, and action requirement. The underlying engine for streamlining communications injects underlying metadata so that emails are easier to manage and automate. Finally, the system collects information about the overall system in order to improve communication flow.
US08150793B2
A fusion system fuses M rankings generated by M judges by (i) computing values of an aggregation function for items of the M rankings, the aggregation function including a sum of pairwise conjunctions of ranking values of different judges for an input item, and (ii) constructing an aggregation ranking based on the aggregation function values. In an illustrative application, the judges are different Internet search engines and the rankings are sets of search engine results generated for a query input to the search engines, and a consensus search result corresponding to the query is defined by the aggregation ranking. In another illustrative application, the judges are different soft classifiers, and the rankings are probability vectors generated for an input object by the different soft classifiers, and the input object is classified based on a consensus probability vector defined by the aggregation ranking.
US08150791B2
A system and method of presenting benefits to a user of a computing device is provided. The method may include detecting user activities via a computer program executed on the computing device, storing a list of detected user activities in a user history in the computing device, and receiving a list of predefined benefits from at least one remote server. Each of the predefined benefits may include an associated trigger user activity. The method may further include storing the list of predefined benefits in the computing device, and determining a predefined benefit to present to the user based at least on the presence of a trigger user activity for the predefined benefit in the user history, via the computer program in the computing device. The method may further include presenting a matched predefined benefit to the user.
US08150786B1
Various aspects provide for receiving data associated with a plurality of samples. A sample generally includes data associated with one or more events. One or more traits may be determined, where a trait may be a set of or associated with one or more events. Generally, events included in a trait may be correlated (including anti-correlated) in some way. A trait may be associated with a sample, and the association may be recorded, an action may be triggered, and/or a user may be notified.
US08150776B2
Methods involve adding sorbent components, such as calcium oxide, alumina, and silica, as well as optional halogens as part of environmental control. Use of the sorbents leads to significant reductions in sulfur and mercury emissions that otherwise would result from burning coal. Use of the sorbents leads to production of waste coal ash that, while higher in mercury, is nevertheless usable as a commercial product because the mercury in the ash is non-leaching and because the coal ash has a higher cementitious nature by virtue of the increased content of the sorbent components in the ash. Thus, the methods involve adding powders having qualities that lead to the production of a cementitious coal ash while at the same time reducing emissions from a coal burning facility.
US08150771B1
Various embodiments are directed to computer implemented methods of automatically reordering checks for an account utilizing checks. The methods may comprise determining a number of checks written on the account from a most recent check order. The number of checks written on the account from the most recent check order comprises a number of checks cleared on the account and a number of stop payment orders made on the account. The methods may also comprise determining a check usage rate, which may be proportional to a number of checks written on the account per unit time. The methods may additional comprise determining a time-to-exhaustion considering the number of checks written on the account and the check usage rate. Conditioned upon the time-to-exhaustion being below a predetermined threshold, an order of new checks directed to the customer may be initiated.
US08150766B1
A method, system and program product for operating an exchange method for municipal and/or state funds from banking institutions, comprising: (A) accessing, by one or more computers, one or more electronic databases holding data on client transaction accounts and funds in aggregated accounts and banking institutions holding Federal government securities; (B) obtaining transaction data for clients' deposits/transfers to and withdrawals/transfers from a plurality of said client transaction accounts; (C) generating instructions, to deposit/transfer funds to or withdraw/transfer funds from one or more of the aggregated accounts to satisfy the clients' deposits/transfers to and withdrawals/transfers from a plurality of said client transaction accounts; (D) receiving data, for a first deposit from a first one of the banking institutions, where the first deposit comprises municipal funds and/or state funds; (E) selecting, at least another of the banking institutions holding government securities to receive at least a portion of the first deposit of municipal funds and/or state funds; (F) selecting, a plurality of client transaction accounts from one or more of the other banking institutions for the transfer of funds to the first banking institution; (G) generating instructions to deposit/transfer funds from the plurality of the client transaction accounts selected to the first banking institution; (H) updating the electronic databases.
US08150763B2
The present invention relates to systems and methods for staging transactions and facilitating payments by consumers to a lender or merchant to consummate a financial transaction and/or to maintain a financial relationship. In one embodiment, a method for accepting payments from a consumer includes receiving a promise-to-pay record from a lender (210), receiving a payment from the consumer (220), associating the payment with the promise-to-pay record (230), and sending a notice to the lender (240), with the notice having an indicator that the payment has been received.
US08150762B1
Disclosed are systems and methods for providing credit. The systems and methods receive a credit request from a applicant, determine immediately whether or not credit will be provided to the applicant and, if so, provide an immediately usable general use credit account to the applicant.
US08150756B2
A family of hedge funds, serving as “feeder funds”into underlying single-manager hedge funds, formed to provide smaller investors with the ability to allocate and reallocate assets among alternative strategies, and this basic structure combining interrelated systems and methods for offering, redeeming, exchanging, valuing, reporting and servicing the same is a new approach. The system and methods described herein provide investors having less than ultra-high net worth portfolios with access to hedge funds and the potential valuable diversification to an overall portfolio, and the ability to customize their portfolio of hedge funds to their individual needs and adjust such portfolio over time as seen fit in light of changing financial needs and market conditions. This invention gives a wide range of investors access to hedge funds, creating economic value using a new source of stable investor capital for hedge fund managers, a value shared with investors through reduced costs.
US08150751B2
Methods, devices, and systems for analyzing negotiated negotiable instruments for unlawful activity are described. A computer system, including a computer readable storage device and a processor may be provided. A plurality of electronic files may be received. Each of these electronic files of the plurality of electronic files may include an electronic image of at least a portion of a negotiable instrument and include a plurality of data fields. The plurality of electronic files may be divided into subsets based on whether data is available in particular data fields of the electronic files. Based upon the subset an electronic file is made a member of, various selection criteria may be applied to determine if the electronic file is a candidate for suspicious and/or illegal activity. Also, a listing of candidates for suspicious and/or illegal activity may be presented to a user.
US08150750B2
Systems and methods for managing consultation requests to communities of experts comprising receiving consultation requests, receiving responses to consultation requests, and compensating experts for their responses with fractional ownership in a value-added investment vehicle based at least in part on the value of those responses.
US08150737B2
Method and apparatus regarding referral services are described. Further embodiments are described.
US08150736B2
A comprehensive system effectuates global electronic commerce on the Internet across frontiers of nations, cultures, and languages. Referral Websites serving various locales offer Buyers the opportunity to view products for purchase. A Buyer selects categories of products for viewing by using drop-down menus that organize products into a clear taxonomy that can be expressed across all languages. Having selected a category of products for viewing, a Buyer receives, from a multi-version relational database, a version of marketing information about each product. The version is one automatically sent from the database to match the Buyer's language, culture, and nationality, as deduced from the use of a particular Referral Website. A shopping cart allows Buyers to select a product for purchase in an interactive way that encourages completion of the purchase. Products can be offered with custom options and in wholesale quantities. Personalized Web pages allow comprehensive customer service after a sale.
US08150725B2
Embodiments are directed to a method, medium, and system for generating a distribution attribution value to analyze distribution of telecommunications services. The method including compiling values for at least three variable elements associated with the distribution of telecommunication services. A first total value being defined as a product of first element values associated with the at least three variable elements. A second total value being defined as a product of second element values associated with the at least three variable elements. The method also including generating an attribution value representing an amount of influence at least one of the at least three variable elements has on a difference between the first and the second total values. The attribution value being calculated using the first and second total values. Also, the attribution value being adapted to at least one of verify and adjust the distribution of telecommunication services.
US08150724B1
The invention elicits reliable ratings of entertainment items. Appropriate users are identified to supply ratings, and they are motivated to supply reliable ones by rewards. The identification of appropriate users is based on taste signatures of the items to be rated and of the users. Other products of user effort such as reviews are also elicited.
US08150721B2
In one embodiment, a system is provided for performing at least one service operation in association with at least one inspected item. The system includes a service data device configured for displaying at least one data screen including at least one checklist configured for operative use in connection with performance of the service operation on the inspected item, the data device being portable and being configured for processing at least one communication; a service administrator having at least one data storage medium configured for storing at least one of the checklists displayed on the data device, the service administrator further having at least one server for enabling at least one communication between the service administrator and the data device; at least a portion of at least one of the checklists being customizable by at least the service administrator; and, at least a portion of at least one of the checklists being electronically interactive in association with performance of the service operation on the inspected item. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
US08150719B2
A computer-implemented method provides location-sensitive and time-sensitive calendaring to a wireless device, such as a cell phone, pager, PDA, etc. A user's calendar is maintained with a number of appointments, start times and end times for the appointments, meeting place and a list of attendees for the appointments. When the present time reading is within a predetermined minimum of a meeting start time of an appointment of a calendar user, the location of the user is determined based on the location of the wireless device. The location of the meeting place is also determined. Using historical data (of the user or others), the estimated time of arrival of the user at the meeting place is determined. If the estimated time of arrival is after the meeting start time, then a late message may be sent to the user and/or to the other meeting attendees.
US08150717B2
Automated risk assessments using a contextual data model that correlates physical and logical assets
An automated method, system, device, and/or computer program for performing risk assessment for an information system. A risk assessment tool can receive a scenario for which to perform a risk assessment. A contextual data model and a set of data instances for the information system can be accessed. The contextual data model can define relationships between physical and logical assets of the information system. The contextual data model and set of data instances can be analyzed in relation to the scenario. An action plan can be generated that addresses the scenario.
US08150715B1
Flexible, varying long term care insurance programs for use as parts of combination long term care products are generated. Input variables such as issue age, targeted present value and year-to-year premium relationship are supplied, as are some members of a set of process variables. A non-supplied process variable is calculated based on the input variables and the supplied process variables. An insurance program based on the supplied variables and the calculated process variable is then generated, such that the premium schedule increases (or alternatively, increases and decreases) over time to at least one leveling point, at which premiums become level. A combination long term care product is produced by coupling the generated insurance program with a life insurance program or annuity.
US08150707B2
A method and apparatus for assisting a user to formulate, apply and adhere to a changed behavior program. The user's commitment is established by presenting a number of potential barriers to implementing a desired behavioral change; asking a user to select one or more potential barriers; presenting a selected number of possible solutions to the barriers, receiving user input selecting at least one solution; and prompting the user to enter a commitment to one or more actions intended to assist the behavioral change. Maintenance of an exercise regime is assisted by displaying a selection of options for activities to be included in the exercise regime; allowing a user to select activities; displaying a schedule of planned exercise activities; and sending an electronic alert message to the user in advance of the scheduled activity.
US08150700B2
A mobile terminal including an input unit configured to receive an input to activate a voice recognition function on the mobile terminal, a memory configured to store information related to operations performed on the mobile terminal, and a controller configured to activate the voice recognition function upon receiving the input to activate the voice recognition function, to determine a meaning of an input voice instruction based on at least one prior operation performed on the mobile terminal and a language included in the voice instruction, and to provide operations related to the determined meaning of the input voice instruction based on the at least one prior operation performed on the mobile terminal and the language included in the voice instruction and based on a probability that the determined meaning of the input voice instruction matches the information related to the operations of the mobile terminal.
US08150696B2
A device for providing dynamic speech processing services during variable network connectivity with a network server includes a connection determiner that determines the level of network connectivity of the client device and the network server; and a simplified speech processor that processes speech data and is initiated based on the determination from the connection determiner that the network connectivity is impaired or unavailable. The devices further includes a speech data storage that stores processed speech data from the simplified speech processor; and a transition unit that determines when to transmit the stored speech data and connects with the network server, based on the determination of the connection determiner.
US08150690B2
The invention relates to a speech recognition system and method with cepstral noise subtraction. The speech recognition system and method utilize a first scalar coefficient, a second scalar coefficient, and a determining condition to limit the process for the cepstral feature vector, so as to avoid excessive enhancement or subtraction in the cepstral feature vector, so that the operation of the cepstral feature vector is performed properly to improve the anti-noise ability in speech recognition. Furthermore, the speech recognition system and method can be applied in any environment, and have a low complexity and can be easily integrated into other systems, so as to provide the user with a more reliable and stable speech recognition result.
US08150673B1
Methods and systems for partitioning objects in modeling environments are disclosed. The modeling environments enable users to partition an object (parent object) to include other objects (child objects). The parent object may reference the child objects (referenced objects). The child objects may be subsystems in the hierarchy of the parent object or modules (or units) in the partitioning of the parent object. The child objects may be encapsulated so that changes in the parent object do not affect the child objects. The partition of the parent object may allow users to load and compile the parent object incrementally. The partition of the parent object may also allow users to generate code for the parent object incrementally.
US08150672B2
A system and method for simulating a circuit design using both an unknown Boolean state and a negative unknown Boolean state is provided. When the circuit is simulated, one or more initial simulated logic elements are initialized to the unknown Boolean state. The initialized unknown Boolean states are then fed to one or more simulated logic elements and the simulator simulates the handling of the unknown Boolean state by the simulated logic elements. Examples of simulated logic elements include gates and latches, such as flip-flops, inverters, and basic logic gates. The processing results in at least one negative unknown Boolean state. An example of when a negative unknown Boolean state would result would be when the unknown Boolean state is inverted by an inverter. The resulting negative unknown Boolean state is then fed to other simulated logic elements that generate further simulation results based on processing the negative unknown Boolean state.
US08150669B2
A method for mapping a complex sedimentary basin is disclosed. A grid representative of the current architecture of the basin is constructed. A mechanical structural restoration is applied in three dimensions so as to reconstruct the past architectures of the basin from the current time up to a geological time t. A simulation of the geological and geochemical processes that govern the formation of a petroleum reservoir is then carried out, directly in the grids obtained from the restoration, from the geological time t to the current one. This simulation is thereafter used for mapping the sedimentary basin so as to identify zones of the basin where hydrocarbons may have accumulated.
US08150668B2
Simulation of thermal fluid-structure interaction using bulk flow fluid elements (BFFEs) is described. Each BFFE is configured to include the following characteristics: 1) at least one surrounding layer of solid elements representing either the surrounding structure or the pipe wall; 2) a layer of shell elements or Bulk Node Segments representing the outer boundary of the fluid; 3) a Bulk Node at the center of the BFFE for defining fluid properties (e.g., density, specific heat) and volume (i.e., fluid volume is calculated as the enclosed volume between the Bulk Node and all of the Bulk Node Segments that surround it); 4) a fluid flow beam element or Bulk Node Element for defining fluid flow path to another BFFE; and 5) a contact interface between the solid elements and the shell elements for conducting fluid-structure thermal interaction.
US08150665B2
A method and product for modeling and managing requirements in a complex integrated system, which comprises creating a set of requirements which can be implemented within all the components of the complex integrated system. Each requirement may be characterized as a point on the circumference of a circle, the characterization being an assignment of a requirement type. This type determines which circle the point will be located on, assigning a unique immutable numerical value to each requirement that determines in which order the point is placed on the previously determined circle. A location is also determined for each requirement. The location may determine the position of the requirement in relation to other requirements on the circumference of one of the set of circles. Sectors are also formed within the set of circles, as a function of a set of architectural principles and interfaces are identified between points, represented as chords.
US08150663B2
Embodiments of the invention provide a system and method for partitioning data for modelling a geological structure including laterally partitioning the data into multiple columns, where each column may be substantially laterally centered about a dual fiber and vertically partitioning each column at each of multiple intersection points of multiple surfaces and the dual fiber about which the column may be substantially laterally centered.
US08150659B2
A method in a computer modeling environment having generative component features forming a model is provided. A generative component (GC) feature is created with a method. User input modifying an aspect of the model that affects the GC feature is received. An update method for the GC feature is determined dynamically based on the user input, the properties of the GC feature and input properties of available update methods to obtain a selected update method. The GC feature is updated based on the selected update method to obtain an updated GC feature. The updated GC feature is stored in a computer readable medium.
US08150654B2
A chiller's performance tester includes two flowrate sensors, four temperature sensors, one current sensor, one voltage sensor, all sensors being externally connectable, and an enclosure in which a thermal energy calculation IC board, an electrical power calculation IC board, and a programmable logic controller are arranged. The enclosure has a front side to which a man-machine interface panel that displays measurement readings and provides function-related operations is mounted. The enclosure has a back side to which a socket-carrying panel that is connectable to cables of the sensors is mounted. Readings of flowrate, temperature, current, and voltage are transmitted to the programmable logic controller in which software is executed to compile and integrate these signals to be further transmitted to a computer for subsequent analysis and monitoring. Test of a water chiller is made simple and cost, man power, and working hours are saved.
US08150646B2
A method for delivering a process gas to a reaction chamber of a plasma processing system using a recipe having a recipe flow rate is provided. The method includes delivering the process gas by a gas flow delivery system controlled by a mass flow controller (MFC) to an orifice. The predicted flow rate is previously computed by pressurizing a gas. The predicted flow rate further being previously computed measuring a set of upstream pressure values of the gas via at least one pressure sensor. The method also includes applying, using a programmed computing device, a calibration factor of a set of calibration factors to determine the predicted flow rate, the calibration factor being a ratio of an average of the set of upstream pressure values to an average of a set of golden upstream pressure values.
US08150639B2
Magnetic field sensors (1) comprising field detectors (10) for detecting magnetic fields are provided with environment detectors (11) for detecting environments and with processors (12) for, in response to detected environments, performing processes such as loading calibration parameter sets and (re)calibrations for the field detectors (10), to allow the magnetic field sensors (1) to be used in different subsequent environments. The environment detectors (11) may comprise code detectors for detecting codes indicative for environments and may comprise user interfaces (13) for, in response to detected environments and via user interactions, selecting processes to be performed by the processors (12). Devices (2) comprise magnetic field sensors (1). Apparatuses (3) such as cradles removably fix the devices (2) and may comprise code generators (30) for generating the codes indicative for the environments.
US08150638B1
A computer-implemented method of determining parasitic capacitance for transistors within an integrated circuit can include determining a first set of coefficients for a first expression that calculates parasitic capacitance for a transistor structure according to a first plurality of parasitic capacitances derived from a plurality of two-dimensional transistor structures (320). The first set of coefficients can be inserted into the first expression (325). The method further can include determining a second set of coefficients for a second expression that calculates parasitic capacitance for a transistor structure according to a second plurality of parasitic capacitances derived from a plurality of three-dimensional transistor structures (345). The second expression can include the first expression (350). The method can include inserting the second set of coefficients into the second expression and outputting the second expression (355).
US08150637B2
Apparatuses, methods, and computer program products for evaluating the performance of a gas lift well are disclosed. A gas lift well surveillance kit is disclosed. A method for evaluating the performance of a gas lift well includes injecting a tracer into an annulus, measuring a concentration of the tracer present in a substance retrieved from the well, determining actual travel times of the tracer, segmenting the gas lift well into a plurality of ranges of well depth, determining lift gas loss parameters, calculating lift gas velocities in the annulus and in the production tubing for each of the plurality of ranges of well depth based on the lift gas loss parameters, and determining points of entry of the lift gas into the production tubing based on: (i) the actual travel times of the tracer, and (ii) the lift gas velocities in the annulus and in the production tubing.
US08150630B2
A method is described for characterization of the quality of a sialoglycoprotein via its isoform number I which is calculated from the isoform distribution of the capillary electrophoretic analysis of the sialoglycoprotein and represents a quality feature for the batch consistency, storage stability, biological half-life and the biological effectiveness of a therapeutic glycoprotein. Uses of this method are also described.
US08150629B2
Computer modeling of interactions between and among cortico and subcortical areas of the human brain, for example in a normal and a pathological state resembling schizophrenia which pathological state has inputs representing the effects of a drug(s), for the purpose of using the outputs to predict the effect of drugs in psychiatric and cognitive diseases on one or more clinical scales. Diseases that can be modeled include psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, ADHD, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance abuse and cognitive deficits therein and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Mild Cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, stroke, vascular dementia, Huntington's disease, epilepsy and Down syndrome. The computer model preferably uses the biological state of interactions between and among cortico and subcortical areas of the human brain, to define the biological processes related to the biological state of the generic synapse model, the striatum, Locus Coeruleus, Dorsal raphe, hippocampus, amygdala and cortex, as well as certain mathematical relationships related to interactions among biological variables associated with the biological processes.
US08150626B2
The present invention provides a method for identification of differentially methylated genomic CpG dinucleotide sequences within genomic target sequences that are associated with cancer in an individual by comparing the level of methylated genomic CpG dinucleotide sequences in the sample to a reference level of methylated genomic CpG dinucleotide sequences.
US08150625B2
A method for classifying a test tissue sample into a class from among K classes, where the test tissue sample has an associated gene expression vector is provided. For each class k from among the K classes, a gene expression matrix is provided based upon a gene expression level in one or more tissue samples known to be in the class k. One or more eigenvectors of the covariance matrix Cx of the centralized gene expression matrix are calculated. A metric μk that is indicative of the extent of dissimilarity between the gene expression vector and the gene expression matrix is calculated using an algebraic expression involving one or more of the eigenvectors of the matrix Cx. The test tissue sample is then classified into a class k for which the metric μk is minimum among the k classes.
US08150623B2
The present invention relates to a method allowing a modification of the flight plan of an aircraft in a semi-automated manner. The invention presents the main advantage of affording the crew of an aircraft a method for aiding the rejoining of a flight plan requiring only a designation by an operator of the new active reference that he wishes to use for guiding the aircraft.
US08150620B2
A route search method for a navigation system using the XML map data that is layered based on administrative regions improves efficiency and accuracy of finding an optimum route. The method includes the steps of establishing boundary nodes on boundaries of administrative regions, creating cost information on virtual links that connect the boundary nodes on the administrative regions and physical links on a base layer, selecting candidate virtual links regions by evaluating the cost information, detecting candidate total routes between the start point and destination by connecting the candidate virtual links and other routes, and applying physical links in the base layer to the candidate total routes for further evaluating the costs of the total routes to select the most cost effective total route.
US08150611B2
A method for providing predictive traffic information to global positioning satellite systems on board vehicles includes a plurality of GPS-enabled vehicles, each estimating at least one travel route comprising a plurality of road segments and estimating arrival and exit times for the vehicle in each road segment; calculating an initial road capacity for each road segment; statistically polling a plurality of GPS-enabled vehicles; obtaining at least one of at least one static parameter, at least one dynamic parameter, or at least one catastrophic condition relating to the at least one travel route; and calculating predictive capacity estimates for each road segment for at least one future time interval.
US08150607B2
A method for providing traffic information. The method includes providing information including an object of a first type having a file including the traffic information and an object of a second type including information about the file and information about a service provider providing the file.
US08150601B2
An EGR valve control system includes a motor 5 exercising the opening and closing control of an EGR valve; a sensor 6 detecting the actual opening position of the EGR valve; and a motor control apparatus (control arithmetic section 1) computing a drive duty of the motor 5 based on a target opening position of the EGR valve and the actual opening position thereof detected by the sensor 6; and the control apparatus is arranged such that the control arithmetic section 1, when a target opening position of the EGR valve is set, computes an integral term based on the deviation between the target opening position and the actual opening position of the EGR valve, a proportional term and a differential term based on the change of the actual opening position of the EGR valve, and a feedforward term based on the change of the target opening position, respectively, and the control arithmetic section further exercises the opening and closing control of the EGR valve by computing the drive duty of the motor 5 by performing addition and subtraction on the computed integral term, proportional term, differential term, and feedforward term.
US08150599B2
An engine ECU executes a program including detecting, when refueling with an alcohol fuel is performed, a refueling amount of the alcohol fuel based on a signal transmitted from a sender gauge, increasing DI ratio r that is a ratio between a fuel injection amount from an in-cylinder injector and a fuel injection amount from an intake passage injector, according to the refueling amount of the alcohol fuel, such that the ratio of the fuel injection amount from the in-cylinder injector is higher, and retarding the ignition timing according to the refueling amount of the alcohol fuel.
US08150590B2
A two-wheeled motor vehicle brake control method and system which immediately reduces the brake pressure of the front wheel when rear wheel lifting is detected regardless of whether or not the front wheel is skidding. The reduction in brake pressure can be an amount which corresponds to the amount of lifting. The reduction in brake pressure can be performed in a stepwise manner until lifting is no longer being detected; it can be performed in a stepwise manner with a limit on the number of steps; or it can be performed in a stepwise manner until a total pressure reduction amount is achieved.
US08150587B2
An ECU is configured to disengage a clutch by driving a motor upon detection of starting of a shift operation, and to engage the clutch upon detection of completion of the shift change. The shift operation starting detection is detected upon determination that an operational force given to a shift pedal is equal to or more than a predetermined operational force, and the shift change completion detection is detected upon determination that a rotational angle of a shift drum from a shift gear position before a shift gear operation becomes equal to or more than a first predetermined angle. The shift operation starting detection is also detected upon determination that the rotational angle of the shift drum from a shift gear position before a shift gear operation is a second predetermined angle or more which is smaller than the first predetermined angle.
US08150584B2
An agricultural vehicle including plurality of engines, a plurality of mechanical loads, a plurality of electrical generators, a plurality of electrical loads, at least one load sensor, and a controller. The plurality of engines includes a first engine and a second engine. The plurality of mechanical loads includes a first mechanical load and a second mechanical load. The first mechanical load is coupled to the first engine and a second mechanical load is coupled to the second engine. The plurality of electrical generators includes a first generator and a second generator. The first generator is coupled to the first engine and the second generator is coupled to the second engine. The plurality of electrical loads can be separately coupled to the first generator or the second generator. The at least one load sensor is configured to produce a signal representative of the first mechanical load on the first engine, the second mechanical load on the second engine, a sum of electrical loads on the first generator, and/or a sum of electrical loads on the second generator. The controller is configured to shift at least one of the plurality of electrical loads between the first generator and the second generator dependent upon the signal.
US08150573B2
A travel mode setting device for a hybrid car capable of ensuring the security against car theft and convenience when the car is lent to the third party. The hybrid car has travel drive sources and selectively uses one of them and can travel in one of travel modes. Authenticating means separately authenticate the car user and creates authentication results. Limiting means limits the travel modes to the usable travel modes according to the results of the authentication by the authenticating means.
US08150566B2
A system for selecting a datum among a set of data representing an air parameter, this set comprising at least two engine data obtained by measurement respectively in the zone of two engines of an aircraft and at least two reference data obtained by measurement in the zone of the fuselage of the aircraft, the system comprising: means for verifying pairwise agreement of three data of the set of data; means for selecting a reference datum among the said three data if such agreement is verified. A process and a computer program relating thereto are also proposed.
US08150559B2
Systems and program product for managing/assessing heat exchanger network energy efficiency and retrofit for an industrial facility, are provided. An embodiment of a system can include a heat exchanger network analysis and design computer and heat exchange network analysis and design program product configured to cause the heat exchange network analysis and design computer to perform various operations including those for determining an optimal heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence extending between a current heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying a current desired waste energy recovery goal and a future heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying the final waste energy recovery goal. The heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence can be configured so that each subsequent project within the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence does not contradict any of the previous projects within the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence.
US08150544B2
In a method for controlling an installation for producing steel having specific material properties, the material properties depend on the structure and can be influenced by operating parameters of the installation. The operating parameters are determined by a computing program for structure optimization, whereby the set values of the chemical composition of the steel are simultaneously determined by the computing program for structure optimization.
US08150542B2
Digital models of the application areas of a left-ear and of a right-ear hearing device are established. The models (140r# and 140l#) are displayed on a computer display. The location of the model (SP#) of the sagittal plane of individual's head is estimated with respect to one of the two digital mold models. Then that one digital model (140r#) is digitally mirrored at the digital model of the sagittal plane (SP#) resulting in a mirrored digital model (140m#). Then the other digital model of the application area (140l#) and the mirrored digital model (140mr#) are brought into best possible covering alignment (140′l#). Units to be positioned in predetermined mutual relationship are applied to the models in best possible alignment.
US08150539B2
An information processing apparatus includes an information processing unit, an interface supplying electrical power to and communicating a signal with an external electronic device through a single connector, a unit supplying electrical power to the electronic device through the interface and including a rechargeable battery. Detection units detect a connection of the electronic device to the apparatus, an external power supply. The power supply control, when the connections are detected, keeps supplying electrical power to the electronic device through the interface even after deactivation of the apparatus, in the event an instruction to turn off a power supply of the apparatus or deactivate the apparatus is issued. When the connection of the external power supply for charging the rechargeable battery to the apparatus is not detected, the power supply does not supply electrical power to the electronic device even during operation of the apparatus.
US08150532B2
A system 30 and method(s) 100 for thermal treatment of a selected target within a subject is disclosed. System 30 includes RF source 10, phase shifter 14, impedance matching network 11 and resonator 13. Stationary water molecules 1, such as those in fat cells, are heated. The invention is useful in selective heating of cellulite bodies as a means of treating cellulite.
US08150530B2
The disclosure describes a system that measures the distance between one or more electrodes and tissue of a patient, and controls one or more parameters of the stimulation delivered to the tissue by the electrodes based on the measured distance. The system controls the measurement of the distance between the electrodes and the tissue as a function of activity of the patient. The system uses, for example, a piezoelectric transducer to sense activity of the patient, and may determine whether or how frequently to measure the distance between electrodes and tissue based on the sensed physical activity. A piezoelectric transducer may be used both to sense activity and to measure the distance between the electrodes and the tissue.
US08150515B2
An electrolytic capacitor is constructed in a manner to provide a fusing capability and welded connections between the cathode plates. Each cathode plates has a notch at its periphery within which is an extending leg over which a weldable metallic clip is fitted in order to reduce the area of the cathode plate through which current is conducted to reach the clip and form a fusible link.
US08150514B2
A spectral fingerprint technique is disclosed that allows an ICD to eliminate unnecessary shocks to the heart.
US08150506B2
The subject invention utilizes the characteristics of in vivo tissue impedances to provide an embodiment of a retinal rake capable of providing a visible and/or preferably an audible signal to a surgeon that more clearly indicates which type of tissue(s) is in contact with the retinal rake. A preferred embodiment comprises a handheld, battery operated retinal rake having two electrodes, wherein at least one electrode is the modified retinal rake. Upon contact with different optical tissues, e.g., epiretinal membranes, retinal tissue, vitreous humor, etc., the electrodes detect varying impedances which are translated by onboard circuitry into various signals that indicate what type of tissue, fluid, structure, etc. is in contact with the retinal rake.
US08150497B2
A system including a processor and/or processor system can be used to create a plan for a procedure, such as a surgical procedure. The plan for the surgical procedure can be based on various elements, including determined anatomical landmarks that can be used to determine anatomical targets of a patient. The planning processor can be used to determine the anatomical landmarks and identify anatomical targets in image data of a subject, even if the anatomical targets are indistinguishable in the image data.
US08150491B2
A method for time-resolved imaging of N-dimensional magnetic resonance (=MR) with the following steps: Acquisition of MR signals from a sample volume by parallel imaging, wherein N-dimensional data matrices (M1, M2, . . . MNt) in k-space is acquired undersampled from each receiver coil, wherein the acquisition of the MR signals is performed according to an acquisition scheme that is periodic over time and describes the time sequence of the undersampled data matrices (M1, M2, . . . Mn) and reconstruction of missing data points (FP) of the acquisition scheme using a set of coil weighting factors (CW,
US08150487B2
A method and an apparatus measure blood oxygenation in a subject. A light source is activated to cause a first emission at a first wavelength and a second emission at a second wavelength. A detector detects a composite signal indicative of an attenuation of the first and second wavelengths by tissue of a patient. The composite signal is demodulated into a first intensity signal and a second intensity signal. Blood oxygenation in the subject is determined from the first and second intensity signals. In one embodiment, demodulation is based at least in part on a period when at least one of the wavelengths is not activated. In one embodiment, a modulation of the first and second wavelengths is determined in order to avoid frequencies of ambient noise. In one embodiment, the composite signal's sampling rate is reduced before and/or after demodulation.
US08150484B2
A housing for an apparatus for portable wireless transmission, the apparatus for portable wireless transmission having an antenna element arranged to be able to resonate at a particular highest resonant operating frequency to send/receive transmissions substantially in a significant radiating direction. The housing comprises one or more metal piece areas arranged to, when assembled with the apparatus for the portable wireless transmission, be located over the antenna element in a significant radiating direction in electrical isolation from an electrical ground of the apparatus. The metal piece area(s) comprise a plurality of metal pieces arranged with the housing to be substantially electrically isolated from surrounding metal with dimensions having effective lengths of at most five-tenths of a wavelength for the highest resonating operating frequency of the antenna element.
US08150482B2
A mobile computing device includes a first housing segment and a second housing segment. The first housing segment includes a display surface on a front exterior face. The second housing segment that is slideably coupled to the first housing segment to move between an extended position and a contracted position. The second housing segment includes a keypad provided on a surface that is exposed for use when the device is in the extended position. The first housing segment and the second housing segment are coupled so that a path of motion followed by one of the first housing segment or second housing segment when moving between the extended position and the contracted position is continuously arced.
US08150480B2
A device with a front face such as an operating face, including elements of the user interface of the device is provided. A major part of the front face is concave so that the front face is retracted and thereby protected from being scratched.
US08150473B1
The wireless communication device and the method thereof which implements the 1st function, the 2nd function, and the 3rd function; when the 1st function is implemented, the video image generator processes a plurality of two-dimensional images and the plurality of two-dimensional images are displayed on the display; when the 2nd function is implemented, the video image generator processes a plurality of two-dimensional images and a plurality of three-dimensional images, both of which are displayed on the display; and when the 3rd function is implemented, the picture retrieved by the camera is processed by the video image generator, which is displayed on the display.
US08150460B1
An accessory for use with a portable electronic device receives audio signals from the portable electronic device and broadcasts the signals to a set of wireless speakers. The accessory device includes a dock for coupling to the portable electronic device such that audio signals, a power supply signal and digital communication signals can be transferred between the accessory and the device. The accessory receives the audio signals and transmits them to the speakers via a transmitter. The accessory also provides an audio output and video output such that audio and video files can be transferred from the portable electronic device through the accessory to an external device. Preferably, an inductive charging circuit is used to charge a rechargeable power supply in the speakers when the speakers are positioned in a speaker dock on the accessory body.
US08150457B2
A mobile radio apparatus wherein the degradation of communication performance caused by electromagnetic noise can be precluded with enhanced reliability. This mobile telephone unit (100) comprises a camera body (107); a circuit board (106) that includes partial board parts (104, 105) located on the two respective sides of the camera body (107); a camera shield (108) that is located close to and opposed to the back surface of the camera body (107) (which is opposite to the image pickup plane); a camera connection connector (110) that is connected to the camera body (107) and grounded in the partial board part (104); a frequency limiting part (111) that is connected to the camera shield (108) and grounded in the partial board part (105); a feeding part (117) that is located in the partial board part (105); and a matching circuit part (113) that is located and grounded in the partial board part (105). This can limit those ones of the frequencies of interference components dissipated from the camera body (107) to the circuit board (106) which adversely affect the communication, so that the degradation of communication performance caused by electromagnetic noise can be precluded with enhanced reliability.
US08150454B2
A system, communications device, method and computer program product for implementing antenna diversity may include a first switch to selectively connect a first radio section to one of a plurality of antennas and a second switch to selectively connect a second radio section to one of the plurality of antennas. The system may also include an antenna detector to detect which one of the plurality of antennas is connected to a port of the first radio section and to a port of the second radio section.
US08150453B2
Interactive cellular and television (TV), wired and wireless systems for interactive communication and broadcasting between Wi-Fi connected cellular phones, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and TV sets and between cell phones and other mobile devices. Remote control system for generating control signal for controlling a wire or wireless connected device from a distance. Processor for processing a digital signal into Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cross-correlated in-phase and quadrature-phase filtered signal. Processors for processing data voice, music and video signals into Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal used in Wi-Fi networks and in cellular systems. Signal generation by touching the screen of a cellular phone or of a PDA or of a other mobile device and for generating touch screen processed control signals for control of a television set or of a other mobile wired or wireless device. Receiving, demodulating and processing one or more Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite generated signals or one or more other signals and providing processed GPS location finding signal or other processed location finding or navigation signal and using these signals for interactive communications and telemetry control.
US08150451B2
A portable terminal is capable of enhancing a Hearing Aid Compatibility (HAC) rating by having an arrangement to shift a peak region of an electromagnetic field occurring at the time of a wireless communication in a call mode, to a position far from a measuring region.
US08150437B2
An inter-working network includes a plurality of interfaces for facilitating communications with a plurality of dispatch networks, a signaling controller, a media gateway and a system for facilitating the monetization of inter-carrier dispatch communications. The signaling controller and media gateway generate dispatch call records for dispatch sessions facilitated through the inter-working network. The system includes a billing accumulator and a settlement entity. The billing accumulator is interfaced with the inter-working network and includes logic to receive and store the dispatch call data records from the inter-working architecture. The settlement entity is interfaced with the billing accumulator, and includes settlement logic for converting each stored dispatch call data record to a billing record for each of at least two of the dispatch networks.
US08150429B1
The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that includes receiving an electronic voting request from an originating mobile device at a recipient mobile device. Each mobile device is associated with a member of a voting group. The electronic voting request includes a voting ballot and instructions, that when executed by a processor, perform operations including generating a vote based on information in the voting ballot and transmitting the voting request to at least a portion of other members of the voting group that have not received the voting request. The operations also include receiving votes from the portion of the other members to which the voting request was transmitted and transmitting a tally of the received votes to the originating mobile device.
US08150428B2
A method for offloads SMS messages from a voice network of a wireless carrier to a data network. The method includes sending a mobile originated SMS using hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) from a wireless handset to a short message service center (SMSC) over a wireless data network. The method further includes conducting a lookup at the SMSC to determine the home SMSC for the originating mobile handset and sending a redirect to the mobile handset as means to facilitate a dynamic update of the home SMSC location stored on the wireless handset.
US08150425B1
A system and method for merchandizing content to wireless subscribers that have upgraded their mobile station or service is disclosed. The wireless carrier maintains a database of identifying data for content downloaded to subscribers' mobile stations. When a subscriber upgrades his or her mobile station the wireless carrier searches the database for previously downloaded content, identifies the equivalent content that is compatible with the new mobile station and provides the information of available equivalent downloads to the mobile station.
US08150424B2
In one embodiment, a method for implementing two-way communication between at least first and second devices comprises steps of: (a1) during finite time periods following transmission of respective first messages from the first device to the second device, using the first device to listen for second messages transmitted from the second device to first device; and (a2) after each of the finite time periods following the transmission of the respective first messages from the first device to the second device, ceasing to use the first device to listen for second messages transmitted from the second device to the first device until after the first device transmits another first message to the second device. In another embodiment, a method for implementing two-way communication between at least first and second devices comprises steps of: (a1) during finite time periods following reception by the second device of respective first messages from the first device, using the second device to transmit second messages to the first device; and (a2) after each of the finite time periods following reception by the second device of respective first messages from the first device, ceasing to use the second device to transmit second messages to the first device until after the second device receives another first message from the first device.
US08150422B2
A method of displaying contact information on a mobile device includes storing a plurality of contact records on a mobile device. At least one record contains information corresponding to the geographic location of at least one of the contacts. The geographic location of the mobile device is determined and compared with the geographic location of the contacts stored on the mobile device. The contacts are arranged based on the geographic proximity of the contact to the mobile device.
US08150421B2
A system for locating a mobile wireless device is configured to communicate with a wireless communications system via a control plane and a user plane. The user plane includes a data channel, and the system includes a server configured to communicate via the data channel with a wireless device to be located. The server obtains from the wireless device information useful for tasking the wireless location system. The information useful for tasking may include information indicative of at least one cell site neighboring a serving cell site with which the wireless device is communicating. This may include information indicative of a serving cell site, a reverse channel through which the wireless device is communicating, and/or a hopping pattern, etc. The system may be used, for example, in connection with a GSM or UMTS wireless communications system.
US08150420B2
A method for determining a location of a mobile station is provided. The mobile station is requested to identify pilot signals monitored by the mobile station. A pilot signal report is received from the mobile station identifying the pilot signals monitored. It is determined that a location of the mobile station cannot be determined according to the identified pilot signals. A resource allocation signal is transmitted to the mobile station. A report is received from at least one assisting station. The report includes information for determining the location of the mobile station. The location of the mobile station is determined according to the information received in the report from the at least one assisting station and the signal received at the base station from the mobile station.
US08150414B2
Methods for maintaining continuing existence of a next-in-line protecting device in a beacon network including a primary protecting device (PPD), the next-in-line protecting device (NPD) and a plurality of secondary protecting devices (SPDs). In one method, a subset of the plurality of secondary protecting devices periodically transmit beacon messages to the primary protecting device. When the next-in-line protecting device disappears, the primary protecting device selects a secondary protecting device from among the secondary protecting devices that have transmitted the beacon messages within a certain period to be a new next-in-line protecting device. In another method, the plurality of secondary protecting devices continuously monitor an existence of the next-in-line protecting device. When the next-in-line protecting device disappears for a certain period of time, a subset of the plurality of secondary protecting devices may contend to be a new next-in-line protecting device. In still another method, the primary protecting device transmits a beacon message to the plurality of secondary protecting devices to indicate whether a next-in-line protecting device is required. When a next-in-line protecting device is required, a subset of the secondary protecting devices contend to be a new next-in-line protecting device.
US08150410B2
The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for a fractional loading scheme for broadcast/multicast traffic. In one example, the method includes determining a fractional loading factor for a portion of a wireless network and selecting wireless network resources from a resource pool allocated to single-cell broadcast traffic based on the fractional loading factor. Single-cell broadcast traffic is then transmitted using the wireless network resources.
US08150400B1
Systems and techniques for providing a telecommunications service by receiving a request for a telecommunications service from a wireless client, providing a local exchange point of presence to the wireless client in response to the request, and providing the telecommunications service to the wireless client through the local exchange point of presence. The local exchange point of presence may be based on the geographic location of the wireless client.
US08150399B2
Techniques involving beamforming are disclosed. For example, For instance an apparatus may select a first mobile station served by a first base station and a second mobile station served by a second base station. Based on this selection, a quality metric may be determined that is based on a strength of a user link and a strength of an interfering link. The user link is associated with service of the first mobile station and the interfering link is associated with service of the second mobile station. When the quality metric is greater than a predetermined threshold, the apparatus may designate the first and second mobile stations as suitable for beamforming service in a same resource allocation. Also, techniques are disclosed for determining whether a mobile station is a cell edge mobile station.
US08150398B2
It is described a method for handing over a User Equipment from a first to a second base station of a telecommunication network. The described method includes establishing a first connection between the User Equipment and the first base station, arranging a current configuration of the User Equipment with the first base station, forwarding the current configuration to the second base station via a terrestrial interface, establishing a second connection between the User Equipment and the second base station, and reusing the forwarded configuration for the operation of the User Equipment, when the User Equipment is served by the second base station. A set of configuration parameters of the User Equipment is known by the first and the second base station as a default configuration and the current configuration of the User Equipment is forwarded from the first base station to the second base station by solely forwarding configuration parameters deviating from the default configuration.
US08150394B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products for synchronizing a subscriber profile in a plurality of domains is described. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a profile update request message from an application server to modify an Internet protocol (IP) domain subscriber profile. The profile update request message is forwarded to a home location register (HLR). A cellular domain subscriber profile is modified in accordance with the profile update request message. Similarly, an updated subscriber profile data is received from the HLR. The updated subscriber profile data is converted in the IP domain. The converted updated subscriber profile data is sent to the application server.
US08150390B2
The invention relates to a method of routing a call made to a fixed telephone number of a UMA-subscriber in a telecommunication network. A service control entity stores a so-called ‘near list’ comprising a cell identifier of each cell overlapping a WLAN coverage area of a WLAN AP associated with the UMA-subscriber. The service control entity also receives location information of the UMA-subscriber from a switching node (2) or from a location server (16). If the cell identifier of the serving cell is in the near list, the service control entity prompt the caller to select out of a list of options. If the cell identifier of the serving cell is not in the near list, the caller will be prompted but with a different message and with different options to select. The caller is for example offered the opportunity to wait for the called party to arrive at home, and be dialed back.
US08150382B2
A method and apparatus wherein data generated in a mobile terminal can be classified in an integrated manner based on dates and can be displayed in various forms. User data generated in the mobile terminal can be processed by the mobile terminal or can be sent to and processed by a separate information processing appliance. The data processing method includes executing an integrated data processing application; selecting a reference date; collecting pieces of data created at the reference date regardless of their types; processing the collected pieces of data in an integrated manner according to preset processing conditions; and displaying processing results together with associated screens of the integrated data processing application. The integrated data processing application can be, for example, a life diary application.
US08150379B2
The wireless device may include logic that enables the wireless device to interface with the external computing device, and rule logic to direct handling by the external computing device of call events of the wireless device.
US08150378B2
Techniques are provided for determining a position of a node. For example, the node receives first position data from a first reference node and second position data from a second reference node. The second position data includes second position measurement information and a precision indicator which indicates accuracy of the second position measurement information. The node generates a timestamp which indicates when the second position data was received by node, and storing the second position data and associated timestamp. Upon receiving updated first position data at the node from the first reference node, the node determines whether updated second position data has been received from the second reference node, and if not, generates aged second position data based on the stored second position data and the associated timestamp. The node can then determine its position based on the aged second position data and the updated first position data.
US08150376B2
A multimedia display process executing in a mobile device traps user input signals to allow switching from display of multimedia to another task without requiring manual termination of the multimedia display process by the user.
US08150371B2
A system device and method are provided which determine authorization for access to one or more services grouped together as a package of services without direct intervention of a wireless network provider or wired network access provider. This offers business proprietors, contractors for telecommunication services, service resellers, OEMs and service providers the ability to authorize users, particularly users of mobile communication terminals, hereafter referred to as the “Owner,” access to package services. In this way a large package of features and applications can be available to a mobile device, but access to those features and applications can be controlled by the Owner thus providing the Owner with control over expenses related to accessing those features and applications. It also provides the Owner the ability to secure and prevent unauthorized access to features and applications which could allow an unauthorized user access to sensitive data and equipment.
US08150362B2
A method and apparatus for an electronically tuned agile integrated bandpass filter is described. In one embodiment, the invention is an intermediate frequency filter for use in an integrated circuit. The filter includes a first filter stage, including a first LC resonator. The first filter stage further includes a first adjustable capacitor array coupled to the first LC resonator. The first adjustable capacitor array has an effective capacitance value adjustable through use of a first plurality of programmable data storage locations. The first plurality of programmable data storage locations are programmable through a serial control interface.
US08150360B2
A direct conversion receiver (200) includes a low noise amplifier (LNA) (213), at least one baseband amplifier (119, 123 and 127), register banks (250 and 251) for storing a plurality of offset data corresponding to at least two LNA gain settings and a plurality of baseband gain settings, a DC offset correction system (235) for providing a DC offset signal, a state machine (275) for sequencing through each of the plurality of baseband gain settings and through enable and disable states for the LNA, and a processor (290) programmed to activate the state machine and to run the DC offset correction system.
US08150357B2
A technique for determining a received signal strength from multiple messages filters noise from the received signal to provide an accurate signal strength value. Advantageously, the more accurate output signal strength value can be used to identify movement of a station as well as estimate locations and direction of movement.
US08150356B2
A polynomial nonlinear term generator is configured to receive an RF signal. An analog cubic term generator generates an analog cubic term signal and an analog square term generator generates an analog square term signal, both derived from the RF signal. A cubic term mixer assembly mixes a local oscillator (LO) signal with the cubic term signal to generate a synthetic IM3 signal. A square term ADC provides a digital square term signal and a cubic term ADC provides a digital cubic term signal. At least one digital multiplier has a first multiplier input terminal configured to receive a selected one of the digital square term signal and the digital cubic term signal, and a second multiplier input terminal configured to receive the digital square term signal. The multiplier provides as output a digital IMn product where n is greater than 3. A corresponding method is also described.
US08150355B2
There is provided a method that comprises identifying a parasitic signal transfer in a filter using a signal-directed graph; and adding compensation paths to the filter to reduce or eliminate the effect of the parasitic signal transfer A corresponding filter is provided which comprises a plurality of amplifier stages that generate one or more filter poles; at least one component coupled to at least one of the amplifier stages, the component causing a parasitic effect in the filter; and means for applying a compensation current to the at least one amplifier stage to reduce or eliminate the parasitic effect. A radio receiver is further provided that comprises a filter for receiving and filtering in-phase and quadrature signals; an amplifier for receiving and amplifying one of said filtered in-phase and quadrature signals; means for receiving the amplified and filtered in-phase or quadrature signal from said amplifier, and for regenerating the other one of said in-phase and quadrature signals from said amplified and filtered signal.
US08150347B2
The transmitter transmits at least any one of the multiple kinds of generated pilot signals corresponding to the multiple types of communications services by use of a predetermined band set in a part of a transmission band beforehand, and transmits the other kinds of pilot signals using parts of the transmission band other than the predetermined band. The receiver detects a signal in a band containing at least the predetermined band, out of reception signals from the transmitter, and detects the pilot signal from the detected signal. With this construction, even if other pilot signals are frequency-division multiplexed to the same time domain, the receiver is capable of detecting a pilot signal accurately while avoiding the effect of interference due to the other pilot signals.
US08150341B2
A transmitter includes a detection element to determine when a current power requirement of a communication link is less than the standard transmit power. The current power requirement may be determined by a current operation condition of the communication link, for instance. The transmit power of the transmitter may be set to be less than the standard power in any of a variety of ways. For example, a center tap voltage of the transmitter may be reduced. In another example, a class of operation of the transmitter may be changed. In yet another example, the transmitter may include a current mirror having a plurality of diode-connected transistors coupled in parallel, thereby reducing the current at output terminals of the transmitter. Reducing the current at the output terminals decreases the output power of the transmitter, which may reduce the power consumed by the transmitter.
US08150333B2
An exemplary multiband antenna includes an antenna module and a switch module electrically connected to the antenna module. The antenna module includes a first antenna member, a second antenna member, and a third antenna member, which are mounted on a main board. The antenna module is electrically connected or disconnected by operating the switch module to form different antenna structures for receiving different wireless signals.
US08150327B2
A technique for channel sounding in a wireless communication system includes determining respective geometries of multiple subscriber stations with respect to a serving base station. Respective time periods for sounding a channel between the multiple subscriber stations and the serving base station are then set based on the respective geometries of the multiple subscriber stations.
US08150326B2
Disclosed is a signal processing system in a base station that receives and processes single carrier or multiple carrier signals from transmitting units in a sectored coverage area with at least one transmit antenna and at least one receive antenna, the signal power gain between transmit and receive antennas within each sector being represented as a channel matrix with path gains. The system comprises: a detection unit that determines if signals from a given target transmitting unit is available in the signal received in a sector, and generates a detect signal for a combination unit; a decision unit that selects size of interference cancellation matrix; and an interference cancellation unit. When the signal from detection unit indicates that signal from a target transmitting unit is in the signal associated with at least two sectors, the decision unit joins channel matrices associated with the sectors to generate a large channel matrix, and using the resulting large channel matrix, the interference cancellation unit eliminates interference or generates originally transmitted signal. When the signal from detection unit indicates that signal from a target transmitting unit is in the signal of only one sector, the interference cancellation unit eliminates interference from the received signal, using the channel matrix associated with the one sector.
US08150324B2
A method for clipping a baseband input signal filters the complex baseband input signal with a function H1 for forming a filtered first signal. To form a clipped signal in the baseband the filtered first signal is multiplied by a scaling factor. By a signal analysis of the filtered first signal signal overshoots are predicted from which the scaling factor is determined for the baseband clipping. The filter function H1 is calculated as the quotient from a frequency response HS of a transmission filter used one the one hand and from an error frequency response HF on the other hand, with the error frequency response HF being determined in such a way that the error spectrally shaped with HF, which arises for the limitation of the baseband signal, a frequency-dependent tolerance is not exceeded. Subsequently the clipped signal is filtered with the error frequency response HF for forming a filtered second signal.
US08150320B2
A method and apparatus for operating a short-haul radio transmitting/radio receiving system conforming to a short-haul radio communication standard wherein a maximum number of devices able to communicate is exceeded. The devices exceeding the maximum number of devices communicating with a master device are switched to a park mode and, continually in keeping with a predefined strategy, parked devices are switched to active while active devices are switched to parked.
US08150318B2
Provided are an apparatus for collecting environmental data and a method of monitoring an environment in real time. The apparatus for collecting environmental data includes a receiver for receiving an environmental data collection command from outside, a headset controller for interpreting the environmental data collection command received from the receiver, and distinguishing an audio signal received from outside from the environmental data collection command, the environment sensor unit for collecting environmental data according to the environmental data collection command interpreted from the headset controller, and a transmitter for transmitting the environmental data collected by the environment sensor unit.
US08150314B2
A remote antijamming transmission device and method for the same is provided. A signal current transmission line is between the host and the sub-machine arranged along a path of signal current transmission line and kept at a distance from the signal current transmission line. The sub-machine comprises a signal sensor component. The interval is a range where the signal sensor component may sense a signal current transmitted by the host connected to the sub-machine in a non-contact manner. Thus, no load effect is caused. The signal current transmitted by the host is not attenuated due to current bypass, so the effect of remote transmission is achieved. The transmission current in the signal current transmission line does not make the transmission signal to be attenuated even if the amount of sub-machines increases and then the current is divided. Unlimited amounts of sub-machines may be arranged near the signal current transmission line.
US08150312B2
Authenticated propagation of adverts to multiple mobile recipient devices, each having both wireless and mobile telephony capability, employs message generation platforms each having a content creation engine, a metadata inserter and a signature generator, for the wireless broadcast of the generated messages. A client application on each recipient device controls viewing of the message, with authentication being provided through mobile telephony communication with a trusted authority which is in turn in secure communication with the message generation platform to hold signature information. According to an incentive policy, a device may wirelessly re-broadcast any message.
US08150303B2
An image fixing apparatus includes a heat roller, and plural pressure rollers, which rotationally contact the surface of the heat roller by a compression unit. The plural pressure rollers are provided in such a manner that the compressive forces thereof may be adjusted. With this construction, the fixability of a toner image is improved and crumples, wrinkles, and wrap jam that may be produced when a toner image is fixed are substantially prevented.
US08150301B2
A developing apparatus includes a developer carrying member for carrying a developer to develop an electrostatic image formed on an image bearing member with a developer, and a developer feeding member, for supplying the developer to the carrying member. The developing apparatus also includes a regulating member for regulating an amount of the developer carried on the carrying member, the regulating member having a free end portion contacted to the carrying member. The developer feeding member is supplied with a voltage which is different from a potential of the developer member toward a regular charging polarity of the developer. The carrying member is provided with a surface facing substantially downward, in a range from a downstream-most edge of the developer member in the contact portion with respect to a rotational direction of the carrying member to a contact portion between the carrying member and the regulating member.
US08150288B2
A method and an apparatus to control power supplied to a heating roller and a phase control circuit corresponding to the method or the apparatus. The phase control circuit may include an examination unit to compare levels of a sine wave having a predetermined first period and a switching signal to increase and decrease repeatedly according to a predetermined second period, and a phase control signal generation unit to generate a phase control signal having a non-zero in intervals of time sections including a time when levels of the switching signal and the sine wave which is in a decreasing section are equal to each other during a time period when the level of the sine wave is zero, and a time when levels of the switching signal and the sine wave which is in an increasing section are equal to each other during a time period when the level of the sine wave is zero.
US08150274B2
An image forming apparatus is provided with a process cartridge that is removable from the image forming apparatus. When the process cartridge is installed, the image forming apparatus automatically searches a print job that matches the process cartridge that is currently installed onto the image forming apparatus.
US08150271B1
A chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system and method is described wherein the dispersion of the system is tuned by actively tuning one or more system components, for example, using a temperature or strain gradient, or using actinic radiation. In other embodiments, an additional element, such as a modulator, is added to the CPA system to actively to tune the pulse. A pulse monitor is added to the system to measure an output pulse and provide feedback to one or more active tuning elements.
US08150268B1
The present invention relates to the dual-use of radiation, for example, but not limited to, visible or infrared light, for both a conventional application, e.g., illumination, combined with the additional or “dual-use” application of transmitting information without wires.
US08150267B1
An optical interconnect includes a reflective body having a plurality of faces, where the body is translatable in a plane; and an optical receiver configured to receive optical energy reflected by at least one of the faces.
US08150266B1
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that performs differential signaling through parallel ports in a manner that reduces noise caused by coupling between neighboring ports. The system includes parallel ports for transmitting differential signals from a sender to a receiver, wherein the parallel ports are organized in a two-dimensional grid. Each differential signal is transmitted through a first port and a second port that carry complementary positive and negative components of the differential signal. The first and second ports of a differential pair are diagonally adjacent to each other in the two-dimensional grid. Because the first and second ports transition in opposite directions, coupling noise is cancelled on a neighboring port that is horizontally adjacent to the first port and vertically adjacent to the second port. Moreover, a transition on the neighboring port couples equally to the first port and second port and is consequently rejected as common-mode noise by a corresponding differential receiver.
US08150265B2
Embodiments of a method and apparatus are described to transmit a data signal from a power supply unit, over existing direct current (DC) power transmission lines, to a residential gateway which includes an infrared (IR) receiver designed to receive optical signals. In one embodiment, the IR receiver is configured to receive a carrier current communication signal from the power supply unit over a pair of copper wires coupled to the IR receiver. The carrier current communication signals may be encoded by a transmission encoding logic circuit using pulse position modulation techniques. The received carrier current communication signals may be demodulated and decoded to reproduce an input data stream.
US08150255B2
A method performed by an electronic camera in flash mode is as follows. A scene ambient lighting indication is obtained. An integration time interval and a flash pulse-on time interval for taking a picture is then set. The set integration time interval is shorter when the indication is bright than when the indication is dark; and the set flash pulse-on time interval is longer when the indication is bright than when the indication is dark. An image is captured using the set integration time interval and the set flash pulse-on time interval in accordance with an electronic rolling shutter (ERS). Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
US08150253B2
An imaging apparatus includes a plurality of lenses movable along an optical axis, a plurality of drivers configured to drive the plurality of lenses, respectively, and a synchronizm loss detector configured to detect a loss of synchronizm of one of the plurality of drivers. The one of the plurality of drivers is a driver that drives a lens which is heaviest in the plurality of lenses.
US08150250B2
A camera body including image-blur correcting units capable of effectively correcting blur in captured images and a camera system including the camera body are provided. The camera body includes a vibration detecting unit configured to detect vibration of the camera body; a first image-blur correcting unit configured to correct blur in captured images, and a second image-blur correcting unit that is different from the first image-blur correcting unit; and a control unit configured to control the first image-blur correcting unit and the second image-blur correcting unit on the basis of detection results produced by the vibration detecting unit.
US08150248B1
A camera mount is configured to attach a camera to a sports board. A camera is secured to the mount, which is secured to a sports board. The mount can secure to the sports board via an attachment device such as an embedded plug. The mount can be placed at the front or rear of the sports board. Furthermore, the mount can be configured to face either forwards or backwards to capture images and/or video from different viewpoints while participating in the board activity. Moreover, the mount includes a pivoting joint to allow a user to rotate the camera either upward or downward and then secure the camera at a fixed angle to capture images and/or video from different angles.
US08150239B2
A video indexing system uses pictures representative of a recorded video program to assist a user in determining the contents of a recorded medium without having to view the program itself. The pictures preferably represent segments of the program which are spaced apart in time, enabling a relatively small number of such pictures to characterize a lengthy program, and are presented in separate windows on the screen of the same device used to display the video program. The pictures may include still or moving imagery. A viewer optionally may select a particular picture with a pointing device, to commence replay of the recorded program from that period in the program, or to recall stored audio information so as to assist in identifying the selection. The picture information may be stored on the same medium as that used to record the video program, or a different medium may be used.
US08150236B2
A data recording apparatus (101) in the present invention includes: a data recording unit (13) that records and holds AV data supported by a copyright protection system permitting multiple times dubbing; a media recording unit (17) that performs dubbing or moving of the AV data between storage medium and the data recording unit (13), or between storage medium and different storage medium; a dubbing management information management unit (14) that manages dubbing management information for the AV data; and a media determination unit (18) that determines whether the storage medium is rewritable or non-rewritable based on the media type of storage medium. When the media recording unit (17) performs moving of the AV data from the data recording unit (13) to the storage medium, the dubbing management information management unit (14) updates the dubbing management information management unit (14) corresponding to the AV data according to the determination result.
US08150235B2
New forms of entertainment can result from this method of selecting, identifying, and storing by a media producer of multi-media content as files to a storage medium within an editing platform. Generating, using an editing software program, a set of instructions and data for assembly of an edited program, the edited program including specified segments from the files of the multi-media content. Assembling the specified segments using the set of instructions and data to form the edited program. Storing the edited program on the editing platform. Analyzing, using a software program, endpoint frames of each segment in the edited program, the analysis resulting in analysis data stored on the editing platform. Distributing the information to a home media server. Emulating assembly of the edited program by the home media server using the information and a home media server editing program, the assembled edited program being stored in the home media server.
US08150229B2
A cable management panel including a chassis and a drawer slidably mounted to the chassis. The panel includes a rear drawer latch assembly that automatically locks the drawer in the open position to prevent inadvertent closing movement of the drawer.
US08150226B2
A method and apparatus for manufacturing an optical cable comprising at least one metal tube housing at least one optical fiber and having a predetermined excess fiber length (EFL) is described. In this method the metal tube is plastically deformed and shortened by a predetermined amount (St) greater than the predetermined EFL and is plastically deformed after shortening to provide a controlled elongation thereof so as to reach the predetermined excess fiber length. An optical cable so manufactured has a local excess fiber length (EFL) varying of or less than 0.2 % along the longitudinal extension of the cable with respect to an average EFL of the cable.
US08150222B2
An exemplary optical fiber connector includes a socket and a plug for insertion in the socket. The plug includes a first sidewall, an opposite second sidewall, a plurality of first fiber engaging holes formed in each of the first and second sidewalls, and a plurality of first converging lenses located in each of the first and second sidewalls, aligning with the respective first fiber engaging holes. The socket includes a fourth sidewall, an opposite fifth sidewall, a plurality of second fiber engaging holes formed in each of the fourth and fifth sidewalls, and a plurality of second converging lenses located in each of the fourth and fifth sidewalls, aligning with the respective second fiber engaging holes. The first converging lenses align with and directly face the respective second converging lenses.
US08150219B2
In an optical interferometer, polarization dependence attributable to the optical path difference has conventionally been eliminated by inserting a half-wave plate at the center of the interferometer. However, light induced by polarization coupling produced in directional couplers used in the optical interferometer causes interference having different interference conditions from those of the normal light. Polarization rotators that effect any one of 90° rotation and −90° rotation of all states of polarization of incoming light are inserted in the optical interferometer, and thereby the interference conditions of light induced by polarization coupling are made the same as those of the normal light. Each of the polarization rotators is implemented by using two half-wave plates and by varying an angle of combination of these half-wave plates. Alternatively, each of the polarization rotators is implemented through a combination of one half-wave plate and a waveguide having birefringence properties.
US08150214B2
A method and a processing device may be provided for discovering and constructing multi-resolution images. Content, including an image, may be obtained from a specified address via a network and rendered to a display monitor of the processing device. The processing device may attempt to discover a second image, corresponding to the image included in the obtained content, but with a different resolution than a resolution of the image included in the obtained content. If the second image is discovered, the second image and the image included in the obtained content may be linked to create a multi-resolution image. If the image included in the content rendered to the display monitor is enlarged beyond a threshold, the rendered image may become pixelated. A high resolution image corresponding to and linked to the rendered image may be blended into the enlarged rendered image to eliminate pixelation.
US08150210B2
The present invention discloses an image synthesis system for a vehicle to provide the driver with a downward-facing image of the car's 360° surrounding view. The system includes: a first camera, which is used to shoot a first image of the periphery of the vehicle; a second camera, which is used to shoot a second image of the periphery of said vehicle, wherein the second image and the first image have an overlap region; an image processing device comprising a defining component and a synthesis component, which is used to synthesize the first image and the second image and output a third image; a display device, which is used to display the third image.
US08150203B2
In a liquid-crystal-driving image processing circuit that encodes and decodes image data to reduce the frame memory size, the present invention has the object of providing a liquid-crystal-driving image processing circuit capable of correcting image data accurately and applying appropriately corrected voltages to the liquid crystal without being affected by encoding or decoding errors, even when moving images are input.To achieve the above object, the liquid-crystal-driving image processing circuit according to the present invention takes a difference between first decoded image data corresponding to the image in the current frame and second decoded image data corresponding to preceding-frame image data, selects either the image data of the current frame or the second decoded image data for each pixel on the basis of the difference, thereby generates preceding-frame image data, and corrects the gray-scale values of the image of the current frame on the basis of the preceding-frame image data and the image data of the current frame.
US08150194B2
An image adjustment amount determination device comprises: processing target image determination means for receiving an input video signal which comprises a plurality of frame images and which is input from the outside, for dividing the input video signal into the plurality of frame images, and for determining a processing target image which is to be the target of image processing and one or more neighboring images which are located in the vicinity of the processing target image in the display order, on the basis of a predetermined criterion from the plurality of frame images; image characteristic extraction means for extracting a feature quantity relating to the neighboring images thus determined; and image adjustment amount determination means for determining at least one adjustment amount of the amplitude and bandwidth of a spatial frequency component relating to the processing target image thus determined, on the basis of the feature quantity that relates to the neighboring images thus extracted.
US08150187B1
A method of deblocking an input signal is disclosed. The method generally includes the steps of (A) calculating a plurality of transform coefficients corresponding to each of a plurality of blocks in the input signal at baseband, (B) calculating a plurality of quantization parameters based on the transform coefficients, at least one of the quantization parameters corresponding to each respective one of the blocks and (C) generating an output signal by deblocking the input signal based on the quantization parameters.
US08150181B2
According to the novel method, roto-translational and zooming parameters describing spurious motion effects are determined by exploiting any of the many block matching algorithms commonly used for motion estimation for calculating a motion vector for all or for a selected number of blocks of pixels of the current frame that is processed. Some of the so calculated motion vectors are not taken into account for estimating spurious motion effects. The roto-translational and zooming parameters describing what is considered to be spurious global motion between a current frame and the precedent frame of the sequence, are calculated by processing the selected motion vectors of blocks of pixels of the frame through a recursive procedure that includes computing error values and readjusting the roto-translational and zooming parameters based on the error values.
US08150171B2
In a moving picture decoding apparatus, a variable-length decoding circuit decodes motion vectors for each macroblock from a bit stream and stores the motion vectors. An error correction circuit calculates a reference vector for an error macroblock using the motion vectors to generate a corrected picture from a reference picture. An inverse-orthogonal transform circuit stores a difference value between direct-current (DC) components after Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (IDCT) is performed thereon, in the memory for each macroblock. The error correction circuit further calculates a difference value of the DC component of the error macroblock using the difference values of DC components stored in the memory, to add the difference value calculated to the corrected picture generated from the reference picture.
US08150152B2
A reading unit reads image data. A re-reading unit that re-reads the image data read by the reading unit by performing, in a pixel matrix consisting of a plurality of pixels of the image data read by the reading unit, a process of scanning pixels in a partition in which at least two pixels are respectively aligned in a column direction and in a row direction in a predetermined order in a predetermined alignment sequence of partitions. A multivalue run length-encoding unit encodes the image data re-read by the re-reading unit to multivalue run length data indicating at least color data and run lengths of the color data.
US08150149B2
A method is provided to automatically determine “exciting” segments from a video. The method includes calculating image features of each frame in the video, determining a difference for each pair of adjacent frames, calculating a sum of differences for each group of frames in the video, and selecting a number of the groups with high sums as exciting segments of the video. The differences between pairs of adjacent frames are used as a criterion for measuring a degree of “excitement” for determining the highlights in the video.
US08150146B1
A method is provided for generating height information for an arbitrary-image point on a rectified image and for generating a representation of the rectified image that includes the height information. According to an exemplary embodiment, height information is generated for an arbitrary-image point on the rectified image from first and second aerial images having respective first and second sets of rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) and projective geometrical relationships, such that the first and second aerial images and the rectified image include overlapping image locations.
US08150125B2
A system for visualizing vascular fluid flow concentration includes at least one repository including a plurality of stored angiography scenes, an angiography scene comprises a plurality of individual images of a vascular structure successively acquired over a time period. A user interface control device enables a user to determine, (a) a duration and (b) a start time relative to a start time of the time period, of a window of interest within the time period. A control processor is electrically coupled to the user interface control device and the at least one repository. Control processor automatically assigns a unique visual indicator representing contrast flow of fluid through vessels to individual images within the user determined duration of the time period. A display processor, electrically coupled to the control processor and the user interface control device and at least one repository, generates data representing at least one display image comprising a composite image including individual images within the user determined duration of the time period having a unique assigned visual indicator.
US08150121B2
A method of collecting information regarding an anatomical object of interest includes displaying an image characterized by a first region and a second region, wherein the first and second regions are mutually exclusive and the object is displayed within the second region, selecting first and second points spanning the object in the displayed image, at least one of the points being within the first region, and extracting a plurality of statistical values from image voxels, lying on a line segment between the first and second points, that correspond to the object.
US08150103B2
Video content analysis of a video may include: modeling a background of the video; detecting at least one target in a foreground of the video based on the feature blocks of the video; and tracking each target of the video. Modeling a background of the video may include: dividing each frame of the video into image blocks; determining features for each image block of each frame to obtain feature blocks for each frame; determining a feature block map for each frame based on the feature blocks of each frame; and determining a background feature block map to model the background of the vide based on at least one of the feature block maps.
US08150096B2
A method of video fingerprinting computes statistics for video frames and forms a fingerprint used to identify the video as a change in the statistics over the video frames. Another method of video fingerprinting computes values representing motion between different portions of the video and forms a fingerprint to identify the video utilizing data associated with at least the values. Yet another method of video fingerprinting computes values associated with luminance for a first video portion, computes values associated with luminance for a second video portion, determines changes in luminance between the first video portion and the second video portion, and forms a fingerprint to identify the video based at least in part on data associated with the changes.
US08150095B2
A thermal management system improves thermal property of the speaker system by promoting air circulation to cool the speaker system. The thermal management system includes a speaker frame, an air guide formed on the speaker frame for guiding the air, a ventilation slit formed on the air guide which penetrates through the speaker frame for air communication, and a spider mounting ring for mounting a spider of the speaker system on the speaker frame. The spider mounting ring has a cut-out at its upper edge which positionally match the air guide. The cut-out is curved sharply at its upper surface while a lower edge of the spider mounting ring is gently curved, thereby creating an air passage of directional property.
US08150093B2
A display device includes a display unit, a sound unit, a speaker positioning mechanism and a speaker attaching mechanism. The display unit is configured to display images. The sound unit is configured to output audio. The sound unit has top and bottom left speakers and top and bottom right speakers. The speaker positioning mechanism is configured to detachably support the sound unit and move the sound unit away from and close to the display unit in a lateral direction of the display unit. The speaker attaching mechanism is configured to detachably couple the sound unit to upper and lower faces of the display unit.
US08150092B2
An acoustic speaker module of a portable electronic device includes an acoustic housing, an acoustic speaker, a chip card and an elastic member. The acoustic housing has an accommodation space, a first opening and a second opening. The acoustic speaker is seamlessly connected with the first opening. The chip card is disposed at the second opening. The elastic member and the chip card are disposed at the second opening to make the accommodation space to form a hermetical space.
US08150087B2
There is provided a boundary microphone in which a microphone cover can be fixed to a base part without the use of an externally threaded screw for fixation. In the boundary microphone in which a condenser microphone unit 31 is housed in a microphone casing 1 including a flat base part 10 formed of a metallic magnetic material, the upper surface side of which is open, and a microphone cover 20 formed of a metallic magnetic material, which has many openings and covers the upper surface side of the base part 10, on either one of the base part 10 and the microphone cover 20, a permanent magnet 40 that magnetically attracts the other thereof is provided, and the microphone cover 20 is detachably fixed to the base part 10 by the permanent magnet 40.
US08150084B2
A hearing aid (1) includes a housing (2), at least a first microphone for receiving ambient sound, processing circuitry for processing a signal from the first microphone (6, 7) and an output transducer. At least one further microphone (8) is disposed in the hearing housing at a location, which, during normal use of the hearing aid, is sheltered against wind influences.
US08150082B2
There is provided a waterproof hearing aid capable of being worn without caring about the entry of sweat or water even at the time of sweating or bathing. The waterproof hearing aid has a first waterproof film stretchingly provided at the sound inlet of a microphone and a second waterproof film stretchingly provided at the sound outlet of an earphone, a tube (first vent) communicating a microphone chamber formed by the first waterproof film and the microphone with a hearing aid case chamber formed by a hearing aid case, a tube (second vent) communicating an earphone chamber formed by the second waterproof film and the earphone with the hearing aid case chamber, and a porous film (third vent) communicating the hearing aid case chamber with the outside.
US08150080B2
The present invention relates to a method for adapting a hearing aid with at least one input converter, a signal processing device and an output converter by using a genetic feature of the wearer to whom the hearing aid is to be adapted. Depending on the genetic feature, at least one adaptable parameter is adapted by the signal processing device. The invention further relates to a hearing device system which can be adapted to the hearing device wearer as a function of a genetic feature.
US08150077B2
To obtain a composite type microphone, the microphone preventing an increase in size and weight and thereby improving the freedom for installation and handling while keeping the phases of signals output from respective microphone units the same. A composite type microphone that incorporates microphone units of different electroacoustic conversion methods into a common microphone body is provided. Here, in a front acoustic terminal portion of a first microphone unit based on one electroacoustic conversion method, a second microphone unit based on another electroacoustic conversion method is disposed, and in the front acoustic terminal portion of the first microphone unit, an air that vibrates in the same phase with that of a vibrating plate of the first microphone unit exists, and within the air that vibrates in the same phase with that of the vibrating plate of the first microphone unit, the second microphone unit is disposed.
US08150076B2
The present invention discloses a sound converter with an enclosure which utilizes an outer space to expand a resonance space. The sound converter with the enclosure includes a frame being equipped with a magnetic circuit for forming a magnetic field in a predetermined gap, a voice coil at least partially positioned in the gap, a diaphragm adhered to the voice coil and inserted into a diaphragm seating portion of the frame, a protector formed at the upper portion of the diaphragm, and an enclosure case coupled to the frame, for defining the inner space of the enclosure which is the resonance space. A vent is provided at the enclosure case so that the inner space of the enclosure can communicate with the outer space. This configuration can secure a wide resonance space.
US08150071B2
An appliance is provided which can be easily assembled, assures quality and reliability, and can be downsized. A voice output unit includes: a power source supplying power; a signal processing module which processes voice signals received from an external source, and amplifies the processed voice signals processed; a speaker module transmitting the amplified voice signals as voice signals; and a stereoscopic circuit board on which the power source, signal processing module, and speaker module are assembled, and includes electrodes which are in electric contact with electrodes of the foregoing components.
US08150067B2
If the absolute value of the current sample is greater than or equal to an envelope value at the immediately preceding sample, an envelope value at the current sample is made greater than the envelope value at the immediately preceding sample. If the absolute value of the current sample is smaller than the envelope value at the immediately preceding sample and a count value C does not reach a predetermined number N, the count value C is incremented by one and the envelope value at the current sample is held at the envelope value at the immediately preceding sample. If the absolute value of the current sample is smaller than the envelope value at the immediately preceding sample and the count value C reaches the predetermined number N, the envelope value at the current sample is made smaller than the envelope value at the immediately preceding sample.
US08150062B2
A method for sound source localization comprises the steps of computing an envelope of a signal; performing a non-linear, onset preserving smoothing of the envelope; and evaluating cues for sound source localization, using the points where the smoothing changes from its rising phase to its falling phase as measurement points.
US08150054B2
Disclosed is a steerable sensor array that receives input from a target and applies an averaging filter. An adaptive filter is then used if the SNR of the output of the averaging filter reaches a threshold.
US08150048B2
A system for testing audio of a motherboard includes a recording fixture and a computer. The recording fixture includes a recording device and a soundproof device. The soundproof device is configured for soundproofing the audio device and the recording device from environmental noise. The computer includes an output/input module, a comparing module and a displaying module. The output/input module is configured for outputting a first sound signal generated by the computer to the audio device to cause the audio device to generate a sound and receiving the sound generated by the audio device and recorded by the recording device from the recording device and transforming the sound into a second sound signal. The comparing module is configured for comparing the first and second sound signals. The displaying module is configured for displaying the compared result.
US08150041B2
An embodiment may include a system having a communication unit and a processing unit. The communication unit may be configured to receive an encrypted private value of a party, the encrypted private value being generated from a private value with a public-key encryption system and a public key, to send an encrypted blinded result to the party, and to receive a blinded result generated from the encrypted blinded result. The processing unit may be configured to compute a result of a function, the function having as input the private value, to blind the result of the function to generate the encrypted blinded result, and to compute the result by unblinding the blinded result.
US08150034B2
A method and a system for transmitting data from a first data processing device to a second data processing device, wherein the first data processing device has a display device. The second data processing device generates an encrypted input mask and transmits it to the first data processing device which displays it. The encrypted input mask is decrypted by being viewed through an optical filter having a decryption pattern, and the data to be transmitted are input to the first data processing device using the input mask that has been decrypted by the optical filter and are transmitted to the second data processing device.
US08150029B2
A method for detecting a disturbance of a calculation, by an electronic circuit, of a result of an integral number of applications of an internal composition law on elements of an abelian group, by successive iterations of different steps according to the even or odd character of a current coefficient of a polynomial representation of said integral number, the degree of which determines the number of iterations, each iteration including: in case of an odd current coefficient, updating at least one first variable intended to contain the result at the end of the calculation; and in case of an even current coefficient, of updating a second variable and a comparison of this second variable with an expected value.
US08150027B2
Coefficients of an adaptive filter representative of an acoustic channel between an emitted acoustic signal and a microphone signal are determined and smoothed in time. An echo is then estimated by filtering the emitted acoustic signal with the smoothed coefficients. Properties of the estimated echo and of the microphone signal are estimated. The echo cancellation filter is controlled as a function of a comparison between the properties of the estimated echo and those of the microphone signal so as to take into account the potential presence of a signal other than an echo signal in the microphone signal.
US08150026B2
A subscriber line interface circuit apparatus includes a linefeed circuit and a subscriber line control circuit (SLCC). In an embodiment, the linefeed circuit includes a signal conversion circuit which provides a differential mode signal and a common mode signal in response to at least a tip signal and a ring signal from the subscriber loop. The linefeed circuit includes a tip control circuit and a ring control circuit. In an embodiment, the SLCC is provided in a single integrated circuit chip and is coupled to the linefeed circuit which isolates the SLCC from the tip or ring signals. The SLCC includes a first and a second differential mode inputs for receiving the differential mode signal, and a common-mode input for receiving the common-mode signal. In an embodiment, the SLCC also provides various tip control signals and ring control signals to the tip control circuit and the ring control circuit, respectively.
US08150023B2
A system directs action based on distinguishing audio content received in response to placing an outbound call. The system comprises an audio signal analysis system and an audio content analysis system. The audio signal analysis system directs a portion of an audio signal that comprises audio content to the audio content analysis system. The audio content analysis system: i) receives portions of the audio signal comprising audio content; and ii) directs handling of the outbound call in response to detecting a characteristic of the audio content. The audio content system: i) directs a first handling of the outbound call in response to identifying a first characteristic of the audio content; and ii) directs a second handling of the outbound call in response to identifying a second characteristic of the audio content. The first handling of the outbound call may be directed in response to identifying a characteristic of the audio content associated with recorded content and the second handling of the outbound call is directed in response to identifying a characteristic of the audio content associated with real time spoken audio.
US08150021B2
System for enhancing existing quality monitoring tools for monitoring and guiding agent performance within call centers, each of which provided with a plurality of agent terminals, a plurality of agent audio interfaces, and a plurality of software applications. The proposed system comprises a module for quality evaluation of agents skills and/or of compliance with business processes; a database for storing the results of the evaluation module, in the form of a plurality of profiles of performance; a Call Analysis System (CAS) connected to the database and with the software applications, for retrieving the profile of performance associated with an agent and for generating and transmitting a visual or textual or audio input regarding corrective and/or preventive action(s) required during the current interaction, to an agent terminal, based on the performance profile, and/or on acquired real-time call-based information, as defined by predetermined criteria.
US08150019B2
A path redundant, hardware efficient communications interconnect (1) has embodiments that can present true any-to-any interconnect capability for first and second pathways (2) and (3) and can utilize double throw switches (25) with or without single throw switches (24) perhaps in staged collectives of sub arrays (4), (5), (6), (9), and (10). A loop-back communications interconnect (22) can be accomplished by an interleaved sub array (26). A quadrilateral center stage sub array (21) can be combined with asymmetric side stage sub arrays for hardware savings that are tenths of a percent of a traditional interconnect and even present eight fold savings over prior reduced hardware interconnects.
US08150016B2
Methods and systems for providing rapid call-forwarding are described. The method includes receiving a feature code operable for activating a call-forwarding service, receiving a forward code assigned to a target address, such as a dialing number, recognizing the feature code and the forward code, and forwarding incoming calls to the target address. The method further comprises receiving call-forwarding logistics and generating a call-forwarding record. The system for providing rapid call-forwarding includes a switch operable for receiving a selection by a subscriber of a feature code and a forward code, wherein the feature code is used to activate a call-forwarding service and the forward code is used in the place of a target address, a call-forward control computer operable for storing and recognizing the feature code and the forward code, and a call connector operable for executing the rapid call-forward service.
US08150007B2
A system provides redundant telephone call processing. A gateway receives a call and identifies a first server as having primary responsibility for servicing the call and a second server as having secondary responsibility for servicing the call. The gateway communicates the call to both the first server and the second server. The first server initiates recording of a voice message. The first server and the second server record the voice message. If the first server fails to indicate it has completed and stored the voice message in a timely manner, the second server stores the recorded voice message.
US08150004B2
A filter circuit is constructed as a triplex filter having a high-pass filter, a low-pass filter with attenuation in the passband, and a second low-pass filter without attenuation in the passband. The filter circuit has a frequency response with a high-pass portion, a flat loss portion, and a low-pass portion. Attenuation in the flat loss portion is uniform and is predetermined via selection of filter components. The filter circuit is useful in a bidirectional CATV system in which performance is improved by selectable attenuation of a first source of return path signals but without attenuation of a second source of return path signals.
US08149998B2
A method for playing an enterprise color ringback tone is disclosed, including the following steps: establishing, by a service switching entity, a connection with a service access entity in accordance with an EVC access code; searching, by the service access entity, for a connection identifier of a destination terminal corresponding to a service identifier of the destination terminal in accordance with a correspondence relationship between the service identifier and the connection identifier of the terminal, and sending the connection identifier of the destination terminal to the service switching entity; and establishing, by the service switching entity, a connection between the source terminal and the destination terminal in accordance with the connection identifier of the destination terminal, and playing, by the service access entity, an enterprise CRBT to the source terminal. A system and a device for playing an enterprise color ringback tone are also disclosed.
US08149997B2
Delivery of Next Generation 9-1-1 emergency services to an Internet Protocol (IP) Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is enabled using an existing or legacy selective router and Automatic Location Information (ALI) database. Using a protocol converting 9-1-1 messaging center according to the principles of the present invention, existing or legacy selective router equipment can provide Enhanced 9-1-1 (E911) over time division multiplex (TDM) circuits to non-IP capable PSAPs.
US08149988B2
Methods and systems for detecting potential items of interest in target samples, using nuclear resonance fluorescence, utilize incident photon spectra that are narrower than traditional bremsstrahlung spectra but overlap nuclear resonances in elements of interest for purposes of detection, such as but not limited to the detection of threats in luggage or containers being scanned.
US08149978B2
A clock/data recovery circuit includes a data duty correction circuit which outputs corrected data by correcting the duty of input data in accordance with the level of a correction signal, a clock recovery circuit which generates a recovered clock in synchronism with the edge timing of the corrected data, a data decision circuit which performs data decision of the corrected data based on the recovered clock, and a data duty detection circuit which detects the duty of the corrected data based on the recovered clock and outputs the correction signal representing a duty correction amount to the data duty correction circuit.
US08149969B2
A wireless transmission device capable of communicating with a receiver according to a DFT-spread OFDM protocol. The wireless transmission device comprises a configurable spectral shaping filter block capable of performing spectral shaping of an outgoing signal. The wireless transmission device configures the configurable spectral shaping filter block to perform spectral shaping according to a peak-to-average power (PAPR) value associated with the outgoing signal. The multi-carrier protocol comprises one of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM).
US08149949B2
A wireless communication system capable of obtaining diversity gain without fail even when the distribution of the reception qualities is large. In a radio transmitter apparatus (100) of the wireless communication system, a repetition/constellation pattern ratio deciding part (113) adjusts the number of constellations to be used by a modulating part (102) and also adjusts the number of replicas of a repetition part (103) in such a manner that the product of the number of constellation patterns to be used by the modulating part (102), that is, the number of outbound symbols to be generated and the number of outbound symbols as replicated by the repetition part (103) becomes equal to the number of outbound symbols generated from a single transmission data notified from a control information extracting part (112).
US08149941B2
A DTV transmitter includes a pre-processor pre-processing enhanced data, a data formatter generating enhanced data packets including known data, a multiplexer multiplexing the enhanced data packets with main data packets, a data randomizer randomizing the multiplexed data packets, an RS encoder RS-encoding the randomized data packets, and a data interleaver interleaving the RS-coded data packets, where a plurality of known data sequences are included in the interleaved enhanced data packets. Finally, the DTV transmitter further includes an enhanced encoder which codes each block of enhanced data placed between any two of the known data sequences and bypasses the interleaved main data packets.
US08149935B2
An FFT unit generates a frequency-domain signal for one-segment broadcasting and a frequency-domain signal for full-segment broadcasting. Under a good reception environment, the frequency-domain signal for the full-segment broadcasting is extracted by a switching control unit and the transmitted data for the full-segment broadcasting are recovered. When the reception environment deteriorates, both the one-segment broadcasting and the full-segment broadcasting are temporary demodulated. After a delay time due to the demodulation process has passed, a reception mode is switched from the full-segment broadcasting to the one-segment broadcasting.
US08149933B2
Disclosed is a method and an apparatus for subchannel assignment for suppressing inter-antenna interference in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) system based distributed wireless communication system equipped with antennas that are randomly distributed in a geographical manner and can simultaneously communicate with multiple Subscriber Stations (SSs). The method includes selecting and obtaining access to distributed antennas which satisfy the data transmission rate that an SS requires and with which the SS can communicate; re-queuing a distributed antenna having the maximum transmitted power within the same cell in high priority; and assigning subchannels to the relevant distributed antennas in an order from the relevant distributed antenna having the high priority.
US08149913B2
A restored image is reconstructed from a thinned image to which no motion vector is incident. There is provided a moving picture converting apparatus for restoring a string of thinned images resulted from thinning pixels of an original-image string, which includes an input unit to receive the thinned-image string, an initial motion vector detector to detect a string of motion vector images on the basis of the thinned-image string, a reconstructing unit to reconstruct, each time a new motion vector image string is detected, a string of restored images on the basis of the new restored-image string and previous detected-motion vector image strings, a motion vector detector to detect, each time a new string of restored images is reconstructed, a new string of motion vector images based on the new restored-image string and previous detected-motion vector image strings, and a process terminating unit to terminate the reconstructing process by the reconstructing unit and motion vector detecting process by the motion vector detector and output a restored image, which has been restored, of the restored-image string obtained at the time of deciding the process termination.
US08149912B2
Coding techniques for a video image compression system involve improving an image quality of a sequence of two or more bi-directionally predicted intermediate frames, where each of the frames includes multiple pixels. One method involves determining a brightness value of at least one pixel of each bi-directionally predicted intermediate frame in the sequence as an equal average of brightness values of pixels in non-bidirectionally predicted frames bracketing the sequence of bi-directionally predicted intermediate frames. The brightness values of the pixels in at least one of the non-bidirectionally predicted frames is converted from a non-linear representation.
US08149908B2
A device for generating a modulation signal for an RF pulse transmitter is disclosed. The device includes a detector, a video amplifier, an analog processing device, and a modulation signal generating device. The modulation signal generating device is configured to receive an information cue from the analog processing device and to output the modulation signal. The modulation signal generating device includes a digital processing device and a signal generating device. The digital processing device is configured to receive a transmission synchro signal and the information cue and to generate a first control signal and a second control signal. The signal generating device is configured to generate a variable-amplitude Gaussian-shaped signal in response to the first control signal, to generate a variable-amplitude square-shaped signal in response to the second control signal, and to generate the modulation signal according to the Gaussian-shaped signal and the square-shaped signal.
US08149906B2
A data transfer method is disclosed in a multi-chip semiconductor device which comprises a plurality of inter-chip wires. First, a test is conducted to determine whether or not each inter-chip wire is capable of normally transferring data, on circuits arranged on chips between which the inter-chip wire is connected. When an inter-chip wire incapable of normally transferring data exists, the data transfer speed of the buffer circuit that is on the chip on the transmission and that is connected to an inter-chip wire capable of normally transferring data is increased. The buffer circuit, whose data transfer speed has been increased, transfers data which would otherwise be transferred through the inter-chip wire incapable of normally transferring data, together with the data which should be transferred thereby, to the chip on the reception side chip through an inter-chip wire connected to the buffer circuit at the data transfer speed.
US08149904B2
Provided is a system and method for a modem including one or more processing paths. Also included is a number of interconnected modules sequentially arrayed along the one or more paths. Each module is configured to (i) process signals passed along the paths in accordance with the sequence and (ii) implement predetermined functions to perform the processing. Further, each of the modules has a particular degree of functional programmability and the degrees of functional programmability monotonically vary in accordance with the sequence.
US08149900B2
A low complexity acquisition method and a receiver implemented such a method are disclosed. In the present invention, a cyclical shifted-and-combined (CSC) code is generated by intercepting sub-codes from a full code and combining the sub-codes with an equal gain. The CSC code is correlated with a received signal to find a candidate peak. The other candidate peak(s) can be deduced accordingly. Thus, hypotheses can be significantly reduced. A true peak can be easily and rapidly found by verifying the candidate peaks.
US08149899B2
A system and method, comprising a despread module that receives a descrambled signal and an identification of active codes, a soft-symbols memory communicably coupled to the despread module, and a respread module that receives the identification of active codes, a modulation type and gain estimate for the active codes, and soft symbol estimates for the active codes from the soft-symbols memory which is communicably coupled to the respread module, the despread module, comprising: a despread signal memory that receives the descrambled signal, a vector code despread module communicably coupled to the despread signal memory, an active code soft symbol grabber that receives the identification of active codes and is communicably coupled to the despread signal memory, wherein the despread signal memory receives properly arranged despread data from the vector code despread module, wherein if the despread data is associated with the identification of active codes, the active code soft symbol grabber transfers the despread data from the despread signal memory to the soft-symbols memory.
US08149892B2
In a structure having a two-dimensional photonic crystal in which structures having different refractive indices are disposed at a two-dimensional period and comprising a structure emitting in a direction perpendicular to a resonance direction of light propagating in the in-plane direction of the two-dimensional photonic crystal, wherein the structure comprises a one-dimensional photonic crystal in which components having different refractive indices are arranged at a one-dimensional period, and, the light propagating in the in-plane direction of the two-dimensional photonic crystal is reflected by a photonic band edge of the one-dimensional photonic crystal.
US08149889B2
A semiconductor laser device includes a laser diode provided on a semiconductor substrate, the laser diode including a first optical waveguide having a gain waveguide, a plurality of photodiodes, a first wavelength-selective filter having periodic transmission peaks, and a second wavelength-selective filter having periodic transmission peaks, the period of the transmission peaks of the second wavelength-selective filter being different from the period of the transmission peaks of the first wavelength-selective filter. Furthermore, two photodiodes among the plurality of photodiodes are optically coupled to the first optical waveguide through the first and second wavelength-selective filters, respectively.
US08149887B2
A planar waveguide laser device forms a waveguide by a plate-like laser medium having birefringence and clad attached to at least one of the surfaces of the laser medium perpendicular to its thickness direction, amplifies laser light by a gain produced by excitation light incident on the laser medium, and performs laser oscillation. The laser medium is formed of a material having an optic axis on a cross section perpendicular to the light axis, which is the laser travelling direction. The clad is formed of a material having a refractive index in a range between refractive indexes of two polarized lights that travel along the light axis in the laser medium and have oscillation surfaces that are orthogonal to each other. The planar waveguide laser device readily oscillates linearly polarized laser light.
US08149884B2
Disclosed is an apparatus comprising a jitter buffer that writes and reads packets transmitted via a packet network from a transmission node, a clock correction unit that obtains an inter-packet jitter, based on difference information between time stamp information at the time of reception of the packet on a receiving side and time stamp information attached to the packet at the time of transmission of the packet by a transmission node with regards to packets received before and after and obtains a transmission frequency and a PLL unit that receives frequency information from the clock correction unit and generates a clock of the frequency. A scheduler uses a frequency from the PLL unit as a transmission frequency to transmit a packet from the jitter buffer unit.
US08149877B2
In one embodiment, the method includes receiving audio frame data having at least first and second channel data. The first and second channel data includes a plurality of blocks, where the blocks are classified by a block type. Block information indicating the block type is obtained. The block information corresponds to the first and second channel data being common when the first and second channel data are paired. The first and second channel data is lossless decoded based on the block information.
US08149864B2
A communication terminal used in a mobile communication system complying with a carrier sense multiple access scheme is disclosed. The communication terminal includes: a receiving unit configured to receive a wireless packet transmitted by another communication terminal or a base station; a determination unit configured to determine periodic transmission timing of the communication terminal based on determination criterion information included in the wireless packet; and a transmission unit configured to periodically transmit wireless packets to the base station based on the transmission timing.
US08149861B2
A method and apparatus for transmitting data in a coax network, a coax distribution network including an access point and a plurality of coaxial terminals connected to the access point through splitters, a same physical transmission channel is adopted for transmitting uplink data and downlink data between the access point and each coaxial terminal in the coax distribution network, the method including: Step S1: dividing an entire time duration of a physical transmission channel for transmitting information into time slices to constitute an uplink data transmission channel and a downlink data transmission channel; and Step S2: transmitting uplink data and downlink data between the Ethernet access point and each coaxial terminal at different time slices respectively. The present invention is based on a reconstruction of the Ethernet physical layer of the coax distribution network, where the uplink data and the downlink data are transmitted on the same physical transmission channel by adopting a time division multiplexing method, and MPCP protocol is adopted on the uplink for realizing a MAC layer communications between the Ethernet access point and the plurality of coaxial terminals.
US08149860B2
A cable broadcast receiving apparatus and composing method thereof are provided where a cable broadcast receiver receives a cable broadcast signal, a Point-of-Deployment (“POD”) cable card processes out-of-band data received from the cable broadcast receiver, an in-band (“INB”) processor processes in-band data received from the cable broadcast receiver, and a controller composes a channel map by comparing channel information included in the out-of-band (“OOB”) data with channel information included in the in-band data. Accordingly, the cable broadcast receiving apparatus and the controlling method thereof are capable of composing a correct channel map based on OOB data as well as INB data. Additionally, time can be saved in composing the channel map by reducing the channel search using OOB data within a certain time.
US08149859B2
Multicast management messages associate a channel with one or more multicast groups. The information included in the multicast management messages are combined into a channel association table that may be stored at a CPE device for each of one or more interfaces. The channel association table is used in response to a request for a desired multicast group to select a channel over which the desired multicast group should be delivered. The channel selection is based on a review of the channel association table. If a channel is associated with the desired group, it is selected. If a channel is not associated with the desired group, a channel is selected from a plurality of available channels based on group traffic loading criteria. A multicast message, such as a JOIN, is forwarded to other devices informing them that the desired group should only be sought and/or delivered on the selected channel.
US08149856B2
Each of the plurality of queues stores packet data of a received packet. The read concession assignor assigns one of the plurality of queues with a read concession for a predefined time period. The overdraft storage stores an overdraft amount in connection with each of the plurality of queues. The read adequacy determiner determines, in accordance with an overdraft amount stored in connection with one queue out of the plurality of queues, whether to read packet data from the one queue. The overdraft updater updates at least one of a first overdraft amount stored in connection with a first queue and a second overdraft amount stored in connection with a second queue different from the first queue upon reading packet data from the first queue during a time period while the second queue is assigned with the read concession.
US08149849B2
A gateway enables communications between a personal area network, such as a Zigbee network, and an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The gateway includes a first interface device for connecting to the personal area network, a second interface device for connecting to the IP network, and a gateway controller. In one embodiment, the gateway controller allocates ports on an IP interface to one or more clients in said personal area network, stores a routing table in memory for relating said clients in said personal area network with their corresponding ports, and transfers messages between said personal area network clients and said IP network based on entries in said routing table. In other embodiments, the gateway may function in conjunction with a gateway proxy.
US08149838B2
A method is provided for payload header suppression within a wireless network in which a limited number of suppression indices are used to map suppression rules to data streams. Network resources are conserved by implementing precise classification algorithms to correctly identify incoming packets at the wireless device as belonging to a particular data stream, which ensures that a minimum number of suppression indices are utilized. Additionally, network resources are conserved by utilizing sophisticated algorithms for reusing suppression indices when new data streams are detected by the wireless device. One such reuse algorithm involves recycling the suppression index that has been least recently used in transmitting a packet with a suppressed payload header.
US08149833B2
A network device has a communications port to provide communication with a data network and a cable port to provide communication with a cable network across multiple channels. The network device also has a processor to receive data from the data network, format the data into packets for transmission across the multiple channels and provide an identifier to allow the packets to be reconstructed.
US08149830B2
A method for communication in a computing environment is provided. The method comprises transmitting a first data packet to one or more receiving units in a first set; receiving one or more acknowledgement messages (ACKs) from one or more receiving units in a second set, wherein the second set is a subset of the first set; removing the first data packet from a queue, in response to receiving at least one ACK from N receiving units within a time threshold; and re-transmitting the first data packet to the first set, in response to failing to receive at least one ACK from N receiving units within the time threshold.
US08149829B2
A network (100) includes a hub device (110) and at least one unattached peripheral device (120). The unattached peripheral device (120) transmits an attach request to the hub device (110) with a selected address, receives a new address from the hub device to identify the unattached peripheral device (120), and communicates with the hub device (110) using the new address.
US08149827B1
A telecommunication appliance serves a large user base via an interface to a universal registration database having access to a set of transport mediums applicable to each user. A media database operates in conjunction with the appliance for identifying the user and providing targeted media to the user during a connection interval commonly referred to as the “ringback” period while a connection supporting the requested communication is completed. The universal identifier indexes alternate transport mediums available to the user based on entries in the universal database, and determines a lower cost (or no cost) transport. In lieu of the convention ringback, the initiating user receives targeted media referenced from the media database and responds to it while the communication is completed. The targeted media is provided as a fee based service to media provides (advertisers), therefore injecting revenue for supporting the service without requiring a fee from the invoking users. The user identification also enables a slew of value added services such as secure login to various databases and secure billing and payment.
US08149825B2
A packet-based, hierarchical communication system, arranged in a spanning tree configuration, is described in which wired and wireless communication networks exhibiting substantially different characteristics are employed in an overall scheme to link portable or mobile computing devices. The network accommodates real time voice transmission both through dedicated, scheduled bandwidth and through a packet-based routing within the confines and constraints of a data network. Conversion and call processing circuitry is also disclosed which enables access devices and personal computers to adapt voice information between analog voice stream and digital voice packet formats as proves necessary. Routing pathways include wireless spanning tree networks, wide area networks, telephone switching networks, internet, etc., in a manner virtually transparent to the user. A voice session and associate call setup simulates that of conventional telephone switching network, providing well-understood functionality common to any mobile, remote or stationary terminal, phone, computer, etc.
US08149820B2
A wireless system performs interworking of a combined circuit switched (CS) session and an IP multimedia core network subsystem (IMS) session between two users having different content capabilities through an interworking circuit switched (CS) and IMS function (IMS CS IWF).
US08149810B1
A transmit data rate adaptation method in a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system with a first transceiver and a second transceiver. The first transceiver transmits signals to the second transceiver. The second transceiver analyzes channel quality of the received signals and uses link adaptation to generate a shortlist of transmit modes to send back to the first transceiver. The first transceiver cycles through the shortlist of transmit modes to find an optimum transmit mode.
US08149808B2
An address of a terminal on a network is fixed during the session. The present invention provides an electronic apparatus that can be connected to a network, including, a communication unit communicating with another electronic apparatus existing on the network, a temporary-address setting unit setting a temporary address that is temporarily valid on the network, an address-requesting unit requesting that an address management apparatus connected to the network should set an address at a predetermined timing, when the temporary address is set, and an address-request stopping unit inhibiting the address-requesting unit from operating, while the communication unit is communicating with the other electronic apparatus, by using the temporary address.
US08149807B2
Disclosed is a technique for allowing a mobility service provider to allocate a home agent appropriate for each individual mobile node. According to the technique, an MN 10 notifies the domain name of an MSP 3 to an ASP 1, and in response to the notified domain name of the MSP, the ASP notifies the address of an HA allocation server 3a to the MN. The MN transmits, to the notified address of the HA allocation server, an HA allocation request message including the domain name of the ASP. The HA allocation server selects an HA based on previously held correspondences between HAs 3b, 3c and one or more ASPs, and notifies the selected HA to the MN.
US08149805B2
This disclosure relates to a method, system and device for optimizing routing in a mobile IPv6. The core is that the communication between a mobile node and a correspondence node is performed in a routing optimization mode, while providing a secure verification, so that the care-of address of the mobile node would not be obtained by a distrustful third party or a distrustful correspondence node. Moreover, to further ensure the privacy of the location of the mobile node, the current care-of address of the mobile node is shielded from the correspondence node by separating the binding cache from the correspondence node.
US08149795B2
A beacon packet is provided. The packet includes a first information field that includes channel-time-allocation information in a wireless network; and information about whether there is residual channel time that can be allocated to a device that belongs to the wireless network.
US08149788B1
What is disclosed is a method of operating a wireless communication system. The method includes exchanging communications for a session between a wireless communication device and a destination through a serving access node, receiving a handoff request to handoff the session from the serving access node to a target access node, and selecting the target access node from a plurality of access nodes based upon a correlation between activities of the wireless communication device, one of the plurality of access nodes, and the serving access node.
US08149780B2
A method and apparatus for multiplexing communication resources to multiple users in a communication system is provided. A generic time-frequency (T-F) mapping pattern (TFPgeneric) and a set of orthogonal T-F mapping patterns (TFPs) comprising TFPgeneric is generated. In each transmission time interval (TTI), the set of TFPs is cyclically offset by a random variable and the offset TFPs are allocated to one or more users and/or traffic channels.
US08149764B2
Methods and apparatus for distributing and acquiring overhead flow data in a multi-frequency network
Methods and apparatus for distributing and acquiring overhead flow data in a multi-frequency network. In an aspect, a method includes generating primary flow (PF) overhead data associated with one or more multiplexes to be distributed in the multi-frequency network, identifying multiplex specific overhead (MSO) data associated with the one or more multiplexes, transmitting the PF overhead data over the multi-frequency network using first pre-assigned flow identifiers, and transmitting the MSO data over the multi-frequency network using second pre-assigned flow identifiers. An apparatus includes flow acquisition logic configured to acquire PF overhead data associated with at least one multiplex using first pre-assigned flow identifiers, and processing logic configured to determine that overhead data associated with the at least one multiplex has been updated based on the received PF overhead data, and to obtain MSO data associated with the at least one multiplex using second pre-assigned flow identifiers.
US08149748B2
A meshing network comprising one full function controller (WDC) and a plurality of nodes (WDN, WSN), that is RF quiet capable with very low power consumption and the ability to quickly heal itself and create new network paths. The network uses an addressing scheme that allows for each node to not have a network map but still be able to route messages. A piping scheme allows a mesh to become a high throughput network. A sensor rail protocol definition allows sensor devices to connect to nodes and route messages through the network.
US08149747B2
Methods and apparatuses enable maintaining wireless connectivity while the wireless client device is in a power save mode. The system includes a host operating system (OS) that handles wireless connections while the device is executing in normal operation, and an embedded agent that handles the wireless connections when the device switches to power saving operation and the host OS switches to a sleep or standby state. The system detects a change in the power save mode and triggers an exchange of session context information between the host OS and the embedded agent (from the host OS to the embedded agent when the system enters the power save mode, and from the embedded agent to the host OS when the system returns to normal operation from the power save mode). The system also triggers the switching of management consistent with the passing of session context information.
US08149746B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for battery level based configuration of a mobile station by a base station. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US08149745B2
A wireless communication system is provided that includes a first wireless communication device, a second wireless communication device, and a base station that relays wireless communication between the first and second wireless communication devices. The first wireless communication device is capable of direct communication with another wireless communication device, and transmits a first data frame of a particular frame type to the second wireless communication device via the base station. If the second wireless communication device is capable of the direct communication, when receiving the first data frame of the particular frame type, the second wireless communication device transmits a second data frame of the particular frame type via the base station. When the first wireless communication device receives the second data frame from the second wireless communication device, it determines that the second wireless communication device is capable of the direct communication.
US08149744B2
A digital broadcasting system and a method of processing data are disclosed. A receiving system of the digital broadcasting system may include a signal receiving unit, a demodulating unit, a demultiplexer, and an audio/video decoder. The signal receiving unit receives a broadcast signal including main service data and an RS frame including a plurality of MPH service data packets. The demodulating unit demodulates data of the RS frame. The demultiplexer identifies an MPH service data packet including an IP datagram of mobile service data with reference to an MPH header of each MPH service data packet in the RS frame, and when a stuffing data is inserted in the identified payload of MPH service data packet, removes the stuffing data from the payload and separates an audio and video data from IP datagram of the mobile service data of the payload, and outputs the separated audio and video data.
US08149739B2
A management system may test network paths prior to scheduled calls. Testing network paths may include one endpoint placing a test call to an endpoint on the other end of the path. Various characteristics of the network path may be tested. If the network path fails and/or in some way does not meet the predefined characteristics for the call, an administrator may be notified and/or alternate network path may be detected and tested. The call may be rescheduled if a satisfactory network path is not found in time.
US08149728B2
A system and method for evaluating performance of a microphone for long-distance speech recognition, which enables a robot to receive and respond to voices. A robot, which includes a network robot, must correctly recognize speech in order to recognize the user and to perceive its surroundings, objective evaluation criteria are required for choosing a microphone to be used in the robot. The methods include measuring a degree of attenuation of the voice, measuring a degree of distortion of the voice, and simultaneously measuring the degree of attenuation of the voice and the degree of distortion of the voice. A standard for the choice of a microphone, which can be digitalized, for a speech recognition function of a robot, permits choice of a microphone which has good sensitivity and can pick up voices without distortion when used at a large distance.
US08149721B2
There is provided a test apparatus for testing a device under test, including an obtaining section that obtains a packet sequence communicated between the test apparatus and the device under test, from a simulation environment for simulating an operation of the device under test, a packet communication program generating section that generates from the packet sequence a packet communication program for a test, where the packet communication program is to be executed by the test apparatus to communicate packets included in the packet sequence between the test apparatus and the device under test, and a testing section that executes the packet communication program to test the device under test by communicating the packets between the test apparatus and the device under test.
US08149713B2
A filtered Forwarding Information Base (FIB) (the “complete local FIB”) is used to determine how to forward packets, typically on line cards. The complete local FIB is generated by filtering (i.e., dropping or removing) extraneous entries in the standard global FIB of a router. This smaller FIB is then installed within the memory of a forwarding engine, possibly implemented as a single application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), for use in determining how to forward packets, with the router forwarding packets accordingly.
US08149712B2
The present invention relates to selecting a transport format combination (TFC) such that a quality of service (QoS) is guaranteed in a mobile communication system of a certain level even for a service having a low priority. The present invention selects a transport format combination such that not only a priority of each service is guaranteed but also a service quality is guaranteed by an MAC layer at the time of transporting services having different QoSs and different priorities.
US08149709B2
A method for sending packets. The method includes determining with which of a plurality of virtual serialization queues (VSQs) a first packet is associated, wherein a first application is attempting to issue the first packet, if a first VSQ of the plurality of VSQs has not exceeded a first bandwidth allocation, wherein the first VSQ is associated with the first packet and is associated with the first bandwidth allocation, then sending the first packet to the first VSQ, processing the first packet by a first virtual network stack (VNS) to obtain a first processed packet, wherein the first VSQ is associated with the first VNS, and sending the first processed packet to a physical network interface card (NIC) operatively connected to the first VNS. Alternatively, if the first VSQ has exceeded the first bandwidth allocation, then blocking the first application from issuing the first packet.
US08149708B2
Streams of packets are dynamically switched among dedicated and shared queues. For example, when a packet stream is in a maintenance mode (such as to keep a tunnel or packet stream associated with a server active) all packet traffic received over a packet stream is directed into the shared queue while the packet stream is not associated with one of the dedicated queues. In response to a detected change in the packet activity status of packet traffic (e.g., the establishment of a call or an increase in packet traffic, especially desirous of individualized quality of service) over a particular packet stream of the packet streams, the particular packet stream is associated with a particular group of dedicated queues such that at least non-control data traffic received over the particular packet stream is subsequently directed into the particular group of dedicated queues while the particular packet stream remains associated with the particular group of dedicated queues.
US08149707B2
Packets in a multi-hop wireless network are routed based on the available link throughputs, network node congestion and the connectivity of the network in a manner that minimizes the use of radio resources and minimizes delay for packets in multi-hop system. The routing method also avoids congestion in the access network, especially near the network access points as provided by network access nodes. Each wireless network node maintains a link table for storing link conditions and associated route costs. Packets are routed according to the low cost route. Subsequent wireless network nodes evaluate whether a lower cost route is available and, if so, route the data packet according to the lower cost route. Every wireless network node transmits the data packet, a specified route and a time stamp indicated a time of the last data entry in the link table that was used to calculate the low cost route.
US08149706B2
An approach is provided for auto-bandwidth adjusting bandwidth allocations for traffic-engineered tunnels used to carry traffic along a network. Traffic over the tunnel is sampled at a first interval period and at a second interval period, where the second interval period is shorter than the first interval period. A determination is made as to whether the sampled traffic taken using the second interval period is greater than the bandwidth allocation, and the bandwidth allocation is adjusted upward based upon a determination that the sampled traffic taken using the second interval period is greater than the bandwidth allocation. Also, a determination can be made as to whether the sampled traffic taken using the first interval period is less than the bandwidth allocation, and the bandwidth allocation can be adjusted downward based upon a determination that the sampled traffic taken using the first interval period is less than the bandwidth allocation.
US08149705B2
To analyze traffic at an application level, a stream according to TCP or SCTP is required to be reconstructed and to be analyzed. When a packet is transferred to analyzing equipment using a port mirroring function with which a router and a switch are provided, transferred traffic volume increases and exceeds the throughput of the analyzing equipment. As only a part of packets configuring a stream is transferred to the analyzing equipment in transfer to the analyzing equipment using a packet sampling function, analysis at the application level is impossible. To solve the problem, when a packet communication unit recognizes a stream start packet, samples a stream initiated by the packet on a condition and at a rate respectively determined beforehand and generates a condition for copying the packet based upon information of both ends of the stream included in the packet, packets sampled in units of stream can be transferred to the analyzing equipment.
US08149692B2
A method automatically discovers a topology of a communication network ring. The ring includes a plurality of nodes. Each node includes a first port and a second port. A ring topology request or a response to the ring topology request is received from at least one node on the ring. The ring topology request or the response to the ring topology request includes an identification of the at least one node and an indication of a hop count needed to reach the at least one node. The ring topology request or the response to the ring topology request is forwarded to at least one neighboring node on the ring through the first port. The topology is determined based on the identification of the at least one node, the hop count, and an identification of the first port.
US08149684B1
The code space associated with the communication system is divided into at least two subspaces where each subspace is assigned to a different mode of operation. In one mode, such as a voice mode, each user is given full time access to a portion of the subspace associated with that mode of operation. In a second mode, such as a data mode, each user uses the entire subspace associated with that mode on a time shared basis.
US08149683B2
A dynamic fuse element is provided in an inline power circuit to provide an electrical current protection level that varies in accordance with allocated current levels and that can respond to current spikes that are not expected. The dynamic fuse element comprises a processor aware of allocated current levels and an inline switch controlled by the processor to turn OFF in the event of a fault. In another aspect ferrite fuses may be provided for relatively low-current applications. In yet another aspect test fuses may be placed on the circuit board to verify that fuses used in manufacture operate at a certain current level.
US08149681B2
A combination type optical disk medium and recording or reproducing method in which the medium include first and second recording layers based on different recoding densities. First and second volume spaces are formed to the first and second recording layers, respectively. Each volume space includes identification information of a head or end of the volume space, and an area for data. One of the volume spaces is recorded with identification information of the other volume space.
US08149671B2
An optical disc drive according to the present invention can read and/or write data from/on an optical disc with information layers including first and second information layers (L0 and L1). The drive includes: an objective lens for converging a light beam; a lens actuator for driving the lens; a photodetector section that receives the beam reflected from the disc and converts it into an electrical signal; and a control section for determining the values of a first group of parameters, which are set to read data from the first layer (L0), and those of a second group of parameters, which are set to read data from the second layer (L1), during a disc loading process. In performing the disc loading process, the control section determines the values of the first group of parameters, and then determines the values of the second group of parameters based on correlation information, representing correlation between the values of the first and second groups of parameters that were set during a previous disc loading process, and on the values of the first group of parameters that have been just determined during the current disc loading process.
US08149670B2
An optical disk apparatus includes a light focusing element arranged to face a disk and to focus light emitted from a light source on the disk, an actuator to move the light focusing element towards and away from the disk according to an actuator driving voltage, a light intensity detection unit to detect an intensity of light reflected by the light focusing element and generate a gap error signal based on the detected intensity, a servo unit to generate the actuator driving voltage and a predetermined threshold voltage based on the gap error signal generated by the light intensity detection unit and to provide the actuator driving voltage to the actuator, a distance detection unit to detect a first distance at which the actuator driving voltage is maintained when the threshold voltage is detected using the gap error signal and to detect a second distance at which a gap between the light focusing element and the disk is shorter than the first distance and at which a gap servo operation is started based on the gap error signal; and a control unit to control the servo unit to start the gap servo operation based on the detected first and second distances.
US08149668B2
A method of determining a disk type of an optical disk is provided to comprise steps of: using a first light path for forming an incident beam; moving an objective lens system corresponding to the first light path from a start position towards the optical disk; receiving a sensor output signal during the movement of the objective lens system, wherein the sensor output signal includes a central aperture signal; determining the disk type of the optical disk according to the central aperture signal.
US08149667B2
An optical recording medium having a read-only storage area and a writable storage area and a recording/reproducing apparatus and method therefor. The optical recording medium is a hybrid disc having both the read-only storage area, which is suitable for mass production of information having the same contents, and the writable storage area on which data can be recorded, updated or added at a user's option. The read-only storage area has a structure that is completely compatible with a digital versatile disc read only memory (DVD-ROM) specification, and the writable storage area is compatible with the recording/reproducing characteristics of a writable DVD specification so that an existing reproducing-only apparatus can read information from the read-only storage area, and data can be recorded in the writable storage area using an apparatus obtained by minimally changing an existing recording/reproducing apparatus while maintaining the physical recording characteristics of the existing recording/reproducing apparatus.
US08149654B2
A waveguide has a core through which laser light can propagate in a TM mode, that has a rectangular cross section perpendicular to a propagative direction of the laser light, and through which the laser light can propagate in a fundamental mode in which only one portion exists on the cross section of the core where a light intensity of the laser light becomes maximal, and a higher order mode in which two or more portions exist where the light intensity becomes maximal, a clad surrounding the core, and a light absorbing element in the clad, and wherein a distance between the light absorbing element and the core is shorter than a penetration length of evanescent light in the higher order mode, but is longer than a penetration length of evanescent light in the fundamental mode.
US08149649B1
Disclosed are systems and methods that can be used to detect shooters. The systems and methods described herein use arrival times of a shockwave, produced by a shot, at a plurality of sensors to assign weights to each of the plurality of sensors, and determine a shot trajectory based on the assigned weights.
US08149647B2
A robust seismic cable and sensor module system wherein the sensor modules include a housing and sensing unit. The housing substantially transfers the load and torque of the cable from one end of the housing to the other bypassing the sensing unit and the sensing unit and housing are acoustically decoupled from each other for the seismic frequencies desired.
US08149641B2
An active cycle control circuit for a semiconductor memory apparatus is configured to precharge a word line corresponding to a read cycle, and activate a word line corresponding to a refresh request signal in response to the refresh request signal generated during the read cycle.
US08149635B2
A non-volatile memory device including a memory cell array; a read/write circuit configured to drive bit lines of the memory cell array with a negative bit line voltage according to data to be programmed; a bit line setup-time measuring circuit configured to measure the bit line setup-time, which may be a function of the amount of data to be programmed, at each ISPP program loop; and a control logic configured to control the program voltage and/or the applied time of a program voltage applied to the selected wordline of the memory cell array based on the measured bit line setup-times measured at each ISPP program loop.
US08149627B2
Source-side sensing techniques described herein determine the data value stored in a memory cell based on the difference in current between the read current from the source terminal of the memory cell and a sink current drawn from the read current. The sink current is drawn in response to a magnitude of an operating voltage between first and second nodes. During a first time interval, the operating voltage is set in response to a magnitude of the reference current using a feedback path. During a second time interval following the first time interval, the operating voltage is held independent of the feedback path. The data value stored in the memory cell is determined based on a difference in current between the read current and the sink current during the second time interval.
US08149626B2
A method and system for determining a respective threshold voltage of each of a plurality of transistors in a memory array. The method includes: applying a ramp voltage to gates of the plurality of transistors, wherein the ramp voltage is configured to increase based on an incrementing digital code; as the ramp voltage is being applied, generating a respective control signal in response to sensing a predetermined threshold current along a respective bitline in the memory array, wherein each transistor in the memory array is in communication with a respective bitline in the memory array; and for each transistor in the memory array, latching a current value of the incrementing digital code in response to the respective control signal corresponding to the transistor being generated. The current value of the incrementing digital code latched by each register corresponds to the threshold voltage of the corresponding transistor.
US08149625B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes a memory cell array; a voltage generator configured to provide stepwise increasing step pulses for varying logic states of memory cells in the memory cell array; and control logic configured to adjust an initial voltage of the stepwise increasing step pulses according to the number of the stepwise increasing step pulses.
US08149618B2
A flash memory device and a reading method are provided where memory cells are divided into at least two groups. Memory cells are selected according to a threshold voltage distribution. Data stored in the selected memory cells are detected and the data is latched corresponding to one of the at least two groups according to a first read operation. A second read operation detects and latches data of the memory cells corresponding to another one of the at least two groups. The data is processed through a soft decision algorithm during the second read operation.
US08149617B2
A data storage medium is described. The data storage medium may comprise a first bit of magnetic medium for a first read-and-write head, and further comprise a second bit of magnetic medium. The second bit of magnetic medium, below the first bit of magnetic medium, may be for a second read-and-write head.
US08149612B1
A memory array having a plurality of memory cells is disclosed, where each memory cell comprises a first inverter having a first transistor coupled between a reference voltage and a first node for receiving input data and a second transistor coupled between the first node and ground; a first inverter comprising a first transistor coupled between a reference voltage and a first node for receiving input data and a second transistor coupled between the first node and ground; a second inverter comprising a third transistor coupled between the reference voltage and a second node for storing inverted input data and a fourth transistor coupled between the second node and ground, the second node being coupled to a control terminal of the second transistor. The memory array further comprises a third inverter and a fourth inverter.
US08149611B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device comprises a memory cell array including first and second mutually crossing lines and electrically erasable programmable memory cells arranged at intersections of the first and second lines, each memory cell containing a variable resistor operative to nonvolatilely store the resistance thereof as data and a first non-ohmic element operative to switch the variable resistor; and a clamp voltage generator circuit operative to generate a clamp voltage required for access to the memory cell and applied to the first and second lines. The clamp voltage generator circuit has a temperature compensation function of compensating for the temperature characteristic of the first non-ohmic element.
US08149604B2
A circuit for controlling a thyristor (V1) into conducting state, the thyristor (V1) being in a rectifier, which rectifier is adapted to supply DC voltage to a DC voltage circuit. The circuit comprises a pulse transformer (T1), means for generating voltage pulses on the primary winding of the pulse transformer (T1), a trigger capacitor (C2) adapted to be charged from the voltage pulses in the secondary winding of the pulse transformer, a zener diode (V5) adapted to be triggered with the voltage of the trigger capacitor (C2) when the voltage of the trigger capacitor (C2) exceeds the breakdown voltage of the zener diode (V5), and an auxiliary thyristor (V3) adapted to be triggered with the current from the trigger capacitor (C2) flowing via the zener diode (V5), wherein the cathode of the auxiliary thyristor (V3) is connected to the gate of the thyristor (V1) for triggering the thyristor (V1) with the current from the trigger capacitor (C2) flowing via the auxiliary thyristor (V3).
US08149598B2
A switching power supply apparatus according to the present invention includes a switching device and a control circuit, and the control circuit includes: a control terminal through which an auxiliary power voltage is supplied; an error amplifier which generates a difference voltage depending on a difference between a control terminal voltage and a first reference voltage; a device current detection circuit which generates a device current detection signal indicating an amount of a current flowing in the switching device; a drive circuit which generates a drive pulse signal having a duty cycle based on a difference between the difference voltage and the device current detection signal and drives the switching device by using the generated drive pulse signal; and a dummy load circuit through which a dummy load current flows from the control terminal when the difference voltage becomes equal to or higher than a second reference voltage.
US08149597B2
A dc-dc converter system comprises a quasi-regulated bus converter and plural regulation stages that regulate the output of the bus converter. The bus converter has at least one controlled rectifier with a parallel uncontrolled rectifier. A control circuit controls the controlled rectifier to cause a normally non-regulated mode of operation through a portion of an operating range of source voltage and a regulated output during another portion. The bus converter may be an isolation stage having primary and secondary transformer winding circuits. For the non-regulated output, each primary winding has a voltage waveform with a fixed duty cycle. The fixed duty cycle causes substantially uninterrupted flow of power during non-regulated operation. Inductors at the bus converter input and in a filter at the output of the bus converter may saturate during non-regulated operation.
US08149590B2
A circuit board fixing element is provided. The circuit board fixing element is used for fixing a circuit board on a sheet, and includes a fixing portion, a buckling portion, and a connecting portion. The buckling portion is made of a resilient material. The connecting portion is connected between the fixing portion and the buckling portion, and has two opposite ends and a side surface connected to the ends. The fixing portion and the buckling portion are respectively located on the ends and protrude from the side surface.
US08149587B2
A modular industrial drive system includes a base that receives one or more control modules as a face template. The control modules provide a set of functionalities to the drive system, and the face template serves as a user interface to the drive system. The drive system can include a power module and a control module which define desired functionalities for the system.
US08149571B2
A portable electronic device comprises a cover and a body. The cover comprises a first end wall, a second end wall opposite to the first end wall, and a sidewall connecting the first end wall and the second end wall. The sidewall defines a sliding slot. Two ends of the sliding slot respectively extend to the first end wall and the second end wall. The body comprises a protrusion formed thereon. The protrusion is slidably received in the sliding slot. The protrusion slides to the first end wall or the second end wall, whereby the cover hinges on the protrusion relative to the body.
US08149565B2
A circuit board device includes a circuit board comprising a mounting area, and first and second power lines and a ground pad formed on the mounting area, and a vertical multilayer chip capacitor (MLCC) comprising a capacitor body, a plurality of first and second polarity inner electrodes, first and second outer electrodes, and a third outer electrode, wherein the first and second power lines are separately disposed on the mounting area, connected to the first and second outer electrodes, and electrically connected to each other only by the vertical MLCC, and the ground pad is disposed between the first and second power lines and connected to the third outer electrode.
US08149564B2
A MEMS capacitive device (90) includes a fixed capacitor plate (104) formed on a surface (102) of a substrate (100). A movable capacitor plate (114) is suspended above the fixed capacitor plate (104) by compliant members (116) anchored to the surface (102). A movable element (120) is positioned in spaced apart relationship from the movable capacitor plate (104) and has an actuator (130) formed thereon. Actuation of the actuator (130) causes abutment of a portion of the movable element (120) against a contact surface (136) of the movable plate (114). The abutment moves the movable plate (114) toward the fixed plate (104) to alter a capacitance (112) between the plates (104, 114). Another substrate (118) may be coupled to the substrate (100) such that a surface (126) of the substrate (118) faces the surface (102) of the substrate (100). The movable element (120) may be formed on the surface (126).
US08149563B2
An ignition circuit includes a system power supply, an ignition coil, a delay unit, a first switch unit, and a second switch unit. When the system power supply is powered on, the second switch unit is turned on, the ignition coil is powered on. After a delay time, the delay unit controls the first switch unit to be turned on, the second switch unit is turned off, the ignition coil is powered off. Therefore an ignition operation is accomplished.
US08149554B2
An input termination board for use with an industrial controller in a safety system is disclosed herein. The industrial controller may be populated with standard input modules according to the application. The termination board, in conjunction with the controller allows the standard input modules to be used as safety inputs. The termination board provides simplified wiring between the input modules and the remote devices by splitting each of the signals generated by the remote device into separate inputs for two different input modules. In addition, a program executing on the controller of the safety system monitors and tests each of the inputs in both input modules to verify proper operation of the inputs. If the program detects a fault in either input module, the safety system may alternately shut down according to a fail-safe procedure or continue operating under a fault-tolerant mode of operation.
US08149532B2
A data storage library is described including a plurality of tape cartridges each possessing an auxiliary radio frequency memory device. The library also includes, at least one tape drive capable of determining at least one functional status when loaded with one of the tape cartridges wherein the at least one tape drive possesses an auxiliary reader and writer device capable of transferring information associated with the at least one function status to and from the auxiliary radio frequency memory device. The tape drive is adapted to transmit the information from the auxiliary radio frequency memory device to a display device that can be viewed by an end user.
US08149531B1
A read head circuit includes a read element configured to read data stored magnetically on a platter. The read element includes a first terminal and a second terminal. A normally-ON transistor includes a first terminal, a second terminal and a control terminal. The first terminal is directly connected to the first terminal of the read element. A second terminal is directly connected to the second terminal of the read element. Responsive to the control terminal being powered, the normally-ON transistor provides an open circuit between the first terminal of the read element and the second terminal of the read element. Responsive to the control terminal not being powered, the normally-ON transistor is configured to short the first terminal of the read element to the second terminal of the read element.
US08149521B2
A lens apparatus includes a first lens unit and a second lens unit that can respectively move in an optical axis direction, a first cam tube, a linearly moving guide tube that is arranged on an inner circumferential side of the first cam tube and configured to guide the second lens unit in the optical axis direction, a guide member that is configured to guide the linearly moving guide tube in the optical axis direction, a cylindrical member that is provided on an outer circumferential side of the first lens unit, and a second cam tube. The first lens unit includes a guide part configured to guide the cylindrical member in the optical axis direction.
US08149520B2
A rotary actuator includes a multi-polar magnet, in which north and south poles are alternately arranged in a circumferential direction, the multi-polar magnet being shaped into one of a circular ring and a circular arc member; and a coil body having coils which are provided around the multi-polar magnet to be capable of moving in the circumferential direction of the multi-polar magnet, each of the coils substantially lying on a plane that extends in a radial direction of the multi-polar magnet and orthogonal to the circumferential direction of the multi-polar magnet. The north and south poles of the multi-polar magnet are positioned apart from each other by a predetermined interval in the circumferential direction. Dimensions of each coil are predetermined so that length of each coil in the circumferential direction is associated with the predetermined interval. Predetermined currents are passed through the coils in a properly phased manner.
US08149505B2
A laser scanner device (1) for imaging and/or measuring fluorescent samples located on slides and treated using fluorescent pigments includes a sample table (2) defining a sample plane (49) and a motorized transport device (3) for moving a slide from a storage unit (4) to the sample table (2) and back. The storage unit (4) includes one sample part (7) for sample slides (8) and one test part (9) for test slides (10), each having at least one depository (6) and being accessible during the operation of the laser scanner device (1) for the transport device (3). The test part (9) is implemented separately from the sample part (7) and as a test part magazine (9′) that is permanently connected to the laser scanner device (1) for one or more test slides (10).
US08149498B2
A package structure of flexible display device includes a flexible opto-electronic display panel, a first barrier layer and a second barrier layer. The flexible opto-electronic display panel includes a backplane, a flexible frontplane, and a display media layer. The display media layer is disposed between the flexible frontplane and the backplane, where the display media layer is substantially corresponding to a display region of the backplane, and at least one side of the display media layer aligns with one corresponding side of the backplane. The first barrier layer is disposed on a first surface of the flexible frontplane, where the flexible frontplane, the display media layer and the first barrier layer expose a bonding region of the backplane. The second barrier layer is disposed on a second surface of the backplane.
US08149496B2
An interferometric modulator (“IMOD”) display utilizes ambient light and incorporates touch sensing without reducing the amount of ambient light that reaches the MEMS modulators, and without introducing any optical distortion or loss of performance. Electrodes for touch sensing are located at a back glass of the inteferometric display, and are used in conjunction with electrodes whose primary function is to activate the pixels of the MEMS display, in order to sense a touch. The touch deflects the IMOD layers and is sensed through the various display layers at the rear of the display.
US08149495B2
A reflective display, comprising a plurality of pixels (10), each having a first electrode, a light-modifying layer (12), and a second electrode (3; 16) arranged to enable formation of an electric field in the light-modifying layer (12) through application of a voltage between the electrodes. The pixel (10) further includes an active portion (16) which is switchable between light-modifying states by means of said electric field, and an inactive portion (17). The inactive portion (17) is arranged for reflecting light so as to direct at least a fraction of incoming light (20) impinging on the inactive portion (17) towards the active portion (16). As a result, a contrast ratio of the reflective display is improved, since light is now directed from the inactive portion towards the active portion and thus contributes to the displayed image as observed by a viewer.
US08149494B1
A monolithic Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) is provided for photon beam-splitting and beam-combining with accurate super-positioning of the outgoing beams, which creates the interference. The MZI includes a complimentary pair of right-isosceles triangular prisms, and several reflector units. The triangular prisms are configurable to physically join together along associated hypotenuse surfaces that form a beam-splitter interface, thereby producing a rectangular prism having a square cross-section with four outer side surfaces. Each reflector unit forms a right-isosceles mirror that rigidly faces a corresponding surface of the four outer side surfaces of the rectangular prism. The MZI further includes a spacer disposed between the corresponding surface and the each reflector unit.
US08149490B2
When a light intensity upon a perturbation is detected, an error calculation/correction unit (85) in a control unit (8) corrects and updates the above-described initial manipulated variables based on perturbation manipulated variables and manipulated variables, i.e., operation manipulated variables to obtain the maximum light intensity from the light intensity value at each perturbation manipulated variable, thereby adjusting the tilt angle of a mirror. More specifically, assuming that the time series data of an acquired output light intensity can be approximated to a cosine function, the error calculation/correction unit (85) calculates a phase difference θ between the cosine function and a sine or cosine function used to set x- and y-axis perturbation patterns for a circular trajectory perturbation. Manipulated variables at coordinates defined by the phase difference θ and polar coordinates of a radius voltage to perturb the mirror are calculated. Voltage values at coordinates defined by a function for setting the driving voltages of the mirror (230) are calculated and set as the driving voltages for one output port.
US08149486B2
A hologram recording and reproduction method is configured such that the number of values which can be implemented per one pixel is increased from two according to a conventional method to three or more to achieve increase of the data recording capacity. While two values are conventionally represented by two different values of “0” and “1” of the amplitude, for example, phases “0” and “π” are combined with the amplitudes “0” and “1” thereby to make it possible to represent three values of “0,” “1” and “−1” (amplitude “1”×phase “π”). In particular, a two-value data train of “0” and “1” is converted into another data train of three values of “0,” “1” and “−1” in accordance with a rule for encoding determined in advance, and the amplitude “0” is allocated to pixels of the value “0”; the amplitude “1” (phase “0”) is allocated to pixels of the value “1”; and the amplitude “1” and the phase “π” are allocated to pixels of the value “−1,” to carry out recording. Increase of the data recording capacity can be achieved thereby.
US08149484B2
A color gamut data creating device includes a locating unit, and an extracting unit. The locating unit locates characteristic points based on the measurement points on a target plane. The extracting unit extracts at least three vertices of a color gamut from among the characteristic points. The at least three vertices satisfy the conditions that a first point, which is any one of the at least three vertices, is located within a reference distance from a second point adjacent to the first point from among the at least three vertices, and that all cross products that are calculated by a vector from the first point to the second point and vectors from the first point to any characteristic points that are located within the reference distance from the first point have the same sign.
US08149478B2
In order to extract a plurality of items of image data corresponding to respective ones of a plurality of documents from scan data more accurately, an image processing apparatus is provided with a detection unit adapted to detect a plurality of image areas corresponding to the plurality of documents; a setting unit adapted to set a reference area size from sizes of the plurality of image areas; a comparison unit adapted to compare the sizes of the plurality of image areas and the reference area size; and a decision unit adapted to decide that an image area detected by the detection unit has not been detected correctly if result of the comparison by the comparison unit exceeds a preset threshold value.
US08149474B2
A control unit inputs a control signal depending on whether reading at a high resolution is selected or reading at a low resolution is selected in an image reading unit. A first delay circuit and a second delay circuit output image data that is captured by a first CCD line sensor and a second CCD line sensor to an adder after retaining the image data for a time in accordance with the input control signal. The adder generates color image data by adding the image data that is captured by the first CCD line sensor to the image data that is captured by the second CCD line sensor.
US08149472B2
An image-processing system and a method for controlling the same, including an image-scanning device obtaining image data by scanning data written on a document, an image-processing device processing the image-data item and outputting as an output-image data, and a user interface including setting conditions of the scanning and the image processing, setting an item having a limit value, so as to determine whether or not, at least one of (1) the size of the processed image data, and (2) a time period from when the scanning processing is started to the output, should be limited based on an input from the user interface, changing at least one of the conditions based on the item, performing scanning for the document based on the conditions and the changed condition, and processing image data obtained through the scanning based on the conditions and the changed condition, and outputting the output-image data.
US08149470B2
An image processing apparatus which performs image processing includes: a computing unit equipped with a plurality of arithmetic units each of which performs calculations based on a supplied microprogram; a storage unit adapted to store correspondence information between image processing and allocation of the plurality of arithmetic units to modules involved in the image processing; an acquisition unit adapted to acquire allocation information about allocations to the modules involved in image processing to be performed, from the storage unit; and a supply unit adapted to supply microprograms corresponding to processes of the modules involved in the image processing to be performed to the arithmetic units based on the acquired allocation information, wherein the storage unit stores the correspondence information according to device configuration of the image processing apparatus, and the acquisition unit acquires the allocation information according to the device configuration of the image processing apparatus.
US08149468B2
An image reading device includes a reading unit and a controller connected to the reading unit through a transmission path. The controller includes: a first clock generator which generates a first reference clock; a second clock generator which generates a second reference clock; a line synchronizer which generates a line synchronization signal based on the first reference clock; a clock transmitter which transmits the line synchronization signal and a unit clock based on the first reference clock to the reading unit; and a processor which execute a process based on the second reference clock and which is synchronized with the line synchronization signal. The reading unit includes a reading sensor which reads a document line by line based on the unit clock and the line synchronization signal.
US08149466B2
A PC generating image data divides data to be embedded into a predetermined size and arranges it in a predetermined area of a watermarking image. In the predetermined area are defined positions a-h assumed by an information dot configuring an information pattern based on the data to be embedded, and, of positions a-h, a position defined for the information pattern is assumed by a point dot. Of positions a-h, a position that is not defined for the information pattern is assumed by a linear dot. Furthermore in the predetermined area there is a position assumed by a positioning dot defining the predetermined area, and this position is assumed by a point dot. The linear dot has a geometry extending in one of the main scanning direction and vertical scanning direction of an image formation apparatus that allows higher performance in reproducibility for a line.
US08149461B2
An image processing apparatus includes: an acquisition unit; an edge detecting unit; a transparency setting unit; an image data generating unit; and an instruction unit. The acquisition unit acquires print data, the print data indicating an object image and a background image, a region of the object image being located at least partly inside a region of the background image. The edge detecting unit detects at least a part of an edge of the object image. The transparency setting unit sets an edge region that is located inside the region of the object image and that extends along the at least a part of the edge detected by the edge detecting unit, the transparency setting unit setting a transparency degree to the edge region of the object image. The image data generating unit generates image data based on the print data and on the transparency degree for the edge region of the object image. The instruction unit issues a printing instruction instructing that a plurality of color component images are printed in a plurality of different colors one on another based on the image data.
US08149460B2
An image processing apparatus, including a color conversion part configured to conduct a color conversion of image data. The color conversion part extends an information amount of an output value in the color conversion based on a first minimum information amount possible to depict a gradation in a lattice point interval of an input value in a look up table used for the color conversion.
US08149456B2
Restriction information on a total colorant amount for a medium is obtained. Patches at grid points in a color space corresponding to a plurality of colorants at which the total colorant amount falls within a restriction represented by the restriction information, and a patch at a point surrounded by the patches are generated. Color values are obtained by measuring the colors of the patches printed on the medium. It is determined based on a color prediction value between the grid points whether the measured color values are appropriate, and if so, a color value at a grid point at which the total colorant amount exceeds the restriction is estimated based on the measured color values. A color separation table is created based on the measured color values and the estimated value.
