US08285645B2
Systems and methods for placing and fulfilling orders for products that include visual content using a mobile telephone. An image processing operator provides a unique authenticator in return for a monetary payment. A user of the system provides a message that includes a digital image with an order indicator, a delivery address and the unique authenticator. The image processing operator extracts the message components and checks the validity of the authenticator. If the authenticator is valid, the image processor generates the desired image that includes at least a portion of the digital image and a portion of another digital image to produce a completed product. The completed combined image can be provided as any of a digital image, a printed image, and an image rendered on a physical object. The completed product is sent to the user or to a third party as the user directs.
US08285644B2
An image processing apparatus which is capable of easily determining, when a user causes the apparatus to scan a sheet original to carry out predetermined processing, whether or not the sheet original has been modified or edited from a document file as the source of the sheet original. A scanner section not only reads an original and generates original image data, but also recognizes information embedded in the original. Rights information concerning the original is acquired based on the information embedded in the original. A controller unit determines whether or not the original has been edited, and performs control based on contents of the rights information and a result of the determination, such that execution of processing, which is designated by a user, on the original image data is permitted or restricted.
US08285639B2
An improved location based authentication (LBA) system for detecting fraudulent transactions committed by means of misuse of payment cards is disclosed. The improved LBA system performs a series of transaction analysis and generates a fraud-score which provides an indication as whether to authorize an attempted transaction. The system is designed to increase profitability of credit card companies by reducing the accumulated losses due to fraud. In one embodiment, the system detects fraud by analyzing the behavior patterns of card holders and merchants.
US08285635B2
A computerized method of using a data processor having a memory to account for carbon flows and determine a regulatory value for a biofuel can include (i) storing, in memory, a first set of one or more carbon flow values characterizing the production and use of a biofuel derived from a first fraction of an agricultural biomass, (ii) storing, in memory, a second set of one or more carbon flow values characterizing the production and use of a co-product from a second fraction of the agricultural biomass, wherein the second fraction comprises an agricultural residue and wherein the co-product mitigates anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission, and (iii) calculating, using the data processor, a regulatory value for the biofuel from the first and second sets of carbon flow values.
US08285626B2
The invention relates to financial products that provide a return that is a function of future sales/revenues, preferably gross sales/revenue, over a specified period of time. One embodiment of a method for creating such a financial product includes providing standard forms to an issuer and underwriter and standard terms to an issuer and investors. The terms to the issuer include providing capital to the issuer in exchange for a return that is a function of future sales over a specified period of time. The process further includes creating instruments representing investment in the financial product. The process creates the instruments in sufficient numbers and in appropriate denominations to facilitate trading in the financial product.
US08285625B2
The present invention relates to synthetic funds for purchase by investors. A structured note is structured to provide customized equity returns/exposure. Terms of each structured note may be specified by the purchaser and the structured notes may be unsecured liabilities of the obligor, e.g., there are no underlying assets upon which the structure note is based. Thus, there will be no limits on the use of structured note proceeds and management of assets and liabilities will be left entirely to the obligor's discretion. Structured note payment obligations may be related to the performance of an objective valuation, but structured note holders will depend on the good credit of the obligor for payment.
US08285620B1
A system, method, and computer-readable medium are provided for managing a portfolio using financial instrument rankings. A processor determines portfolio weights for financial instruments based on a ranking associated with each instrument, a cutoff rank, and a risk multiplier.
US08285613B1
Method and system of recommending an action to a consumer is provided. The method includes, applying selection criteria to credit data to determine recommended actions for the consumer; determining if any of the recommended actions are frivolous; determining if any of the recommended actions are valid; and comparing the recommended actions to pre-set parameters set by the consumer to determine if the consumer should be notified of any of the recommended actions, if at least one recommended action is non-frivolous and valid. The system includes a processing module for processing user action requests, received from a user, in a batch; and a communications module for sending the user action requests from a system provider to a database; wherein the communications module sends an indication of results or a notice of a lack of results to the user.
US08285611B2
A method for transporting cargo using a truck is provided. Preferably, the method is used in connection with full truckload operations. The method generally includes powering up a communications module residing within a cab of the truck. The communications module comprises a vehicle navigation system, a modem for receiving telecommunications signals, a processing unit for associating instructions for cargo delivery locations with geo-positioning coordinates, and a user interface. The method further includes receiving a cargo delivery data set at the communications module. The data set is sent from a host trucking management system. The data set provides at least a first cargo delivery location for the driver. The method then includes the driver acknowledging receipt of the first cargo delivery location through the user interface. Acknowledgment of receipt of the first cargo delivery location causes a signal to be sent from the communications module to the host trucking management system. The method also includes driving the truck and cargo to the first cargo delivery location. Upon arrival, the host trucking management system is informed. This is done by sending a first arrival signal from the communications module.
US08285604B1
The present invention relates to shopping assistance solutions, and in particular, to methods and systems for maintaining purchase records, creating shopping lists, and comparing merchant pricing. The user experience in performing shopping functions is simplified and enhanced over existing methods.
US08285603B2
A dynamic, fully-integrated computer-server-based platform (platform) provides users with tools for making informed decisions about available energy upgrades and for implementing desired home energy upgrades. In various embodiments, the platform provides various combinations of: (i) a variety of educational and assessment tools, including a Virtual Home Energy Audit (VHEA), which provides users with a customized home energy-savings plan detailing the financial and/or environmental impact of each upgrade alternative on a relative and absolute basis, (ii) product selection and purchase, (iii) access to arrangement and scheduling of in-home services through a network of professionals, (iv) financing solutions, and (v) a data registry that verifies completed upgrades and associated savings. The platform takes a holistic view of energy solutions, and provides tools across a broad spectrum of energy-related products and/or services.
US08285602B1
This disclosure describes systems and methods for recommending bundles of items to users. A bundle can include an item that is substitutable for an item selected by a user and one or more related items that complement the substitutable item. For example, if a user has selected a wireless device on a page of a network application, a bundle recommendation can be provided that includes a similar wireless device and related accessories, a compatible service plan, and the like. Recommending bundles of items can be beneficial for providing users with access to items that they might like to purchase together, without requiring users to separately find each item.
US08285592B2
A method and system for processing a financial transaction using an enhanced payment card through a multi-party payment card interchange network are provided. An authorization request message generated at a point of sale (POS) device associated with a merchant is received at a computer associated with the interchange network. The authorization request message includes a card identifier and relates to a transaction initiated by the cardholder with the merchant using the enhanced payment card. The transaction is electronically identified as involving the enhanced payment card by matching the received card identifier to a list of card identifiers stored within a database. A product code identifying the transaction as an enhanced payment card transaction is electronically added to the authorization request message. The merchant is instructed to transmit to the interchange computer an addendum file including enhanced transaction data for the enhanced payment card transaction.
US08285584B2
A system, method and program product are provided for defining an assortment for use in an operative execution system. The method includes assigning a plurality of articles to the assortment for one or more article validity periods, assigning a plurality of stores to the assortment for one or more store validity periods, and releasing the assortment to the operative execution system. Once released to the operative execution system, the articles and the stores are automatically added to and dropped from the assortment based on the validity periods.
US08285575B2
An inference engine is configured to rank a plurality of clients using at least one parameter associated with each of the plurality of clients. The engine includes a user interface configured to enable a user to select the at least one parameter, a knowledge collection module configured to collect client information based on the at least one parameter, and a calculation module configured to receive the collected information and calculate a client listing using a parameter-based cost function.
US08285570B2
The invention relates to a system capable of electronically matching transportation reservations with existing, new, or potential reservations, so that the orders can be combined, the reservation shared between requesting parties, utilization and management of transportation provider inventory and costs can be optimized, and savings opportunities for customers may be provided. Costs may also be divided proportionally based on a combination of distance and/or time traveled, or other cost accrual methods per riding party, and split/billed electronically via the reservation system. The system can operate as a standalone reservation repository or in concert with one or many existing reservation providers.
US08285563B2
Methods and systems for adjudicating claims in health services environments are presented. An exemplary method for processing service provider claims for payment includes scheduling appointments with service providers, receiving claims from the service providers, determining whether at least one scheduled appointment corresponds with at least one received claim and determining that at least one scheduled appointment has not been identified as corresponding to at least one received claim within a predetermined period of time. Optionally, the method includes presenting the particular received claim for payment when at least one of the scheduled appointments corresponds to the particular received claim.
US08285559B1
A method for providing personalized medical care is described herein. The membership provider provides access to qualified members to highly qualified healthcare facilities. A dedicated staff person is available for the members, along with a selection of preferred services to make the health care facility visit more pleasant. The membership provider will then facilitate a meeting between the healthcare facility and the member to encourage and solicit a donation by the member to the healthcare facility.
US08285557B2
An audio data stream from a processing system may be buffered to allow low power states in the processing system during audio playback. An audio buffer may be provided external to the processing system and between the processing system and an audio codec. The audio buffer may also shift to an alternate audio data interface mode when the processing system is in the low power state. Of course, many alternatives, variations, and modifications are possible without departing from this embodiment.
US08285555B2
A method, medium, and system scalably encoding/decoding audio/speech. The method includes splitting an input signal into a low frequency band signal that is lower than a predetermined frequency and a high frequency band signal that is higher than the predetermined frequency, scalably encoding the split low frequency band signal into a core layer and one or more extension layers and then decoding the encoded core layer and the encoded extension layers, generating an error signal by using the split low frequency band signal and a decoded signal of the encoded core layer and the encoded extension layers, and encoding the error signal and the high frequency band signal into a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement layer and a bandwidth extension layer.
US08285553B2
A computerized information system and computer readable apparatus for use in a transport apparatus. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises a computer readable medium having at least one computer program disposed thereon, the at least one program being configured to facilitate ad hoc communication with a personal electronic device of a user, and provide the user with requested information (such as for example direction to a desired business or other entity). At least a portion of the information is obtained via a wireless link with a remote server.
US08285551B2
A network apparatus useful for providing directions and other information to a user of a client device in wireless communication therewith. In one embodiment, the apparatus includes one or more wireless interfaces and a network interface for communication with a server. User speech inputs in the form of digitized representations are received by the apparatus and used by the server as the basis for retrieving information including graphical representations of location or entities that the user wishes to find.
US08285550B2
A method to generate dialogue manager (DM) is provided, in which a plurality DMs with the same purpose but having different dialogue acts is automatically generated according to a DM designed by a designer. An automatic aiding tool facilitates the design of a dialogue flow and the adjustment of DM rules, and also helps a system designer to find out potential problems in the original DM. The method adopts the current DM combined with a user simulation technique and further employs a specially designed scoring function, so as to automatically generate a plurality of new DMs. The new DMs achieve the same dialogue purpose as the original DM, but differ from the original DM in system acts and responses during the dialogue process. The dialogue flow of the dialogue system is enhanced, and meanwhile, the design and improvement of the DM are also accelerated.
US08285544B2
The invention relates to a method for generating a vector quantization dictionary for a signal, of the type comprising a statistical analysis of driving vectors representing the signal determining a finite set of code vectors which are proxies for the said driving vectors, wherein the method also comprises modifying the said finite set of code vectors to impose a minimum distance between the modified code vectors two by two, these modified code vectors forming the said dictionary.
US08285534B1
A programmable circuit and emulation system is used to emulate the behavior of analog and mixed mode circuit. The emulation preserves circuit electrical behavior while operating at a lower frequency than an intended frequency of the original circuit. The emulation system comprises an emulation hardware that includes control circuit, function groups, on chip function generation circuit, on chip measurement circuit and on chip characterization circuit and all are connected through programmable interconnect. Each function group comprises of transistor arrays or programmable passive devices, each transistor array or programmable passive device is connected to others through local programmable interconnect. Each transistor array or programmable passive device can be programmed to match the behavior of a transistor or passive device in the circuit to be emulated.
US08285531B2
A method of optimizing a drilling tool assembly including inputting well data into an optimization system, the optimization system having an experience data set and an artificial neural network. The method further including comparing the well data to the experience data set and developing an initial drilling tool assembly based on the comparing the well data to the experience data, wherein the drilling tool assembly is developed using the artificial neural network. Additionally, the method including simulating the initial drilling tool assembly in the optimization system and creating result data in the optimization system based on the simulating.
US08285511B2
A method and an apparatus for estimating temperature are provided for estimating a temperature of a test point in a space with an air conditioner. In the method, a first and a second sensor device are deployed in the space, wherein the second sensor device is deployed at the test point. Then, state parameters and temperature transformation functions are defined according to temperatures detected by the first and the second sensor devices and a state of the air conditioner during a predetermined time period. After the second sensor device is removed, a current state of the air conditioner is determined by reference temperatures detected by the first sensor device and the state parameters. One of the temperature transformation functions is selected according to the current state, and a current temperature of the test point is estimated by using the selected temperature transformation function and the reference temperatures.
US08285501B2
A battery pack includes: a plurality of batteries; a detection section to measure a voltage of each of the plurality of batteries to obtain a voltage variation of each of the plurality of batteries at different lapse times and compare the obtained voltage variations to thus detect whether at least one of the plurality of batteries has been replaced; and a controller to disable, when a result of the detection by the detection section indicates that at least one of the plurality of batteries has been replaced, a use of the plurality of batteries.
US08285498B2
The subject of the invention is a method for detection and automatic identification of defects in rolling bearings applicable in diagnosing rolling bearings and detecting damage in a very early stage of its occurrence.The inventive method in which the vibrations of a bearing in operation are measured, the measured analogue signals are converted to digital data which are filtered and next shock pulses are detected, whereupon defects present in the tested bearing or bearings are identified, characterized in that the detection of shock pulses is done using shock pulse likelihood ratio (Ms).
US08285492B2
Systems and methods are provided for calibrating emission data or other information signals collected during a polymerase chain reaction (PCR), amplification reaction, assay, process, or other reaction. Calibration of multiple detectable materials can be achieved during a single cycle or run, or during a plurality of runs of the reaction. A reading from every well, container, or other support region of a sample support does not have to be taken. Interpolation can be used to determine values for emission data or other information signals that were not taken, or are unknown, using detected emission data, or other detected information signals. By calibrating the detected emission data and the interpolated data, a more accurate reading of emission data or information signal can be obtained.
US08285490B2
A method of deriving blood perfusion indices for a region of interest (ROI) of a subject, comprising the steps of administering a contrast agent to the subject during a dynamic imaging scan, converting signal intensity data from raw images of the scan into contrast agent concentration data, deriving parameters from the contrast agent concentration data using at least one transport function that accounts for delay and dispersion of the contrast agent, and calculating the blood perfusion indices from the derived parameters.
US08285482B2
Disclosed is a mobile robot and method generating a path of the mobile robot, capable of quickly moving the mobile robot to a location at which the mobile robot is able to detect a docking station. A first configuration space map is built by expanding an obstacle area including an obstacle by a first thickness, and a second configuration space map is built by expanding the obstacle area by a second thickness which is less than the first thickness. A path is generated by sequentially using the first configuration space map and the second configuration space map.
US08285474B2
Enabled is to lighten the load on a rider and to make the rider senses a turning state at the turning time of a transverse two-wheeled vehicle. A transverse acceleration (a) at a turn controlling time is detected to make a next inclination control in accordance with the magnitude of the acceleration. (a) In the case of an acceleration (a)≦a predetermined threshold (a0), the vehicle is left uninclined to prevent the vehicle body from being unnecessarily inclined and rocked against a small centrifugal force, thereby to improve the riding comfortableness. (b) In the case of the acceleration (a)>the threshold (a0), a riding portion is inclined such that the inclination angle θ1 may become the larger as the acceleration (a) becomes the higher. This can reduce the load on the rider against the centrifugal force. (c) As the acceleration (a) becomes the higher, the riding portion is so inclined the more as to increase the difference between the balanced inclination angle of the vehicle body and the inclination angle of the riding portion, so that the rider can bodily sense the increase/decrease of the centrifugal force.
US08285473B1
A method and apparatus for predicting traffic for analyzing runway incursions. A state for each of a plurality of aircraft is identified to form a plurality of identified states. A set of aircraft is identified from the plurality of aircraft based on the plurality of identified states to form a set of identified aircraft. A number of potential runway incursions is predicted using the set of identified aircraft.
US08285472B2
A navigation apparatus acquires a traffic event and accordingly determines whether or not to change a guiding route to a destination. Based on an affirmative determination, the navigation apparatus displays icons corresponding to traffic events causing the affirmative determination near a road containing the traffic event in a map image in a representation mode for an image of the traffic event different from a normal representation mode assigned to the traffic event. In this manner, the navigation apparatus changes the guiding route to the destination dynamically depending on information about traffic events on roads and allows a user to recognize a cause of changing the guiding route.
US08285469B2
The present invention has its object to provide a control apparatus for an internal combustion engine including a variable valve operating mechanism which is capable of accurately and effectively identifying an abnormality-occurring cylinder during operation while preventing the deterioration of a catalyst. A fuel injection valve which is capable of injecting fuel for each cylinder is provided. Variable valve operating mechanisms which are capable of halting the operation of the intake and exhaust valves in the closed state for each cylinder are provided. An abnormality evaluation index value is acquired during the operation of the internal combustion engine and, based on the abnormality evaluation index value, an abnormality which has occurred in at least one cylinder in the internal combustion engine is detected. When the abnormality is detected, a cylinder halting to perform the halting of fuel supply and the halting of the valve operation in the closed state is executed with a first partial cylinder made up of at least two cylinders as the target. After the cylinder halting, with the cylinder to be halted being changed, a cylinder halting is executed with a second partial cylinder made up of at least one cylinder as the target. Based on the change in the abnormality evaluation index value associated with the changing of the cylinder to be halted, the abnormality-occurring cylinder is identified.
US08285468B2
Embodiments of the invention can provide systems and methods for using a combustion dynamics tuning algorithm with a multi-can combustor. According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for controlling a gas turbine engine with an engine model can be implemented for an engine comprising multiple cans. The method can include obtaining operating frequency information associated with multiple cans of the engine. In addition, the method can include determining variation between operating frequency information of at least two cans. Furthermore, the method can include determining a median value based at least in part on the variation. Moreover, the method can include determining whether the median value exceeds at least one operating threshold. The method can also include implementing at least one engine control action to modify at least one of the operating frequencies if at least one operating threshold is exceeded.
US08285466B2
An airbrake reservoir lock system for an airbrake system of a vehicle is provided. The vehicle has an electronic control module. The airbrake reservoir lock system comprises a primary air reservoir, and a first airbrake reservoir lock. The primary air reservoir has an input port and an output port. The primary air reservoir stores an amount of pressurized air. The first airbrake reservoir lock is disposed in fluid communication with the output port of the primary air reservoir. The first airbrake reservoir lock has a valve portion and an electrical actuator. The valve portion has an open position and a closed position. The electrical actuator positions the valve portion of the first airbrake reservoir lock between the open position and the closed position based upon an output of the electronic control module.
US08285462B2
A hybrid transmission is operative to transfer torque between an input member and torque machines and an output member in one of a plurality of fixed gear and continuously variable operating range states through selective application of torque transfer clutches. The torque machines are operative to transfer power from an energy storage device. A method for controlling the hybrid transmission includes operating the hybrid transmission in one of the operating range states, determining a first set of internal system constraints on output torque transferred to the output member, determining a second set of internal system constraints on the output torque transferred to the output member, and determining an allowable output torque range that is achievable within the first set of internal system constraints and the second set of internal system constraints on the output torque transferred to the output member.
US08285459B2
In a route planning system and method for agricultural working machines, a defined working width is assigned to the agricultural working machines to generate driving routes in a territory, and dynamic adaptation of the planned driving route is carried out thereby ensuring that the driving route to be covered is flexibly adaptable to changing external conditions such as driving around obstacles, thereby largely relieving the operator of the agricultural working machine of the task of performing laborious steering maneuvers.
US08285458B2
A method is provided for determining a current operating mode of a machine. The method includes receiving data relating to a plurality of machine parameters and performing initial comparisons between the received data and previously stored reference data for each machine parameter. The method also includes determining an operating mode indicated by each initial comparison. The method further includes selecting a current operating mode from the operating modes indicated by the initial comparisons.
US08285455B2
A seat belt warning device includes a seat belt restraining and releasing a passenger seated on a seat for a vehicle, a load detecting device including two load sensors that are provided at a rear portion of the seat, a warning member warning a passenger to fasten the seat belt, and a controlling portion determining one of an unoccupied-seat recognition mode, a passenger seating recognition mode, and a luggage recognition mode. The controlling portion performs a first transition process in which the unoccupied-seat recognition mode is shifted to the luggage recognition mode and in which the luggage recognition mode is shifted to the unoccupied-seat recognition mode. The controlling portion performs a second transition process in which the unoccupied-seat recognition mode is shifted to the passenger seating recognition mode and in which the passenger seating recognition mode is shifted to the unoccupied-seat recognition mode.
US08285446B2
An aftermarket steering wheel control includes a housing that includes a user-operable switch and a control module. The control module is configured to determine whether the user-operable switch has been operated, generate a data frame corresponding to a control signal for operating a vehicle component, and transmit the data frame to a receiver of a control signal interface. Another aftermarket steering wheel control includes a housing with a user-operable switch and a circuit with an output line. The output line is connected to the switch and further connected to a control signal interface. Operation of the user-operable switch changes a resistance on the at least one output line, and the control signal interface is configured to convert the resistance to a control signal for operating a vehicle component.
US08285445B2
An electronic control unit and on-vehicle devices are each connected to a common power supply line via a communication module. The power supply line has positive and negative electrode side core wires. Each communication module is provided with a connection unit and a signal processor. The connection unit has a transformer having two pairs of input-output terminals, a first pair of which is respectively connected to the positive and negative electrode side core wires. The signal processor is connected to the second pair of input-output terminals of the transformer. The signal processor converts analog signals from the power supply line and outputted from the second pair of input-output terminals, converts externally inputted digital signals into analog signals and transmits the converted analog signals to the second pair of input-output terminals so that the converted analog signals are superimposed on the power supply line voltage.
US08285441B2
A diagnostic tool for a vehicle, includes a signal translator communicating with the vehicle in at least one protocol, an input device for inputting information, a processor controlling a software according to the input information from the input device and communication with the vehicle from the signal translator, the processor controlling a reception of diagnostic data of the vehicle through the signal translator, the processor receiving a selected information of a user and configuration of the diagnostic tool through the input device and correlating the configuration information with the user information, the processor processing the received diagnostic data according to the selected configuration information corresponding to the selected user by the input unit, a memory storing a software controlled by the processor, the memory storing the configuration information according to the corresponding user information, and a display unit receiving and displaying diagnostic information according to the selected stored configuration information according to the user.
US08285434B2
In the hybrid-type construction machine, the control unit (60) includes a drive distributing unit (60-8) and an output condition calculating unit (60-9). The output condition calculating unit (60-9) calculates output conditions inclusive of an output setting of the electric storage device determined from a state of charge of the electric storage device (58), an output setting of the engine determined from a number of revolutions of the engine (50), a hydraulic load required value indicative of drive power required by the oil pressure generating unit, and an electric load required value indicative of electric power required by the electric drive unit. The drive distributing unit (60-8) determines output values of the electric drive unit and the hydraulic drive unit based on the calculated output conditions.
US08285429B2
A system is provided for controlling a series of vehicles. In certain embodiments, the system includes a self-analysis/estimation system configured to control a first parameter of the series of vehicles to impart a resulting changing in a second parameter of the series of vehicles. The self-analysis/estimation system is configured to estimate a third parameter based on the first and second parameters, wherein the third parameter comprises weight, weight distribution, tractive effort, grade, or a combination thereof, associated with the series of vehicles.
US08285427B2
A flight deck communication and display system (100) for displaying a modified flight plan transmitted to an aircraft (224) is described including a processor (104) adapted to receive (i) data representative of a current aircraft flight plan (218, 228) and (ii) a textual message representative of the modified flight plan (218′, 228′) and operable, in response thereto, to supply a flight plan display command, and a modified flight plan display command, and comparing the textual clearance message with factors affecting aircraft safety to supply an alert message display command (204). A display (108) coupled to receive the flight plan display command, the modified flight plan display command, the alert message display command is operable, in response thereto, to substantially simultaneously display (308) (i) an image representative of the current aircraft flight plan, (ii) the textual clearance message, (iii) the modified flight plan, and (iv) an alert message indicating whether there are any safety concerns related to the textual air traffic modified flight plan.
US08285426B2
The disclosed embodiments concerns a process for limiting the control surface steering angle of an aircraft, including operations to: determine the maximum permissible steering angle in function of the speed of the aircraft, detect a yaw configuration of the aircraft following a first order for control surface deflection at a maximum steering angle and a first direction, apply a limit to the maximum permissible steering angle. The disclosed embodiments also concern a system for implementing the process.
US08285418B2
A profilometer having a guide beam for providing translational movement of substrates in a Y axis relative to a stylus. A first stage receives a first substrate, where the first stage is slidably mounted to the guide beam. The first stage is associated with a first motor for providing independent translational movement for the first stage in an X axis relative to the stylus. A second stage receives a second substrate, where the second stage is slidably mounted to the guide beam. The second stage is associated with a second motor for providing independent translational movement for the second stage in the X axis relative to the stylus, where the first stage and the second stage move together in the Y axis as the guide beam moves in the Y axis, and move independently of one another in the X axis. A robot loads the substrates onto and unloads the substrates off of the first stage and the second stage. A controller directs the robot to load the second substrate onto the second stage, while simultaneously directing the first stage and the guide beam to scan the first substrate on the first stage in the X and Y axes under the stylus, thereby generating profile readings of the first substrate on the first stage.
US08285400B2
There is provided a digital controller which can reduce a variation in output voltage as compared to the conventional digital controller at the time of abrupt changes in load and in input of a power amplifier. The digital controller is built in the power amplifier for supplying an output voltage vo to a load and is equipped with a manipulated variable calculating unit which detects the output voltage vo to calculate a manipulated variable ξ1 and a signal generating unit which converts the manipulated variable ξ1 into a signal for making the power amplifier operate. A feedforward function from an equivalent disturbance qy caused by the variation in the load is replaced by a feedback function from the output voltage vo and the manipulated variable ξ1, thereby allowing a transfer characteristic from the disturbance qy to the output voltage vo to result in a quadratic differential characteristic. Consequently, the variation in output voltage can be reduced as compared to the conventional controller at the time of the abrupt changes in the load and in the input of the power amplifier.
US08285396B2
An electrical lead, for implantation in an animal, is compatible with an MRI scanner. The electrical lead has a first plurality of coiled insulated wires forming an outer layer of conductors that has a first inductance and a first capacitance, which act as a first parallel resonator tuned to a Larmor frequency of tissue in the animal. The lead may have a second plurality of coiled insulated wires forming an inner layer of conductors within the outer layer of conductors. The second plurality of coiled insulated wires has a second inductance and a second capacitance that act as a second parallel resonator tuned to the Larmor frequency. Those parallel resonators mitigate signals at the Larmor frequency from traveling along the respective coil. An electrically conductive layer extends around the inner and/or outer layer of conductors, and a layer of a biologically compatible material forms the electrical lead's exterior surface.
US08285386B2
A system and method for establishing communication among a control device and an implantable medical device. The implantable medical device transmits to the control device identification information including a unique identification number associated with the implantable medical device and/or a current version of application software currently being utilized by the implantable medical device. Based on the extracted identification information, the control device correlates thereto a version of the application software from among the multiple versions of application software associated with the control device that is compatible with the recognized version of the application software currently being utilized by the implantable medical device.
US08285375B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides a lead electrode assembly for use with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator subcutaneously implanted outside the ribcage between the third and twelfth ribs comprising the electrode.
US08285374B2
The disclosure includes methods and systems for treating ventricular arrhythmias. Embodiments include an implantable cardiac device or system including a determining module that determines a value of a parameter indicative of a rate of an intrinsic pacemaker of a heart of a patient experiencing fast ventricular arrhythmia (FVA) and a delivery module, programmed to deliver therapy for ventricular arrhythmias to a patient. Some methods include determining a value of a parameter indicative of a rate of an intrinsic pacemaker of a heart of a patient experiencing an FVA; if the value indicates the rate is about equal to or higher than a threshold, delivering a first therapy to the patient for terminating the FVA, and if the value indicates the rate is lower than the threshold, delivering a second therapy, different from the first therapy, to the patient for terminating the FVA.
US08285371B2
An apparatus comprises a first implantable sensor produces a first electrical sensor signal representative of cardiac depolarization events of a heart of a subject, a second implantable sensor that produces a second electrical sensor signal representative of hemodynamic function of the heart, a signal analyzer circuit, and an arrhythmia discrimination circuit. The signal analyzer circuit detects an arrhythmic event from the first sensor signal and calculates hemodynamic stability in response to the arrhythmic event detection using the second sensor signal. The arrhythmia discrimination circuit selects, according to a calculated hemodynamic stability produced by the signal analyzer circuit, an arrhythmia discrimination algorithm from among a plurality of candidate arrhythmia discrimination algorithms that are implementable by the arrhythmia discrimination circuit, classifies the detected arrhythmia using the selected arrhythmia discrimination algorithm, and provides the arrhythmia classification to a user or process.
US08285368B2
An endoscopic swept-source Fourier Domain optical coherence tomographic system (FDOCT system) for imaging of tissue structure includes a Fourier Domain mode locked (FDML), high speed, narrow line-width, wavelength swept source, an OCT interferometer having a sample arm, a reference arm, a detection arm, and a source arm coupled to the swept source, an endoscopic probe coupled to the sample arm, and a data processing circuit coupled to the detection arm. The swept source includes a long optic fiber functioning as a cavity, a high optical gain lasing module, and a tunable narrow bandwidth bandpass filter for wavelength selection combined to form a unidirectional ring laser cavity, where the tunable narrow bandwidth bandpass filter is driven synchronously with the optical round-trip time of a propagating light wave in the cavity.
US08285366B2
Devices, methods, and systems related to imaging and ablation are disclosed. Devices methods, and systems are disclosed herein that include a local bypass, one or more first energy sources configured to function in, or proximal to, a lumen of the local bypass and to provide energy configured to elicit one or more image responses associated with the local bypass lumen; one or more sensors configured to capture the one or more image responses, control circuitry coupled to the one or more sensors, one or more second energy source responsive to the control circuitry, and configured to provide ablation energy to a target area in the local bypass lumen during the expected transit time of the one or more targets through the target area.
US08285363B2
A marker for use with a surgical navigation system for tracking the tissue with which the marker is associated. The overall dimensions of the mark is such that it is shaped to be disposed below the skin of the patient in which the marker is implanted. The marker has a stem or a spike that allows the marker to be implanted in hard tissue such as bone. A head, containing navigation system components is located above the stem or spike. Once the procedure is completed the marker is removed from the patient by breaking the head free from the stem Alternatively the head may be rotated to cause the whole of the marker to break free from the bone in which the marker is implanted.
US08285362B2
An improved catheter is provided. The catheter may include a deflectable member located at a distal end of the catheter. The deflectable member may comprise an ultrasound transducer array. The catheter may include a lumen extending from a proximal end of the catheter to the distal end. The lumen may be used to deliver an interventional device to a point distal to the distal end of the catheter. The deflectable member may be selectively deflectable in a pivot-like manner through an arc of at least 90 degrees. In embodiments where the deflectable member includes an ultrasound transducer array, the ultrasound transducer array may be operable to image both when aligned with the catheter and when pivoted relative to the catheter. When pivoted relative to the catheter, the ultrasound transducer array may have a field of view distal to the distal end of the catheter.
US08285357B2
A region of interest is identified by user selection. Multiple regions of interest may be identified. An image processing region is identified by adding additional spatial locations to a region of interest. The image processing region of interest is then used for image processing.
US08285356B2
An adherent device to monitor a patient for an extended period comprises a breathable tape. The breathable tape comprises a porous material with an adhesive coating to adhere the breathable tape to a skin of the patient. At least one electrode is affixed to the breathable tape and capable of electrically coupling to a skin of the patient. A printed circuit board is connected to the breathable tape to support the printed circuit board with the breathable tape when the tape is adhered to the patient. Electronic components electrically are connected to the printed circuit board and coupled to the at least one electrode to measure physiologic signals of the patient. A breathable cover and/or an electronics housing is disposed over the circuit board and electronic components and connected to at least one of the electronics components, the printed circuit board or the breathable tape.
US08285352B2
According to embodiments, techniques for using continuous wavelet transforms and spectral transforms to identify pulse rates from a photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal are disclosed. According to embodiments, candidate pulse rates of the PPG signal may be identified from a wavelet transformed PPG signal and a spectral transformed PPG signal. A pulse rate may be determined from the candidate pulse rates by selecting one of the candidate pulse rates or by combining the candidate pulse rates. According to embodiments, a spectral transform of a PPG signal may be performed to identify a frequency region associated with a pulse rate of the PPG signal. A continuous wavelet transform of the PPG signal at a scale corresponding to the identified frequency region may be performed to determine a pulse rate from the wavelet transformed signal.
US08285336B2
A wireless handset for use in a peer-to-peer voice communications system comprising: a display; a keyboard comprising multifunctional keys capable of entering numeric or alphabetic characters depending on a number of key presses, said keyboard being arranged to enter contact information into a user interface displayed on said display, select contacts on the user interface, and initiate a packet data voice call with a contact; a microprocessor arranged to execute embedded client software, wherein the client software is arranged to establish a packet data voice call over the network and encode speech information as individually addressed packets; and a radio communication device arranged to transmit said individually addressed packets as radio signals from said wireless handset to a network.
US08285328B2
Drug pump devices may be remotely controlled and/or reprogrammed by a smartphone or other wireless handheld device.
US08285324B2
The disclosure provides a module for use in a wireless electronic device and being removable therefrom. In one embodiment, the module includes an antenna connector for connecting the antenna of the wireless terminal to the module, and transferring radio frequency signals over a wireless interface. The module also includes a first storage means storing user authentication information for use in authenticating a user of the wireless terminal to a wireless cellular network, and a second storage means storing communications code for processing information to be transferred over the wireless interface. The module further includes a processor arranged to execute the communications code in order to process information for communicating between the wireless terminal and the cellular network via the antenna connector.
US08285321B2
Techniques for using virtual noise figure for various functions in a wireless communication network are described. A virtual noise figure is an indication of a virtual noise level at a receiver, which may be higher than an actual noise level at the receiver. In an aspect, virtual noise figure may be used for serving base station selection. A terminal may receive information indicative of a virtual noise figure for each of at least one base station. The terminal may select a serving base station based on the virtual noise figure for each base station. The terminal may send data to the serving base station at a rate selected based on an actual noise figure for the serving base station. In other aspects, virtual noise figure may be used for interference management and/or power control.
US08285314B2
An electronic device and a method for confirming a short message of the electronic device include setting variables to confirm the short message received by the network, enabling a timer, and assigning the variables. The confirming method includes acquiring values of the variables, and sending a DBM including the short message to the network and waiting for an acknowledge DBM, if the electronic device attempts to access the network and needs to send the short message. The confirmation method further includes queue up the DBM in the electronic device, if the electronic device does not attempt to access the network, the duration of the timer has not elapsed, and needs to send the short message.
US08285313B2
A messaging method using a mobile user terminal, the method including the steps of: creating, at the mobile user terminal, at least one graphical messaging symbol adapted to convey a meaning to a message recipient; preparing message content including at least one of the created graphical messaging symbols using the mobile terminal; and sending the message to a recipient via a communication network.
US08285311B2
A hybrid cordless telephone system allows a user to place or receive a call over either a data network or a PSTN network. In one aspect, a system router and PSTN unit are coupled with a communications manager to avoid extensive redesign of router components and PSTN components while providing a wireless user with data network and PSTN connectivity. In another aspect, the system router of the hybrid cordless telephone system includes a communications manager configured to provide termination of data network calls or PSTN calls at the system router. Accordingly, a plurality of handsets can each access the system router to place or receive calls from the data or PSTN networks.
US08285310B1
Methods and systems respectively provide for receiving a wireless signal coverage map request from a wireless device. A map is generated in accordance with the request and provided to the wireless device. The map includes symbology keyed to wireless signal services within a particular geographic area. Such symbology can be indicative of recommended areas and travel routes having particular types of wireless signal coverage, regions of poor or non-existent wireless signal service, areas presently experiencing heavy wireless signal usage, and so on. In this way, a wireless device user can seek to access specific wireless services and/or avoid suspect trouble regions within a geographic area.
US08285303B2
An area specifying apparatus, which is portable, includes a position acquiring unit that acquires positions of respective radio communication apparatuses through radio communication therewith, a distance measuring unit that measures distances from the area specifying apparatus to the respective radio communication apparatuses while the area specifying apparatus is being moved, a position calculating unit that calculates positions of the area specifying apparatus based on three or more of the positions of the respective radio communication apparatuses and corresponding three or more of the distances from the area specifying apparatus to the respective radio communication apparatuses, and a position transmitting unit that transmits the positions of the area specifying apparatus to each of the radio communication apparatuses so that each of the radio communication apparatuses can specify a physical area enclosed by a line connecting the positions of the area specifying apparatus as a specified area.
US08285301B2
A communication terminal capable of obtaining assist data without making a configuration of an information providing device for transmitting the assist data complicated is provided. Processing performed by a communication terminal includes the steps of: storing an obtained identifier in a buffer area for a base station for which assist data should be obtained and a buffer area for a standby base station; obtaining an identifier of a wireless base station from a received signal and storing the identifier in a RAM; storing an identifier of a wireless base station after change in the buffer area for a standby base station; and storing the identifier stored in the buffer area for a standby base station in the buffer area for a base station for which assist data should be obtained when the identifier stored in the buffer area for a standby base station is not stored in the buffer area for a base station for which assist data should be obtained.
US08285298B2
System(s) and method(s) are provided for managing network capacity in a wireless network that serves various traffic flows with disparate quality of service requirements. Management is based on multi-stage scheduling in frequency-time domain. A first scheduling stage generates an allocation of radio resources that minimizes inter-cell interference amongst a plurality of base stations. Based on the first-stage allocation of radio resources, a second scheduling stage computes flow capacity for a set of radio resources specific to a base station, and acquires guaranteed-bit-rate (GBR) and non-guaranteed GBR traffic flows. GBR traffic flows are matched to computed flow capacity to generate an allocation of frequency-time resources. In second scheduling stage, GBR traffic flows are scheduled based at least in part on allocated resources and priority queuing. Based on allocation(s) in first and second scheduling stages, a third scheduling stage schedules non-GBR traffic flows based at least in part on fair scheduling.
US08285292B1
The invention relates to a remote unit for use in conjunction with a communications network. The remote unit includes a network interface which provides an interface between a premises communication system and a first network. The interface permits the premises communication system to receive at least one service over the first network. The remote unit also includes a detector for detecting a cross-connection to a second network which is also connected to the premises communication system.
US08285280B2
A location updating method and apparatus for a mobile terminal in a radio network is provided for preventing a location updating request of a mobile terminal from being rejected by a network with an invalid cause of a rejection. The location updating method for a mobile terminal includes receiving a location updating reject message from a first network, the location updating reject message including a cause of a rejection indicating that the mobile terminal is not registered with the first network, checking a first network information of the first network, determining whether the first network information differs from a second network information of a second network, maintaining, when the first and second network information are different from each other, an operational state of the mobile terminal as a valid state, and requesting, when the home network is discovered, the home network for a location updating.
US08285270B2
A base station control portion 200 selects one or plural signals from signals received by plural settable communication paths in accordance with the state of the wave. A wireless communication apparatus 110 communicates with a wireless terminal 300 and a wired communication network. When the wireless communication apparatus 110 receives a request for upgrading software from a network management device 250, the wireless communication apparatus 110 controls the state of the transmission wave of a wireless interface so as to switch a communication path in which communication services are being provided to another wireless communication apparatus 110 without blackouts, rewrites the set software to software having been received through a wired interface in advance, returns the state of the transmission wave of the wireless interface and upgrades software without blackouts of the supply of communication services to the wireless terminal 300.
US08285254B2
A femtocell in electronic communication with different user equipments includes a setting unit, a subscriber identity module (SIM), a signal processing unit and a monitoring unit. The setting unit sets and establishes a monitoring area to monitor all items of user equipment. The SIM stores a whitelist which includes a plurality of identification (ID) codes corresponding to a plurality of items of user equipment. When the ID code of an item of user equipment is not within the whitelist of the SIM, the signal processing unit controls the monitoring unit to establish and monitor the position of the user equipment to determine whether the user equipment is within the predetermined monitoring area.
US08285246B2
An electronic implant is designed to detect at least one technical or physiological patient parameter, and has an exhaustible power source. The electronic implant also has an integrated mobile wireless antenna, a low-current mobile wireless modem with a low maximum transmission power, a low-current mobile wireless field-strength-measuring unit, and a control unit connected to the field-strength-measuring unit and to the mobile wireless modem. The control unit triggers access to a mobile wireless network as a function of the transmission power needed for data transmission by the low-current mobile wireless modem, taking into account a mobile wireless field strength value determined by the field-strength-measuring unit, and also taking into account the urgency of the data content to be transmitted. Network access only occurs when the needed transmission power does not exceed a specific maximum value for the particular urgency.
US08285241B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed to effectively frequency translate a filter characterized as a low quality factor (Q) filter corresponding to a baseband frequency of approximately zero Hertz or to an intermediate frequency (IF) to a filter characterized as a high Q filter at frequencies greater than the baseband frequency or the IF. A downconversion mixer is used to frequency translate a communication signal to the baseband frequency or the IF using a first local oscillator signal to provide a downconverted communication signal. A filter characterized as the low Q filter corresponding to the baseband frequency or the IF filters the downconverted communication signal to provide a filtered communication signal. An upconversion mixer is used to frequency translate a communication signal using a second local oscillator signal, the second local oscillator signal being substantially similar in frequency of the first local oscillator signal. The frequency translation by the upconversion mixer, in effect, translates the filter characterization from the low Q filter to the high Q filter at frequencies greater than the baseband frequency or the IF.
US08285231B2
Methods and systems for an integrated leaky wave antenna-based transmitter and on-chip power distribution are disclosed, and may include supplying one or more bias voltages and ground for a chip including a plurality of power amplifiers (PAs) utilizing bias voltage and ground lines. One or more leaky wave antennas (LWAs) may be communicatively coupled to the power amplifiers. Wireless signals may be transmitted utilizing the LWAs integrated in the lines in the chip. Radio frequency (RF) signals may be transmitted via the plurality of LWAs. The RF signals may include 60 GHz signals and the LWAs may include microstrip and/or coplanar waveguides. A cavity length of the LWAs may be configured by a spacing between conductive lines in the microstrip and/or coplanar waveguides. The LWAs may be configured to transmit the wireless signals at a desired angle from a surface of the chip.
US08285229B2
Methods and systems for enhancing system efficiency in a power amplification, modulation, and transmission system are provided. Embodiments include determining output power characteristics of a selected modulation scheme to be employed in data transmission, determining a most probable output power point of operation for the selected modulation scheme based on the output power characteristics, and controlling the output stage power supply of the system to operate at substantially optimal efficiency at the most probable output power point of operation.
US08285226B2
A transmitting entity uses different steering vectors for different subbands to achieve steering diversity. Each steering vector defines or forms a beam for an associated subband. Any steering vector may be used for steering diversity. The steering vectors may be defined such that the beams vary in a continuous instead of abrupt manner across the subbands. This may be achieved by applying continuously changing phase shifts across the subbands for each transmit antenna. As an example, the phase shifts may change in a linear manner across the subbands for each transmit antenna, and each antenna may be associated with a different phase slope. The application of linearly changing phase shifts to modulation symbols in the frequency domain may be achieved by either delaying or circularly shifting the corresponding time-domain samples.
US08285219B2
A technique is offered which is adapted for optimization computations and which makes it possible to carry out an estimation of the state of propagation of radio waves quickly and accurately during a search for the locations of wireless stations. During the optimization computations, sending points and receiving points are set using a parameter search technique. Propagation paths are computed using a far-field approximation technique for Maxwell's equations. A propagation path leading to a local area where the accuracy is low with the far-field approximation technique is extracted from the computed paths. The state of scattering previously calculated using a numerical analysis technique for Maxwell's equations is reflected in the extracted path to modify the propagation path. The communication characteristics of the modified path are evaluated. The steps S101-S105 are performed repeatedly a given number of times. A sending point and a receiving point producing optimum communication characteristics are output.
US08285218B2
Example methods and apparatus to identify wireless carrier performance effects are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes receiving an indication of media content presentation on a wireless communication device, monitoring a wireless carrier operating parameter in response to receiving the indication of media content presentation, and monitoring the wireless communication device for a media content presentation command. The example method also includes associating the media content presentation command and the wireless carrier operating parameter with a scoring factor indicative of subscriber preferences, and generating a report including the scoring factor.
US08285214B2
The present invention relates to an adjustable circuit for filtering a transmission channel of an RFID signal and for suppressing a carrier signal in the reception path between an input gate and an output gate, including at least one adjustable oscillator for generating an oscillator signal, at least one input mixing stage cooperating with the oscillator for mixing an input signal by means of the oscillator signal to an intermediate frequency and a blocking device arranged downstream of the input mixing stage or the input mixing stages for suppressing the carrier signal at the intermediate frequency.
US08285213B2
Data communication system and a method in a data communication system comprising a terminal, e.g. a mobile phone, adapted to communicate with an application server using a wireless transmission protocol, preferably WAP, including a terminal profile. The wireless transmission protocol also includes an attached device's profile that is dynamically updated with data related to a device attached to the terminal.
US08285211B2
Wireless personal area network (Zigbee, Bluetooth, UWB) and wireless identification technologies (Near Field Communication (NFC), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)) are implemented in particular client server functions and communications. Connected with an Authentication Server, a wireless HUB authenticates user identification and provides the user with access to secure data communication with a wireless terminal such as a cellular phone or a PDA. A Location Server provides user locations via methods such as RSSI, TDOA, and GPS and sends location information to a Center Control Server and the Authentication Server. With location information, the Center Control Server initiates and optimizes secure information processes and coordinates the functions of servers and user terminals.
US08285202B2
Methods, systems, and apparatuses are presented for improved satellite communications. The satellite system may comprises at least one gateway, a satellite in orbit configured to communicate with the at least one gateway and provide a plurality of spot beams, and a plurality of subscriber terminals. The spot beams may include a first spot beam to illuminate a first region and a second spot beam to illuminate a second region adjacent to and overlapping with the first region. The first spot beam as sent to at least one subscriber terminal may be affected by (1) interference from other signal sources including the second spot beam at a signal-to-interference ratio C/I and (2) noise at a signal-to-noise ratio C/N. Reception of signals from the first spot beam by the at least one of the first plurality of subscriber terminals may be interference-dominated such that C/I is less than C/N.
US08285194B2
A bookbinding apparatus comprising: an adhesive container to store melted adhesive; a heater which heats the adhesive to melt; a stirring member to stir the adhesive in the adhesive container; and a control section which controls the operation of the heater and the stirring member so that after the heater has been turned off with the termination of a coating process, the stirring member continues stirring operation and stops thereafter.
US08285193B2
A sheet processing apparatus of the invention has: an ejecting unit that is capable of receiving a sheet on which a toner image has been heated and fixed, and ejecting the sheet for a predetermined normal ejecting time; and a processing unit that processes the sheet ejected by the ejecting unit according to obtained sheet information, wherein the ejecting unit ejects the sheet for an ejecting time longer than the normal ejecting time.
US08285190B2
Fuser roller edgewear is reduced by a prior beveling of the inboard edge, the outboard edge, or both, of paper sheets that are to be provided to the fuser.
US08285185B2
To enhance the fixing quality of a fixing device to continuously fix sheets of a plurality of sizes, a carbon nanotube sheet 75, in which a plurality of carbon nanotubes are arranged such that the longitudinal directions thereof are oriented in the same direction, is provided on the surface of a heating roller 70 so that the carbon nanotube sheet ranges from the position a predetermined distance inside and the position a predetermined distance outside of the position through which each of the both edges of a sheet P2 with smaller width dimension than a sheet P1 of the largest width dimension to be fixed passes.
US08285181B2
The decrease of the transfer efficiency of transferring a toner image from a photosensitive drum onto an intermediate transfer belt is suppressed by the structure of an image forming apparatus including: a photosensitive drum holding member that pivotally supports the photosensitive drum at both ends thereof; a transfer roller holding member that pivotally supports a primary transfer roller at both ends thereof; and a transfer roller holding unit that determines a relative position between the photosensitive drum holding member and the transfer roller holding member by guiding the transfer roller holding member in a direction substantially perpendicular to a running surface of the belt and abutting an opposing part of the photosensitive drum holding member and an opposing part of the transfer roller holding member with each other, the opposing parts opposing each other.
US08285173B2
A process cartridge is detachably mountable to a main assembly of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus. The cartridge includes a photosensitive drum, and a developing roller for developing a latent image. A development coupling portion is provided adjacent to one axial end of the developing roller, with the development coupling portion including an engaging portion configured and positioned (a) to receive a driving force for rotating the developing roller, and (b) to be movable in a direction crossing the axis of the developing roller relative to the developing roller. The cartridge also includes an urging portion configured and positioned to urge the engaging portion in a direction crossing the axis of the developing roller. Also, an abutting portion is configured and positioned so that movement of the engaging portion can be prevented when the engagement portion has not established engagement with a development coupling member of the main assembly.
US08285170B2
An image heating apparatus includes a rotatable belt to be heated, a pressure roller for pressure-contacting the rotatable belt so as to constitute a pressure contact portion in which a recording sheet is nipped and conveyed so that an image on the recording sheet is heated, and a roller provided for pressing an outer circumferential surface of the rotatable belt inward on a downstream in a sheet conveying direction of the pressure contact portion.
US08285155B2
An optical receiver with a simplified arrangement able to compensate the optical loss of the transmission medium is disclosed. The optical receiver of the invention includes an SOA in the front end thereof, an optical de-multiplexer, and a plurality of receiver modules that receives de-multiplexed light. The optical gain of the SOA is adjusted based on the electrical signals output from respective optical modules. When the receiver modules show the output thereof in a preset range, the bias current is kept unchanged, while, one receiver module shows the output out of the range, the bias current is incremented or decremented. When one receiver module shows the output out of the absolute maximum/minimum, the bias current is forced to the initial value.
US08285147B2
A system for generating an optical CATV comb comprising a plurality of wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical CATV signals. A set of one or more lasers generate a plurality of narrow-band continuous wave (CW) lights, each CW light having a respective predetermined wavelength and optical power level. An optical MUX couples the plurality of CW lights into a WDM continuous wave light. A broadband optical modulator responsive to a CATV signal modulates the WDM continuous wave light to generate the optical CATV comb.
US08285146B2
The present invention relates generally to optical rotary joints (35) for enabling optical communication between a rotor and a stator, improved methods of mounting such optical rotary joints on supporting structures such that the rotor and stator remain properly aligned, and to improved optical reflector assemblies for use in such optical rotary joints. The improved optical rotary joint enables optical communication between a rotor and a stator, said rotor having a longitudinal axis, and comprises: at least one optical source (36) mounted on one of said rotor and stator for transmitting an optical signal in a radial direction with respect to the longitudinal axis; at least one first reflector (38) mounted on the other of said rotor and stator for reflecting the optical signal transmitted from the source, said first reflector comprising a concave first reflective surface (44), a line (L) in a plane taken through said first reflective surface being configured as a portion of an ellipse having first and second focal points (F1, F2), the first focal point being positioned substantially coincident with said rotor axis; a second reflector (39) having a second reflective surface (45) configured as a portion of a cone and positioned at the second focal point of the elliptical surface for receiving light reflected from said first reflective surface and for reflecting light in a different direction as a function of the apex angle of the second reflective surface; and a receiver (40) arranged to receive light reflected by the second reflective surface.
US08285139B2
A method, system and apparatus for managing alarms in a Long Reach Passive Optical Network (LR-PON) system are disclosed. The method includes: obtaining a PON signal from an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) or an Optical Network Unit (ONU) on one side; checking whether the obtained PON signal fails; and notifying the ONU or the OLT on the other side if the PON signal fails. The method, system and apparatus under the present invention monitor the LR-PON transmission quality and process various alarm indications raised in the LR-PON signal monitoring.
US08285135B2
A method for adjusting weighting values in light metering is provided. An input image is divided into multiple metering zones. The input image includes a number of pixel data, and the metering zones correspond to a number of exposure weighting values. It is determined whether the color of each pixel datum of the input image is skin color. For each metering zone, an amount of the pixel data determined as the skin color is calculated. The corresponding exposure weighting values of the metering zones are adjusted according to the calculated results.
US08285130B1
A photography studio with a turntable driving mechanism is provided. The turntable is driven to start or brake by at least two timing pulleys contacting with the side of the turntable, and the timing pulleys were driven synchronously by another motorized timing pulley through a timing belt. Therefore, at least two indirect contact points are formed between the motorized timing pulley and the turntable to increase the contact friction to avoid sliding when the rotation of the turntable starts or brakes. In addition, a multilayer platform for shooting shadow-free images is proposed, which comprises a thicker transparent glass plate or plastic plate covered with a thinner curved translucent plastic plate and a group of lamps disposed under or behind the multilayer platform.
US08285122B2
After reservation information is acquired, whether there is any connection destination device is determined. When there is no connection destination device, a warning is displayed on a display device in the connection source device side. Reservation registration is stored in a memory in the connection source device side. This operation is repeated until a reservation start time point. When a reservation start state starts, it is confirmed again whether there is any connection device. When there is the connection device, a state of a power supply of a recording/reproducing device to be a reservation target is checked. When the power supply is off, the power supply of the recording/reproducing device to be the reservation target is requested to be turned on by communication, and the recording/reproducing device to be the reservation target is requested to select channel. Next, it is determined whether or not the channel selection is successful.
US08285119B2
A method for playing digital images is disclosed. The method is applied to a disc player that is electrically connected to a computer, comprises the steps of: reading a disc; judging if the disc has DVD video data; judging that the disc player is in a play mode or in a non-play mode, when the disc has the DVD video data; reading the DVD video data, when the disc player is in the player mode; judging if the read DVD video data are correct; and continuing reading the DVD video data, when the DVD video data are incorrect, wherein when a time for the continuing reading exceeds a pre-set time or self-set terms, the incorrect DVD video data are outputted.
US08285113B2
A method for generating additional information for guaranteeing seamless playback of data streams, a recording medium for storing the information, and recording, editing and/or playback apparatus using the same are provided. The method generates additional information for guaranteeing seamless playback. The method includes a step of generating data stream information for each of two or more data streams, which includes packet data to which information on an arrival time of the respective packet data is added. The data stream information includes seamless playback information, which indicates whether a corresponding data stream is to be seamlessly reproduced after playback of a preceding data stream, and/or seamless time control information for controlling an output time of the corresponding data stream to be seamlessly reproduced. Therefore, data streams can be seamlessly reproduced without interruption between the data streams, by using data stream information which includes seamless information and/or seamless time control information including reference time, an offset value and/or a gap length value. Especially, by using the information structure, even if data streams are edited, the data streams can be seamlessly reproduced in such a simple manner of just modifying data stream information, instead of directly rewriting or modifying arrival time information which is added to packet data.
US08285111B2
A method and apparatus for creating an enhanced photo digital video disc (DVD) communicates with connected sources such as a digital camera, PC, or memory card where information such as digital photo, movie and music files are downloaded, as selected by the user, and stored on a storage device. The user creates slide shows of photos stored on the storage device that show each photo and/or movie in sequence or with transition special effects between photos. The invention extracts photo metadata from the photo image file and stores the information on the storage device along with the photos and Includes any audio annotation(s) associated with the downloaded photos and downloaded audio files that the user can attach to a photo in the slide show. When the user wants to save slide show(s) to a DVD the invention constructs an MPEG stream containing the photos, movies, and audio annotations. Photo metadata are encoded onto the DVD as closed captioning and/or subpictures, selectable for display at viewing time. The invention creates index tables for each slide show MPEG stream on the DVD that point to key locations in an MPEG program stream. Metadata for slide shows can also be stored onto a DVD that allow the user to add more detailed notes as to the description of a particular slide show.
US08285110B2
There is provided an apparatus and a method for generating record data, guaranteeing seamless playback even in a case of occurrence of a jump. In a multilayer disc having a plurality of recording layers, it is configured that an allowable range of an intra-layer jump and an inter-layer jump carried out in a playback processing of an information recording medium is determined and a required time for the intra-layer jump and the inter-layer jump is calculated on the basis of the determined allowable jump range information so as to determine a data configuration requirement such as an allowable minimum consecutive data size of data to be stored in the information recording medium on the basis of the calculated required jump time. With the present structure, seamless playback is made possible even in a case of occurrence of not only an intra-layer jump but also an inter-layer jump.
US08285103B2
A fiber distribution hub includes a swing frame chassis pivotally mounted within an enclosure. The swing frame chassis includes a splitter mounting location at which optical splitters can be mounted and an optical termination field. The optical termination field includes multiple fiber optic adapters.
US08285102B2
A waveguide structure includes a supporting substrate and a waveguide having at least one guide layer with a refractive index n1. This layer comprises a zone of birefringence B which comprises voids provided in the thickness of the guide layer filled with a fluid or material having a refractive index n2. These are organized in at least two parallel rows, each row being in a plane perpendicular to the surface of the guide layer and parallel to the direction of propagation of the optical wave in the guide layer; each row extending over a distance equal to or greater than the wavelength of the optical wave; the width of the voids being ≦ 1/10th of the wavelength of the optical wave; each void within one row being at a distance from an adjacent void of ≦ 1/10th of the wavelength of the optical wave.
US08285097B2
An annular side fire optical device for laterally redirecting electromagnetic radiation comprises a tapered section of silica, a conical section of silica adjoining the tapered section and an annular beveled end surface. The tapered section of silica has a diameter that increases with distance along a longitudinal axis in a direction toward a transmitting end. The conical section of silica comprises a wall of silica surrounding a conical bore. The conical bore has a diameter that increases with distance along the longitudinal axis in a direction toward the transmitting end. The annular beveled end surface is formed in the wall of silica at the transmitting end and is angled relative the longitudinal axis such that electromagnetic radiation propagating along the longitudinal axis through the conical section is reflected by the beveled end surface at an angle that is transverse to the longitudinal axis.
US08285079B2
An image alignment method includes computationally efficient methods of achieving high-accuracy local motion estimates by using phase correlation. The method also estimates motion reliability that allows a generic robust model fitting algorithm to produce more accurate results while operating much more efficiently. One of three methods are used to determine sub-pel motion estimation with improved accuracy. Each of the sub-pel motion estimation methods uses phase correlation, and are based on fitting computationally efficient 2-D quadratic surfaces to a phase correlation surface. A pre-filter is applied which shapes the phase correlation surface to enable appropriate fitting to the quadratic surface. Bias is also compensated for prior to applying a sub-pel motion estimation method. The method also estimates the reliability of the sub-pel motion estimates determined using phase correlation.
US08285078B2
An image processing system capable of checking whether or not an image is correctly read, and of easily correcting an image which is not correctly read is provided. The image processing system includes: an image processing apparatus A which has a reading section 105, an image processing section 110 for performing image processing of a read image, and a metadata generating section 106 for generating metadata for an abnormal image; a storage server B which stores the image and the metadata outputted from the image processing apparatus A; and an image checking apparatus C which checks whether or not the metadata is included in the image acquired from the storage server B, and which when the metadata is included in the acquired image, displays the image on the basis of the metadata, and corrects the acquired image. The image processing system is capable of correcting only the abnormal image, without re-reading all the images.
US08285075B2
An image processing apparatus includes a pre-combination processing unit configured to perform a pre-combination process so that a plurality of frames of image data having continuity in time are used as combination-use image data to be combined, an operation detection unit configured to detect operation input information used for a combination process, and a combination processing unit configured to perform a combination process on the combination-use image data of the plurality of frames obtained in the pre-combination process according to the operation input information detected by the operation detection unit so as to generate combined-image data representing a still image.
US08285072B2
In a method and apparatus for improving the brightness uniformity in an image, signals are acquired using a radio frequency receiving coil, and noise in the acquired signals is normalized so as to produce an image, then the brightness of various pixels in the image is determined according to the sensitivity of the radio frequency receiving coil. The brightness of the image is then made uniform by compensating the brightness of the various pixels in the image.
US08285069B2
An image processing device and a method thereof are provided. In the image processing method, an adjusting value is computed according to a pixel of a current image and a plurality of reference pixels nearby. In addition, a weighted coefficient is computed according to a gray-scale difference between the pixel of the current image and a pixel of a previous image. Further, a weighted adjusting value is computed according to the adjusting value and the weighted coefficient. Besides, the pixel of the current image is adjusted according to the weighted adjusting value to generate a pixel of an output image. Thereby, the current image is adjusted adaptively to increase the quality of the output image.
US08285068B2
An apparatus, a computer readable medium to instruct a process to implement a method, and a method of reducing blocking artifacts and/or noise in an image that has been compressed by a block-based encoding process. The method includes deblocking the image using overlapped forward directional transforms, the overlapped forward directional transforms including directional selecting to filter across horizontal and vertical boundaries, denoising the image, in one version edge detecting to classify individual pixels as to whether or not they belong to edge features, and generating output pixels by locally adapting to whether the pixels are in block boundaries, and/or include edge features.
US08285062B2
Embedded Graphics Coding (EGC) is used to encode images with sparse histograms. In EGC, an image is divided into blocks of pixels. For each block, the pixels are converted into binary representations. For each block, the pixels are scanned and encoded bit-plane by bit-plane from the most significant bit-plane (MSB) to the least significant bit-plane (LSB). The pixels in the block are partitioned into groups. Each group contains pixels with the same value. From the MSB to the LSB, the groups in the current bit plane are processed. During the processing, a group is split into two, if pixels in the group have different bit values in the bit-plane being encoded. Then, the encoder sends the refinement bit for each pixel in the group and the encoder splits the original group into two. A method is described herein to compress the refinement bits which employs context-adaptive prediction and binary run-length coding.
US08285061B2
The present invention provides an apparatus and a method for image processing. The apparatus for image processing comprises an encoding circuit, which can select two reference pixels according to two reference pixels and produce a maximum pixel value and a minimum pixel value according the two reference pixels. The present invention further comprises a color-difference operational unit for selecting a plurality of color pixels as a basic pixel, a first color pixel, and a second color pixel. When encoding the basic pixel, a first color difference, and a second color difference, respectively, first encoding data corresponding to the basic pixel, second encoding data corresponding to the first color difference, and third encoding data corresponding to the second color difference are produced, respectively.
US08285048B2
A method of classifying a character string formed from a known number of hand-written characters is disclosed. The method starts by determining character probabilities for each hand-written character in the character string. Each character probability represents a likelihood of the respective hand-written character being a respective one of a plurality of predetermined characters. Each predetermined character has a respective character type. Character templates having the known number of characters are next identified. Each character template has a respective predetermined probability and represents a respective combination of character types. Character sequence probabilities corresponding to each of the character templates having the known number of characters are next determined. The character sequence probabilities are a function of the predetermined probability of the respective character template and the character probabilities of the hand-written character in the character string. The character string is classified as the sequence of characters having the highest character sequence probability.
US08285047B2
Automated method and system for naming documents from a scanned source based on manually marked text
A method for associating text with image data of documents is herein described. The method includes receiving image data of a document with manually marked text and recognizing the manually marked text. The image data is then annotated (e.g., tagged) using the manually marked text and the image data of the document is stored. When manually marked text is recognized, recognized text may be generated for annotating the image data of the document and used to populate a field associated with the image data. The field may be a name of the document or a subject line of an e-mail message, for example. A method including identifying the location of manually marked text in a first scanned document to automatically identify and annotate text in a corresponding location in a second scanned document is also disclosed.
US08285046B2
Techniques are disclosed for a computer vision engine to update both a background model and thresholds used to classify pixels as depicting scene foreground or background in response to detecting that a sudden illumination changes has occurred in a sequence of video frames. The threshold values may be used to specify how much pixel a given pixel may differ from corresponding values in the background model before being classified as depicting foreground. When a sudden illumination change is detected, the values for pixels affected by sudden illumination change may be used to update the value in the background image to reflect the value for that pixel following the sudden illumination change as well as update the threshold for classifying that pixel as depicting foreground/background in subsequent frames of video.
US08285041B2
An image processing apparatus includes a histogram computing section which computes a histogram of pixel values of input image data. A gradation conversion characteristic determining section determines a gradation conversion characteristic in a case where gradation conversion processing is applied to the image data on the basis of the histogram computed by the histogram computing section, and photographing information when the image data has been picked up. A gradation converting section converts the gradation of the input image data on the basis of the gradation conversion characteristic determined by the gradation conversion characteristic determining section.
US08285038B2
A portable electronic communication device includes an image memory that stores an image in its original colors; a display that presents the image, in its original colors, when received from the image memory, based on an instruction, received from a user of the portable electronic communication device, to present the image without adjustment to the original colors; and a white balance adjustment device including multiple image signal adjusters that adjust signal levels of image signals corresponding to particular colors, where, when another instruction is received from the user to adjust the original colors, the white balance adjustment device controls the multiple image signal adjusters, based on user input, to select color adjustments and apply the color adjustments to create a color-adjusted image. The portable electronic device also includes another memory that stores the color-adjusted image, where the display is configured to present the color-adjusted image when received from the other memory.
US08285030B2
A technique for determining a set of calibration parameters for use in a model of a photo-lithographic process is described. In this calibration technique, images of a test pattern that was produced using the photo-lithographic process are used to determine corresponding sets of calibration parameters. These images are associated with at least three different focal planes in an optical system, such as a photo-lithographic system that implements the photo-lithographic process. Moreover, an interpolation function is determined using the sets of calibration parameters. This interpolation function can be used to determine calibration parameters at an arbitrary focal plane in the photo-lithographic system for use in simulations of the photo-lithographic process, where the set of calibration parameters are used in a set of transmission cross coefficients in the model of the photo-lithographic process.
US08285024B2
A biological sample such as a tissue section is stained with one or more quantum dots and possibly other fluorophores (total number of fluorophores N). A camera coupled to a microscope generates an image of the specimen at a plurality of different wavelengths within the emission spectral band of the N fluorophores. An analysis module calculates coefficients C1 . . . CN at each pixel from the set of images and reference spectral data for the N fluorophores. The coefficients C1 . . . CN are related to the concentration of each of the individual fluorophores at each pixel location. Morphological processing instructions find biological structures, e.g., cells, cellular components, genes, etc., in the images of the specimen. Quantitative analysis is performed on the identified biological structures. A display module displays the quantitative analysis results to the user, along with images of the specimen. The images can include images constructed from one or more of the coefficients C1 . . . CN. The quantitative analysis display includes histograms of the biological structures, scatter plots of fluorophore concentrations, statistical data, spectral data and still others.
US08285019B2
A method of processing a mammogram image to derive a value for a parameter useful in detecting differences in breast tissue in subsequent images of the same breast or relative to a control group of such images, said derived parameter being an aggregate probability score reflecting the probability of the image being a member of a predefined class of mammogram images, comprises computing for each of a multitude of pixels within a large region of interest within the image a pixel probability score assigned by a trained statistical classifier according to the probability of said pixel belonging to an image belonging to said class, said pixel probability being calculated on the basis of a selected plurality of features of said pixels, and computing said parameter by aggregating the pixel probability scores over said region of interest. Saud features may include the 3-jet of said pixels.
US08285018B2
A method for reconstructing color images has steps of using a spectrum-acquiring device to acquire spectral data of a plurality of sample color blocks and calculating coefficients of a basis matrix of the sample color blocks; obtaining digital counts of the plurality of sample color blocks with a digital camera; obtaining a conversion matrix in accordance with the coefficients of the basis matrix and the digital counts; acquiring digital counts of an original image with the digital camera, and generating a reconstructed image in accordance with the digital counts of the original image and the conversion matrix; and varying the conversion matrix in accordance with a new light source, and computing to generate a reconstructed image corresponding to the new light source in accordance with the digital counts of the original image and the varied conversion matrix.
US08285012B2
An image display apparatus according to the invention comprises reading section (11a) which reads in an image data set of a subject acquired by a medical imaging apparatus (2) from a data recording device (13) which stores the image data set; input sections (16, 17) which input a desired object organ to the read-in image data set; object organ extracting section (11b) which extracts the inputted object organ; reference position setting section (11h) which sets a reference position for producing an unfolded image in the circumferential direction of the bore of the extracted object organ; calculating device (11e) which calculates pixel information in the circumferential direction of the bore of the object organ from the set reference position; and image display section (15) which displays the calculated pixel information in the circumferential direction of the bore of the object organ.
US08285008B2
The image processing apparatus displays a list of individual information from which individual information selected by the individual information selecting unit and individual information lapped over the individual information included in the retrieved individual groups are excluded from individual information included in individual groups retrieved by the individual group retrieval unit, and the individual group retrieval unit narrows down individual groups to be retrieved by adding on individual information designated from the individual information displayed in the list.
US08285004B2
A line of sight detecting method includes estimating a face direction of an object person based on a shot face image of the object person, detecting a part of an eye outline in the face image of the object person, detecting a pupil in the face image of the object person, and estimating the direction of a line of sight of the object person based on the correlation of the pupil position in the eye outline and the face direction with respect to the direction of the line of sight, and the pupil position and the face direction of the object person.
US08285001B2
An unsatisfactory scene is disqualified as an image acquisition control for a camera. An image is acquired. One or more eye regions are determined. The eye regions are analyzed to determine whether they are blinking, and if so, then the scene is disqualified as a candidate for a processed, permanent image while the eye is completing the blinking.
US08284999B2
A reading machine has processing for detecting common text between a pair of individual images. The reading machine combines the text from the pair of images into a file or data structure if common text is detected, and determines if incomplete text phrases are present in the common text. If incomplete text phrases are present, the machine signals a user to move an image input device in a direction to capture more of the text.
US08284996B2
A multiple object speed tracking system that can provide data related to the rate of travel of each object in a set of multiple objects as each object is traveling either toward or away from a predetermined point.
US08284990B2
A system for social network construction. Video analytics and association may be used to develop a social network. Also, social groups may be developed from temporal proximity of persons. In the case of several social networks, they may be collapsed into one network or a weighted graph that mining algorithms can handle.
US08284988B2
A method and configuration to estimate the dimensions of a cuboid. The configuration includes two image acquisition units offset from each other with at least one of the units positioned at a defined acquisition height above a background surface. Image processing techniques are used to extract a perimeter of a top surface of the cuboid, placed on the background surface, from pairs of acquired images. A height estimation technique is used to calculate an absolute height of the cuboid. The absolute height of the cuboid is used, along with the extracted perimeter of the top surface of the cuboid, to calculate an absolute length and an absolute width of the cuboid. The height, length, and width may be used to calculate an estimated volume of the cuboid.
US08284986B2
A method for reducing the effects of background radiation introduced into gaseous plume spectral data obtained by an aerial imaging sensor, includes capturing spectral data of a gaseous plume with its obscured background along a first line of observation and capturing a second image of the previously obscured background along a different line of observation. The parallax shift of the plume enables the visual access needed to capture the radiometric data emanating exclusively from the background. The images are then corresponded on a pixel-by-pixel basis to produce a mapping. An image-processing algorithm is applied to the mapped images to reducing the effects of background radiation and derive information about the content of the plume.
US08284983B2
A coaxial loudspeaker including a tweeter unit and a low/midrange unit with a cone diaphragm suspended in a loudspeaker basket, which comprises an electromagnetic drive fixedly attached to a loudspeaker basket on its tapered end, in the area of which the tweeter unit is positioned, whose sound radiation surface is directed away from this drive. In one embodiment, in order to suppress the sound focusing of traditional coaxial loudspeakers with a woofer/midrange cone diaphragm, and to ensure a simple and cost-efficient assembly of the tweeter unit, the electromagnetic drive for the cone diaphragm of the woofer/midrange unit is located within the space bordering the convex curved exterior side of the cone diaphragm, and the tweeter unit is positioned outside of this space.
US08284981B2
A cartridge for managing ear bud cables includes a housing, a hub, a spool with a moveable audio contact and an ear bud cable. The housing has an input jack that is electronically connectable to an audio-source. The hub defines a stationary contact surface electrically connected with the input jack. The ear bud cable wraps at least partially around the spool, the ear bud cable has a first end and a second end, the first end being electrically connected with the moveable audio contact of the spool and the second end being electrically connected with at least one ear bud. Rotation of the spool selectively retracts and dispenses the ear bud cables while enabling continuous audio communication between the at least one ear bud and the audio source.
US08284978B1
An application for a music system with rotatable directional speakers includes a console that faces a performer and is mounted on a pedestal. A base is connected to a bottom end of the pedestal to provide support to the pedestal and console. At least one speaker is rotatably mounted on a first side of the pedestal at an angle and at least one other speaker is rotatably mounted on a second side of the pedestal at the angle. When the speakers are rotated away from the performer, a direction of sound from the speakers diverges with respect to the music system and when the speakers are rotated towards the performer, the direction of sound from the speakers converges toward the performer.
US08284976B2
A sound reproduction system is disclosed in which a sound barrier defines a horn passageway having a first end and a second open end. A high frequency range driver is provided at the first end, and is mutually coupled with a lower driver to the horn passageway. The lower driver has an upper frequency end lower than a frequency of a first cancellation notch for the drivers. The lower driver is located at a position along the horn passageway at which the passageway has a preselected cross-sectional area which is no greater than an area of a round cross section having a circumference equal to one wavelength at the upper frequency end.
US08284972B2
A speaker assembly includes a speaker body and a resonating box. The speaker body formed by a main portion and a sound-emitting portion. The resonating box is provided within the speaker body. Both ends of the resonating box are connected to the main portion and the sound-emitting portion respectively. The resonating box is formed by connecting a plurality of resonating shells having decreasing widths. The resonating shells are made of rigid materials. Each of the resonating shells is slidingly connected with the adjacent resonating shells, so that the resonating shell is extendable between the main portion and the sound-emitting portion. Via this arrangement, in addition to amplify the music, the speaker assembly has a stress/bass effect to improve the quality of sound.
US08284968B2
A user programmable hearing aid allows a user to select acoustical configuration programs that provide optimum performance for the user. The user may cycle through and evaluate various available programs by momentarily pressing a push button on the hearing aid housing. When a preferred program is active, the user can press the push button for an extended time to designate that program as a selected program. The acoustical configuration programs include initial-tuning programs that are operable in an initial-tuning mode and fine-tuning programs that are operable in a fine-tuning mode. The hearing aid may also operate in a Configuration Mode wherein configuration settings may be changed using the push button and a volume control. In the Configuration Mode, a clinician or patient may easily change configuration settings manually, with no need to connect the apparatus to a computer or other programming interface.
US08284963B2
A circuit for diminishing mismatch effects between at least two switched signals includes at least three processing circuits configured to receive at least two switched signals such that each of the switched signals is associated with one of the processing circuits leaving at least one unassociated processing circuit. A controller circuit is configured to switch one of the switched signals to be associated with one of the unassociated processing circuit(s) upon at least one specified interval such as, for example, at a transition of the switched signal. The circuit may be incorporated into an audio amplifier configured to provide information carried on the switched signals to one or more speakers that provide an audio output. A one-processor circuit approach includes switching frames of a switched signal between positive and negative inputs of a processor circuit to average out errors introduced by the processor circuit.
US08284961B2
A signal processing device includes a generation unit that generates a second signal from a first signal that is obtained by down mixing two signals; a mixing coefficient determination unit that determines, based on a value L and a value θ, a mixing degree for mixing the first signal and the second signal; and a mixing unit that mixes the first signal and the second signal based on the mixing degree determined by the mixing coefficient determination unit. The generation unit includes a first filter that generates a low frequency band signal in the second signal, from a low frequency band signal in the first signal; and a second filter that generates a high frequency band signal in the second signal, from a high frequency band signal in the first signal. The first filter is a filter unit which, for a complex-number signal, de-correlates an input signal and adds a reverberation component by using a delay unit and an all pass filter, and the processing unit is a filter unit different from the first filter.
US08284960B2
A method for processing audio signals optimizes the listening experience for hearing impaired listeners, as well as non-hearing impaired listeners, without forcing hearing impaired individuals to feel stigmatized by requiring them to employ special hearing-impaired equipment. A user actuated controller controls a mixture of a preferred audio signal and a remaining audio signal across a range sufficiently wide enough to encompass all individuals. The preferred audio is recorded and maintained separate from all remaining audio and delivered to the listener in a manner that maintains the separateness of the preferred audio and the remaining audio. The user actuated controller includes the capability of automatically maintaining the listener established ratio in the face of changes in the audio signal. The user actuated controller enables the user to specify a range about the ratio in which the audio may vary, which permits the listener to expand the audio across a continuous range to whatever dynamic range his hearing can accommodate. The controller automatically adjusts to changes in incoming audio. The controller can react to relatively slowly moving changes or prevent short bursts of sound in the remaining audio from modifying the signal levels. The combination of the above aspects provides a heretofore not possible listening experience that can accommodate the listening desires of all listeners. The combination of the ability to control the ratio of preferred audio to remaining audio and to specify the dynamic range about the ratio in which the audio may vary, coupled with the ability of the controller to automatically adjust the signal levels in response to sudden changes in incoming audio, provides a powerful user capability that truly optimizes the listening experience for any listener.
US08284958B2
Disclosed herein are apparatus, method, and computer program product whereby a device receives an acoustic signal, where the acoustic signal has a variable sound pressure level. A device outputs an electrical signal from an input audio transducer, where the input audio transducer is connected to a supply voltage. The device determines a distortion level of the electrical signal; and increases or decreases the supply voltage based on the distortion level.
US08284957B2
A processing apparatus which is suitable for signal communication with a system having at least one of an input module and an output module. The processing apparatus can be configured to receive input signals from the input module of the system. The processing apparatus includes a first channel processing portion to which the input signals are communicable. The first channel processing portion can be configurable to receive and process the input signals in a manner such that bass frequency audio signals are extracted from the input signals. The bass frequency audio signals can be further processed via at least one of linear dynamic range processing, manipulation of dynamic range via compression and manipulation of dynamic range via expansion.
US08284956B2
The quality of music output from audio systems is improved by simulating the effect of low frequency signals in the human ear. This thus allows listeners to perceive the lower frequency signals, even though the speakers may be incapable of providing such low frequency outputs. A method is provided for processing enhancing bass effect in audio signals. The method also results in the bass enhancement being computationally less intensive. The bass effect enhancement techniques are based on the response of sine and cosine transfer functions and on the directional independence of low frequency components. The human ear is unable to resolve directions from low frequency components. The bass effect enhancement technique alternatively is based on the response of an exponential transfer function.
US08284951B2
In a pen-based computing system, a pair of microphones captures audio concurrently with a smart pen device capturing handwriting gestures. The audio captured by the pair of microphones is processed to produce an enhanced audio recording. Noise cancellation techniques may be applied to reduce noise generated by the smart pen device interacting with the writing surface to produce a higher quality audio recording. In addition, beam steering techniques may be applied to adjust the gain of portions of the audio signal from different directions and allow the user to focus between multiple audio sources.
US08284950B2
An interface device for interconnecting fixed controls of a vehicle to electronic devices. The interface device is capable of receiving control signals from fixed controls, such as steering wheel controls, backseat controls, handlebar controls, and the like, and then transmitting corresponding control signals to the electronic devices. In one aspect, the device is programmable such that the interface device emits signals corresponding to the same signals that would be emitted from a handheld remote control sold in conjunction with the different electronic devices. In one embodiment, the device is an interface between the fixed controls and a replacement stereo receiver. In another embodiment, the device is capable of recognizing spoken voice commands and generating corresponding IR signals in order to control the electronic devices. In still another embodiment, the device is an interface between the fixed controls and multiple electronic devices, such as an audio and video component.
US08284947B2
A signal processing system detects reverberation. The system may suppress the reverberation and improve signal quality. The system analyzes frequency bands of an input signal to determine whether reverberation characteristics are present. When reverberation is detected, the system may attenuate the reverberant frequency band to reduce or eliminate the reverberation.
US08284942B2
Systems and methods for using private keys in software development that minimizes the risks of the private key being lost or stolen. A strong name consists of the assembly's identity, e.g., its simple text name, version number, and culture information (if provided), plus a public key and a digital signature. It is generated from an assembly file using the corresponding private key. The private/public key pair is persisting in a password-encrypted file using a standard encryption format that can be made available to everyone. The first time any subsystem of the development environment requires use of the private key contained in an encrypted file format, the developer is prompted to provide the password to decrypt the key. The user supplies the password and the public/private key is imported into a non-exportable key container in the local cryptographic store.
US08284939B2
A method for secure cryptographic communication comprises transmitting information that identifies a group key from a first device to a second device. The method further comprises, in the first device, using the group key to encrypt an input vector, transmitting the encrypted input vector, encrypting privacy-sensitive information using a device key, an encryption algorithm, and the input vector, and transmitting the encrypted privacy-sensitive information to the second device.
US08284931B2
An initialization vector (IV) is employed to decrypt a block of a stream that has been encrypted with Cypher Block Chaining (CBC) encryption, without requiring decryption of previous blocks within the stream. For example, a listener who accesses a distribution point to retrieve encrypted content authenticates himself to an application server that regulates access to encrypted content on the distribution point, and responsively receives a key. The listener then requests access to a reference point within the encrypted content stream somewhere after its beginning (e.g., using preview clips). The distribution point relates the reference point to a corresponding block of the encrypted stream, and identifies an IV previously used for encryption of that block. The distribution point provides the associated encrypted block of content and the IV to the listener to enable mid-stream rendering of the encrypted content, without requiring the listener to decrypt previous blocks within the encrypted stream.
US08284928B2
A guide device for a sliding unit in a mobile terminal is provided. The guide device includes a lower slide including latch portions formed to open outwards, guide rails manufactured independently to be assembled with the latch portions, wherein the guide rails are disposed to extend in a longitudinal direction of the lower slide, and a guide plate comprising rack portions coupled with the guide rails, wherein the guide plate is disposed to face the lower slide.
US08284924B2
A method and structure for reducing customer dissatisfaction for waiting includes a queue monitoring subsystem which detects an entry of a customer into a waiting queue. A reward computing subsystem calculates a reward for the customer for being in the waiting queue, and a communication subsystem communicates the reward to the customer. At least one of subsystems is automated.
US08284923B2
Architecture for bridging unwanted calls back to the PSTN (public switch telephone network) thereby freeing-up enterprise ports for other uses. When an incoming PSTN call is received into the enterprise via the PBX, a SIP server makes the decision to trigger bridging after obtaining the call reference and the interface on which the call exists. The SIP server sends a request to the PBX to trigger bridging. When the PBX determines it no longer needs to be involved, it sends the bridging request to the PSTN. More specifically, a mechanism is provided to trigger TBCT (Two B-Channel Transfer) from the SIP server thereby pushing call routing of unwanted calls out of the PBX and preserving PBX ports. The SIP server can retrieve the PSTN-related information from the PBX using either web services or a SIP-based protocol.
US08284919B2
A network system may include a first communication device, a second communication device composed separately from the first communication device and an address database. The first communication device may include a first access device. The first access device may be capable of accessing a network address. The address database may store the network address accessed by the first access device. The second communication device may include a telephone device, an address acquisition device and a second access device. The address acquisition device may acquire the network address from the address database in a case where the telephone device receives an incoming call. The second access device may be capable of accessing the network address acquired by the address acquisition device.
US08284918B2
Subscribers of an enhanced communication system are enabled to indicate invocation or clearing of media specific features such as music-on-hold or video-on-hold. The invocation or clearing is transmitted to participating end points as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) re-INVITE message with Session Description Protocol (SDP) attribute descriptions identifying the feature, applicable media channels and whether the message is for invocation or clearing of the feature.
US08284915B2
A method and apparatus for providing a private broadcast channel service, e.g., a virtual closed circuit television service, on packet networks such as Service over Internet Protocol (SoIP) networks are disclosed. For example, a customer subscribes to the private broadcast channel service for a group having a plurality of confirmed members who have confirmed their desire to participate. The network service provider enables one or more of the group members to upload media content to the service provider's network. The service provider then broadcasts the uploaded media content to all the confirmed members such that each confirmed member may view the media content by simply tuning to the appropriate channel assigned for the private broadcast channel service.
US08284913B2
A method of and system for filtering telephone calls receives a call to a called party from a caller and determines if the called party has an event scheduled. If the called party has an event scheduled, the system determines if the caller is associated with the event. The system completes the call if the caller is associated with the event. The system sends the call to voice mail if the caller is not associated with said event unless the caller is on an exception list associated with the event, in which case the system completes the call. The system completes the call if it is determined that said called party does not have an event scheduled.
US08284910B2
A telephony system that accepts inputs, such as account codes, from a variety of devices and interfaces. The system includes a server with a telephony management software (TMS) unit, a telephony application programming interface (TAPI) unit, and an application unit. The application unit includes a control module, a call status module, an endpoint interface module, a storage interface module, a call transfer module, a TAPI interface module, a configuration module, and an extension library module. A server is capable of prompting several devices for an input and then accepting an input from any of the devices. Thus, a server enables a user to initiate a phone call on one device and then input information using a different device.
US08284902B2
In a radiographic apparatus, positions of a radiation grid and a radiation detector are determined such that, when a radiation source and the radiation detector are in a standard position, an arrangement pitch of shadows of absorbing foil strips appearing on a detecting plane of the radiation detector as a result of a radiation beam being emitted from the radiation source and blocked by the radiation grid is an integral multiple of an arrangement pitch in a transverse direction of radiation detecting elements. Further, the shadows of the absorbing foil strips appear without covering transversely adjacent pairs of the detecting elements.
US08284896B2
A multiview x-ray scanning system for inspecting the 3D volume of an object has been presented. The method uses multiple x-ray sources and multiple x-ray beams. The object to be inspected is interposed in the trajectory of these beams and moved relative to these beams. The x-ray beams after passing through the object are detected by detectors that are interleaved to realize a compact design. In order that the interleaved detectors do not intersect, the location of detectors and sources is adjusted. Further, the design of detectors is such that they can be placed in close proximity to each other in order to realize a small footprint scanner having a high resolution.
US08284894B2
The present invention generally refers to computed tomography (CT) based imaging systems and, more particularly, to a fast 3D tomosynthesis scanner apparatus and CT-based method without focal spot motion during continuous tube movement around an object of interest (O) or tissue region (M) to be examined (herein also referred to as “object”), which may advantageously be used in cone-beam volume CT mammography imaging so as to avoid motion artifacts and blurring effects.
US08284890B2
A shift register includes individually connected shift register units. Each shift register unit includes a switching unit, a pre-charging unit, a pulse signal output unit, a low level voltage signal control unit, a first clock pulse signal input, a second clock pulse signal input, and an output. The first and the second clock pulse signal inputs respectively receive a first clock signal and a second clock signal, the first clock signal and the second clock signal having reverse clock pulses during each clock cycle. The switching unit receives at least one external starting signal and a high level signal, when the at least one external starting signal is high level, the switching unit is turned on and outputs the high level signal to the pre-charging unit. When the second clock signal is high level, the pre-charging unit receives the high level signal and charges, and when the first clock signal is high level, the pre-charging unit discharges. The pulse signal output unit receives the first clock signal and outputs the first clock signal to the output after the pre-charging unit charges and before the pre-charging unit finishes discharging. The low level voltage signal control unit receives the first clock signal and the second clock signal, after the pre-charging unit finishes discharging, the low level voltage signal control unit pulls down a voltage level on the output at low level when the second clock signal are high level.
US08284889B2
Example embodiment clamps may be used to clamp two components together, with a degree of freedom of motion between the clamped components, including both rotational and translational motion. Example embodiment clamps may clamp a BWR jet pump sensing line to a diffuser as a repair or installation of a sensing line support. Example clamps may include a ball subassembly that holds a component and allows rotation and twisting of the component within the clamp. Example clamps may further include jaws holding the ball subassembly and a biasing element that permits tightening of the clamp.
US08284875B2
Certain embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for frequency-domain gain control in system utilizing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) multiple input multiple output (MIMO). The proposed method reduces the complexity of the system while maximizing the internal accuracy of the OFDM MIMO decoder and preserving the performance of the system.
US08284873B2
A wireless communication receiver includes a first signal processing block, a second signal processing block, and a de-interleaver. The first signal processing block is configured for receiving a wireless communication signal and processing the wireless communication signal to generate a first output. The de-interleaver is coupled between the first signal processing block and the second signal processing block, and includes a plurality of branches implemented for de-interleaving the first output to generate a second output. The de-interleaver starts outputting the second output to the second signal processing block for further signal processing before all buffers included in the branches are full, and informs the second signal processing block of data derived from one or more unfull buffers included in the branches.
US08284872B2
A burst mode receiver including a CDR circuit that does not perform bit synchronization determination at a wrong position even when a burst signal waveform containing a distortion is input is provided. The burst mode receiver includes a CDR circuit for reproducing clock and data from a received signal, a bit synchronization determination circuit for determining whether the CDR circuit is in an optimum phase, a waveform distortion determination circuit for determining from the received signal whether there is waveform distortion, and a CDR output enable determination circuit for determining whether an output of the CDR circuit is valid or invalid. The CDR output enable determination circuit performs CDR output enable determination based on a bit synchronization determination result and a waveform distortion determination result.
US08284871B2
A receiver includes; a recovery circuit for receiving an input signal, and generating a data signal and a recovery clock; a processing circuit for processing the data signal to generate a processed signal; and a synchronization determining circuit for determining a synchronization state of the recovery clock according to the processed signal and a first reference value. The data signal includes a synchronous pattern, and the first reference value corresponds to at least a portion of a value in the synchronous pattern processed by the processing circuit. A method of the receiver is also disclosed.
US08284869B2
A method of demodulating a signal on which is modulated, using a quadrature amplitude modulation scheme, a plurality of information symbols, the method including: determining at least one QAM detection threshold corresponding to one or more of said information symbols; and demodulating each information symbol on the basis of at least one respective QAM detection threshold.
US08284867B2
A preamble of a frame for a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) wireless communication for a first transmit antenna of the MIMO communication includes a legacy preamble portion in accordance with a legacy wireless communication protocol. The preamble of the frame for the MIMO wireless communication for the first transmit antenna also includes a current protocol preamble portion in accordance with a protocol of the MIMO wireless communication. The preamble of a frame for at least a second antenna of the MIMO communication includes a cyclically shifted legacy preamble portion for the frame. The preamble of the frame for the MIMO wireless communication for the second transmit antenna also includes a second current protocol preamble portion in accordance with a protocol of the MIMO wireless communication.
US08284863B2
An apparatus and method are provided for beamforming in a MIMO wireless communication system. A base station includes a first calculator that repeatedly calculates downlink beamforming vectors of the user terminals to calculate the optimal beamforming vectors for the user terminals, a quantizer that quantizes the downlink beamforming vectors in order to transmit information of the downlink beamforming vectors, a control channel transmitter that feeds forward information of the quantized downlink beamforming vectors to the user terminals, a second calculator that calculates the final downlink beamforming vectors of the user terminals, and a beamforming transmitter that sums the beamformed TX signals of the user terminals and transmits the summed TX signals through a plurality of TX antennas.
US08284860B2
Apparatus, systems, and methods are provided for controlling the output of a transmitter using a digital error signal. A method comprises generating a digital reference signal based on a baseband input signal and converting the digital reference signal to an analog reference signal. The method further comprises generating an analog error signal in response to a difference between the analog reference signal and an analog output signal. The method further comprises generating a digital error signal from the analog error signal, and generating an input signal for the transmitter based on the baseband input signal and the digital error signal.
US08284852B2
A method and system are provided for scheduling data transmission in a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system. The MIMO system may comprise at least one MIMO transmitter and at least one MIMO receiver. Feedback from one or more receivers may be used by a transmitter to improve quality, capacity, and scheduling in MIMO communication systems. The method may include generating or receiving information pertaining to a MIMO channel metric and information pertaining to a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) in respect of a transmitted signal; and sending a next transmission to a receiver using a MIMO mode selected in accordance with the information pertaining to the MIMO channel metric, and an adaptive coding and modulation selected in accordance with the information pertaining to the CQI.
US08284851B2
Data errors are sufficiently corrected and desired transmission quality is obtained even when the time variation of fading is large in a multicarrier transmission scheme communication system to which HARQ is applied. A transmission apparatus 100 is applied to a communication system in which the transmission apparatus and a reception apparatus perform automatic repeat request control therebetween, and has a subcarrier spacing setting section 111 that sets the subcarrier spacing used in transmitting a retransmission signal to be larger than the subcarrier spacing used in transmitting a first transmission signal, an IFFT section 112 that performs IFFT (Inverse Fast Fourier Transform) on an input signal based on the subcarrier spacing set in the subcarrier spacing setting section 111, and a transmission section 102 that transmits the first transmission signal and at least one retransmission signal.
US08284848B2
A differential data transferring system and method uses three level voltages to simultaneously transfer three signals (for example, two data signals and one clock signal) across two transfer line sets (i.e., four transfer lines). Therefore, the differential data transferring method increases transferring efficiency by using fewer transfer lines. Also, according to the differential data transferring system and method, one of two transfer lines forming a transfer line set is controlled to a middle voltage level, while the other transfer line is controlled to either a high voltage or a low voltage. Accordingly, the voltage difference between the two transfer lines may be maintained at a constant amplitude. Additionally, the difference between first and second dividing voltages DC1 and DC2, which are used for generating a reference output data, is controlled to maintain a constant amplitude. Therefore, the differential data transferring system and method may provide improved operation reliability.
US08284847B2
To detect movement of a depth camera in a motion capture system, readings from an accelerometer in the depth camera are processed to provide short and long term moving averages for each of the x, y and z axes. For each axis, a difference between the short and long term averages is obtained. A sum of the differences is obtained by summing the absolute value of each difference, across all three axes. This sum of differences is then compared to a threshold to determine if movement is detected. In another approach, the short and long term averages of the accelerometer readings are converted to pitch and roll values, and the pitch and roll values are separately compared to a threshold to determine if movement is detected. A tracking algorithm can be temporarily halted while movement is detected. Readings in the vertical direction can be attenuated by a scaling factor.
US08284844B2
System and method for decoding digital video data. The decoding system employs hardware accelerators that assist a core processor in performing selected decoding tasks. The hardware accelerators are configurable to support a plurality of existing and future encoding/decoding formats. The accelerators are configurable to support substantially any existing or future encoding/decoding formats that fall into the general class of DCT-based, entropy decoded, block-motion-compensated compression algorithms. The hardware accelerators illustratively comprise a programmable entropy decoder, an inverse quantization module, a inverse discrete cosine transform module, a pixel filter, a motion compensation module and a de-blocking filter. The hardware accelerators function in a decoding pipeline wherein at any given stage in the pipeline, while a given function is being performed on a given macroblock, the next macroblock in the data stream is being worked on by the previous function in the pipeline.
US08284842B2
A method and related system of generating a frame of video is disclosed. In the method, a request is received and a frame of video is generated using a plurality of pre-encoded macro-blocks. Generating the frame of video includes assigning the plurality of pre-encoded macro-blocks to respective positions in a grid. The frame of video may be compatible with an MPEG compression standard. The plurality of pre-encoded macro-blocks are pre-encoded prior to the request.
US08284839B2
A video processing apparatus includes a storage interface, where information and hardware of a motion estimation module and a motion compensation module are shared between frame rate conversion and video coding operations. The video processing apparatus therefore may perform both the frame rate conversion and video coding operations at the same time or perform them by turns, while requiring fewer resources and a smaller chip area than conventional methods.
US08284838B2
A method for decoding a video block in a video picture includes: selecting N motion vectors from M motion vector, wherein the M motion vectors corresponding to at least a video block of at least a reference area; and decoding the video block according to the N motion vectors.
US08284835B2
Provided is a motion compensating apparatus that efficiently generates a motion-compensated pixel by reducing the amount of data to be transmitted from a multi frame memory storing reference pixel data, while minimizing an increase in the scale of a circuit. A motion compensating apparatus (100) includes: a motion compensation position determining unit (101) that determines, based on a motion vector, a position of pixels for which compensated pixels should be generated; a necessary pixel determining unit (102) that determines pixels necessary for performing 6-tap filtering; a data transfer controlling unit (103) that controls the order or the like of taking out data to be transferred; an intermediate pixel storage memory (105) for storing pixel data with half-pixel accuracy; a high-order tap filtering unit (106) that generates pixel data with half-pixel accuracy by successively performing filtering operations in a predetermined direction; and a linear interpolation calculating unit (107) that performs linear interpolation based on the position of pixels to be motion compensated, and generates and outputs pixel data with motion compensation accuracy of less than half-pixel accuracy.
US08284832B2
The outer convolutional coding of the signals used to transmit mobile-handheld (M/H) service data within digital-television (DTV) signals is subjected to anti-Gray coding, either before or after its interleaving, but before its inner convolutional coding. In a receiver for such M/H-service data, portions of the trellis decoded DTV signal containing soft decisions concerning symbol-interleaved convolutionally coded M/H-service data are recoded for a Gray-code mapping of symbols to modulation levels. This is done either before or after symbol de-interleaving, but before decoding the outer convolutional coding. Soft decisions concerning extrinsic information to be fed back to the ⅔ trellis decoder to close a turbo decoding loop are derived from soft decisions as to the M/H-service data, which derivation includes re-coding for a binary-code mapping of symbols to modulation levels. Each re-coding procedure can be performed using ROM, but preferably is performed using simple digital logic.
US08284826B2
Synchronization of satellite and terrestrial broadcasts in a shared frequency arrangement is use in order to facilitate simultaneous reception of the broadcasts. A delay value is adjusted based on a synchronization between a first terrestrial broadcast and a satellite broadcast, and a delay value for a second terrestrial broadcast is adjusted based on a synchronization between the second terrestrial broadcast, the first terrestrial broadcast and the satellite broadcast. The adjustment of the relative delay values provides an improved reception pattern based on receipt of a shared frequency communication from multiple sources by improving a signal quality factor within at least selected regions of the coverage areas in which the relative delay values permit synchronization. This allows for synchronization lock between multiple substantially simultaneous broadcasts as determined by a cyclic prefix window of the broadcasts in overlapping coverage areas, useful for simultaneous satellite and terrestrial broadcasts using an OFDM format.
US08284824B1
The disclosure can provide methods and systems for autocalibrating a transceiver. The method can include upconverting a bandpass input signal by mixing the bandpass input signal with a first local oscillator signal to form an initial transmitter signal. The initial transmitter signal can be looped back to a receiver and downconverted with a second local oscillator signal having a frequency that is different from the first local oscillator to form an intermediate frequency signal. At least one of a gain and a phase of the transmitter can be adjusted based on a transmitter image sideband of the intermediate frequency signal to generate a calibrated transmitter signal having minimized transmitter image sideband.
US08284819B2
Aspects of a method and system for interference suppression in WCDMA systems may include one or more circuits that are operable to receive a plurality of multipath signals via one or more receiving antennas. A plurality of weighting factor values may be computed based on the received multipath signals. Estimated signals may be based on the weighting factor values. Residual signals may be generated based on received signals and the estimated signals. Addback signals may be generated based on the estimated signals and the residual signals. Updated estimated signals may be generated based on the addback signals and the weighting factor values. Incremental signals may be generated based on the updated estimated signals and addback signals. Updated residual signals may be generated based on the incremental signals and previous residual signals. The interference suppressed signals may be generated based on the updated residual signals and updated estimated signals.
US08284818B2
A code phase signalling module arranged to provide code phase signalling to assist in signal acquisition of direct sequence spread spectrum signalling received by a receiver module from a transmitter module. The code phase signalling is arranged to be used by the receiver module to synchronise the phase of a synchronisation code provided from within the receiver module with the phase of a modulation code of the direct spread spectrum sequence signalling received by the receiver module. The synchronisation code sequence corresponds to the modulation code sequence. The code phase signaling module is arranged to provide code phase time signaling representing the offset time of the synchronisation code from a reference time. The reference time is associated with the time of transmission of a particular reference portion of the modulation code of the direct spread spectrum signaling.
US08284810B1
An edge emitting solid state laser and method. The laser comprises at least one AlInGaN active layer on a bulk GaN substrate with a non-polar or semi-polar orientation. The edges of the laser comprise {1 1 −2 ±6} facets. The laser has high gain, low threshold currents, capability for extended operation at high current densities, and can be manufactured with improved yield. The laser is useful for optical data storage, projection displays, and as a source for general illumination.
US08284798B2
Provided is a communications interface system. The communications interface system includes one or more protocol modules configured to include interface protocols that facilitate direct communication between a switching subsystem, a physical layer subsystem, and a Power over Ethernet subsystem. The protocol modules are connectable to a communications bus, the direct communication occurring across the communications bus in accordance with the protocols.
US08284795B2
A method for determining differential delay of at least two bonded links is described. The method comprises a step of providing, on the part of a transmitting entity, at least some of the data packets transmitted from the transmitting entity to a receiving entity with time stamps, the time stamps indicating a point of time when a respective data packet has been generated, and a step of deriving a propagation delay from a time stamp of a data packet and a time of arrival of the data packet at a receiving entity. The method further comprises a step of determining a differential delay of a link from the propagation delay of the link and a propagation delay of a reference link.
US08284788B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for scalable routing with greedy embedding. In one embodiment, the method comprises storing log(n) coordinates in a routing table, where n is the number of nodes in a network, and further wherein the log(n) coordinates are generated by constructing a greedy embedding that embeds a graph topology depicting connections between n nodes of a network into a geometric space so as to use greedy forwarding by generating a spanning tree out of a connection graph representing the connections between the n nodes of the network, decomposing the tree into at most n branches, assigning a set of geometric coordinates to vertices in the tree in an n-dimensional space, and projecting the set of geometric coordinates onto a k-dimensional space, where k is less than n, to create the log(n) coordinates; and routing packets via nodes of the network using the log(n) coordinates in the routing table.
US08284784B2
Wireless carrier networks can utilize multiple MMSCs all accessed by a message sender with a message addressed to a single Internet domain, providing a single point of entry for messages into the network of MMSCs and maintaining routing information sufficient to route messages to all subscribers via the MMSC.
US08284783B1
A method of avoiding cache corruption when establishing a network connection includes the steps of transmitting a request to a computing device, where the request includes a masquerade layer-3 address, and receiving a reply transmitted by the computing device in response to the request, where the reply includes a MAC address associated with the computing device. Since the masquerade layer-3 address is unique relative to the computer network, computing devices within the network do no overwrite existing layer-3-to-MAC relationships in their respective caches with the layer-3-to-MAC relationship reflected in the request. Thus, the method enables a network connection to be initiated between two computing devices in the same computer network while avoiding neighbor cache pollution on other computing devices in that network.
US08284779B2
A communication apparatus used in a network where data communication is performed includes a priority data information holding section that holds, in advance, QoS setting information corresponding to domain names, where the QoS setting information is necessary to perform QoS settings for data communicated in the network. A control packet snooping section snoops on a DNS packet received from a DNS server, and obtains a domain name contained in the DNS packet. A priority control setting section, when QoS setting information corresponding to the obtained domain name is contained in the QoS setting information held in the priority data information holding section, performs, based on the QoS setting information, a QoS setting for data communication performed by a communication apparatus which is the transmission source of the DNS packet.
US08284775B2
A six field address scheme identifies both the originating point and the endpoint of a data frame enabling multiple hop forwarding through a plurality of intermediate mesh points in a wireless mesh network. Data frames originating or ending at a point outside of the wireless mesh network access the wireless network at a mesh access point using a legacy address scheme. The legacy address schemes are converted to a six address scheme using a proxy address table at the access point. Each mesh access point includes not only a routing table but a proxy address table as well as enabling the mesh access point, and/or mesh portal points, to convert address schemes having less than six address fields to the six field format. Subsequent to the conversion, mesh points within the wireless mesh network need only the routing table to facilitate the forwarding of the data frame.
US08284773B1
A method and system for establishing group multicast communication, such as PoC multicast communication. Multiple terminals will join a PoC multicast group automatically at some point before the underlying PoC session is being initiated and thus before there is any PoC content for a PoC server to multicast to the group members. Further, this joining process will occur without the PoC multicast channel being listed in the terminals' multicast channel listings. Thereafter, when one of the terminals opts to initiate the PoC session and thus signals to the PoC server, the server will cause the participating terminals to tune to the associated PoC multicast channel for the PoC multicast group that the terminals had already joined. The invention thereby helps to effectively randomize the timing of join-signaling by the various terminals and thus helps to conserve network resources.
US08284766B2
A multi-core die is provided that allows packets to be communicated across the die using resources of a packet switched network and a circuit switched network.
US08284765B1
Systems and methods for providing communication service using a private packet network backbone exchange (PPNBE) are disclosed. The private packet network backbone exchange may include a logical call control entity, a logical routing database, one or more PPNBE gateways, and a private packet network. The PPNBE may provide “one-hop” call connection between a call-originating entity and a call-terminating entity without traversal of any other exchanges. The PPNBE may simultaneously support both one-hop local and long distance calls. The PPNBE architecture is easily scalable and incorporated into existing communication networks for on-net and off-net service. Methods and systems for providing access tandem communication service using a PPNBE are also disclosed.
US08284759B2
There is provided a system and method for compressing voice-over-IP headers. More specifically, in one embodiment, there is provided a method comprising receiving a voice-over-IP packet including at least one packet header that contains a set of one or more packet header field values, selecting a content identifier that corresponds to the one or more packet header field values of the received packet, replacing at least one of the packet-header field values in the received packet with the selected content identifier, thereby to create a compressed voice-over-IP packet, and transmitting the compressed voice-over-IP packet across a network connection.
US08284748B2
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for forming and tracking a location-sharing group are disclosed. The location-sharing group can be performed ad hoc without the assistance of a central server. A geofence can be defined that encloses the current locations of the participating devices in the location-sharing group. The geographic location of the location-sharing group as a whole can be tracked and provided to the participating devices in the location-sharing group. Group-level location-sharing can be enabled. Departure of a participating device from the location-sharing group can be detected based on the current location and the coverage radius of each device in the location-sharing group. Entry of points of interest into the geofence of the location-sharing group can be detected and notified to the participating devices in the location-sharing group.
US08284737B2
A system and method for minimizing latency for direct group communications, such as push-to-talk (PTT) calls, among a group of wireless telecommunication devices on a wireless telecommunication network. The wireless telecommunication device has a dormant state without an open dedicated traffic channel for communications therefrom and an active state in which the wireless devices opens a dedicated traffic channel for an outgoing communication from the wireless telecommunication device, to include a direct communication stream. Either the wireless telecommunication device or an intermittent communication server for group communication streams can buffer the initial communication data of a group communication stream while the sending and/or receiving wireless telecommunication device changes from a dormant state to an active state with an open dedicated traffic channel.
US08284735B2
A method obtains area information during handover between heterogeneous networks. A mobility management entity of a destination network receives location area related information of a User Equipment (UE) from a mobility management entity of a source network. The mobility management entity obtains location area information required by the UE according to the location area related information. The mobility management entity sends the location area information required by the UE to the UE.
US08284732B2
A method and apparatus for generating a single statically defined downlink reference MCS table consisting of transport block sizes (TBSs) computed for 29 MCSs for each of j PRBs where j=1, . . . , NRBDL. Three entries of the MCS table are reserved for implicit modulation order signaling (e.g. in the downlink) or implicit redundancy version signaling (e.g. in the uplink). Each MCS entry in the table is populated by a TBS and the table entries are accessed based on a 5-bit MCS index and resource allocation information, indicating the number of PRBs is signaled via a scheduling message which may be a grant or assignment message. A grant or assignment message may further include a 5-bit MCS field for each transport block which, along with the resource allocation information, enables the UE to determine the scheduled TBS.
US08284726B2
An apparatus for allocating a resource in a wireless communication system using an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) scheme includes an analysis unit to analyze a signal received from a terminal over a channel to determine characteristics of the channel; an allocation unit to allocate a first frequency band to the terminal based on the characteristics of the channel; and a frequency hopping unit to perform frequency hopping from the first frequency band to a second frequency band after a first time period. A method for allocating the resource in an OFDMA wireless communication system includes analyzing a signal received from a terminal over a channel to determine characteristics of the channel, allocating a first frequency band to the terminal based on the characteristics of the channel, and performing frequency hopping from the first frequency band to a second frequency band after the first time period.
US08284717B2
The present invention concerns a method for transferring a flow of data by a first telecommunication device to a second telecommunication device in a wireless cellular telecommunication network, the first and second telecommunication devices being linked through a radio channel, characterized in that the method comprises the steps executed by the first telecommunication device of: splitting the flow of data in at least two splits, transferring a first split to the second telecommunication device through the radio channel, transferring at least a second split to the second telecommunication device via at least a third telecommunication device, the third telecommunication device being a first base station of the wireless cellular telecommunication network.
US08284715B2
The disclosure proposes an adaptive resource allocation in a network. A resource is divided into Blocks and each base station is assigned a Block for its subscribers that are in the interference region, and another Block for its subscribers that are not in the interference region. Blocks other than these two are not used by the base station. Bordering base stations does not use the same Block if they have any subscribers in the shared interference region. The disclosure proposes a resource sizing along with load balancing scheme. The resource sizing is adaptable and may change over time according to topology.
US08284714B2
Methods, devices, computer program products, processors and wireless networks are presented that provide for temporary storage of media content on a wireless communication device. According to aspects, when a wireless communication device requests media content from a media content service but is unable to receive the media due to insufficient memory availability, insufficient wireless network signal strength or another delivery attribute, the media content service automatically re-directs delivery of the content to the associated temporary storage wireless communication device. In turn, the wireless device that requested the media content is able to automatically retrieve the media content from the temporary storage device when memory capacity or network signal strength is deemed sufficient to provide for storage or reception.
US08284704B2
Methods and systems for utilizing undersampling for crystal leakage cancellation are disclosed and may include undersampling a composite signal comprising a desired signal and leakage signals due to one or more clock signals. Measured DC signals generated by each of the undersampled signals may be reduced by adjusting the phase and/or amplitude of the clock signals. The undersampling may be performed at one or more of the one or more clock signals, or at integer sub-harmonics of the clock signals. The composite signal may include a signal received by a wireless system or a signal to be transmitted by the wireless system. The undersampled signals may be low-pass filtered. The desired signal may include in-phase and quadrature signals or a polar signal. The undersampling may be performed by one or more sample and hold circuits and the clock signals may be generated utilizing one or more crystal oscillators.
US08284702B2
In one method and apparatus for blocking unwanted calls in a callback system, parameters associated with a callback request (e.g., the user device to which the call is to be directed, the IP address from which the request originated or an identifier of the source computer from which the callback request originated, the party from whom the call is requested) are tracked for each call. A decision to automatically block the requested callback is made based on one or more criteria based on a combination of these parameters, which may be a total over a period of time. In a second method, one or both of the parties to the callback is queried as to whether the callback is unwanted and, if so, one or more parameters associated with the request are blacklisted.
US08284684B2
A transmitter (1) which transmits a predetermined amount of transfer data using an infrared ray includes: a controller (13) for transmitting an SNRM command to the other station without transmitting a station-search command (XID) for searching the other station, the SNRM command including parameters such as maximum transferable speed and maximum receivable data length of the transmitter (1); and a transmission section (14). Consequently, it is possible to shorten a time necessary for a connection between the transmitter and the receiver. This allows shortening a time from the start of communication to the end of the communication in transmitting information data.
US08284673B2
This invention provides a more effective method for capacity planning and traffic engineering of packet networks that connect Virtual Private Network (VPN) sites. A distributed architecture efficiently computes traffic matrixes that show the number of bytes and/or packets exchanged among provider edge (PE) routers and/or service nodes. Each PE router in a service node is exports flow records to a Flow Record Processor (FRP) in the same location. The FRPs use these records in conjunction with configuration data extracted from the PE routers to compute partial traffic matrixes. The partial traffic matrixes are uploaded to a Matrix Generator to create a total traffic matrix. The total traffic matrix is essential input for capacity planning or traffic engineering tools.
US08284668B2
A packet transmission apparatus includes: a plurality of communication ports; a switch for switching packets; a storage unit which stores a plurality of queues for respectively holding packets to be output from the plurality of communication ports; and a stop signal generating unit. The stop signal generating unit generates a stop signal for stopping packets directed to one of the communication ports from being input into the switch, if the amount of packets held in the queue for the one communication port is equal to or larger than a certain first threshold value, and if the sum of the amounts of packets held in the plurality of queues is equal to or larger than a certain second threshold value.
US08284667B2
In one aspect, a mechanism is provided to resolve the Iub transport network congestion in the uplink direction by using the transmission window of the RLC to control the transfer rate of the flow. The RNC (110) detects the Iub TN congestion for the flow in the uplink. The EUL flow control running in the RNC (110) calculates the RLC transmission window size for the UE for the flow and the calculated RLC transmission window size is signaled to the peer RLC entity in the UE (130) through an RLC STATUS PDU.
US08284662B2
A method and apparatus for detecting peer traffic based on a heuristic model and deep packet inspection is described. A suspect set of peer packets is detected using a heuristic model. From the suspect set of peer packet, a set of verified peer packets is detected using deep packet inspection. The set of verified peer packets is processed according to the peer processing policy, while the non-verified peer packets is processed according a non-peer policy. Furthermore, the statistics are generated from the set of suspect peer packet. These statistics are used to update the heuristic model.
US08284661B2
A device receives Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) requests that include registration information, and load balances a SIP call based on the registration information of the SIP requests.
US08284660B2
Scheduling real-time Quality of Service (QoS) data flows in a large-scale wireless communications system uses credit allocation to active QoS flows based on quality-of-service weights, and the credits are measured in dimensionless units of air interface slot capacity. Scheduling addresses inactive QoS flows with no data pending for transmission that may accumulate up to a burst credits limit based upon a fair share of all credits that would be allocated in a 100% busy system. Intermittent flows such as echo requests or keyboard input can thereby get immediate service by using their burst credits. The flow with the highest credit accumulation is serviced first and may use up to a full time slot (or system quanta) of air interface time reducing header encapsulation overhead when payload sizes (and spectral efficiency) are low. Additive and multiplicative aspects age the negative credits back to zero whenever a flow overspends its credit allocation.
US08284657B1
Methods and systems are directed to dynamically mirroring a connection between network devices. Mirroring is managed by forwarding a packet between a first network device and a second network device. In one method, the first network device receives the packet from a client and communicates the packet to the second network device. A forwarding device, pre-determined from the first and second network devices, forwards the packet to a server. The first network device receives a response from the server, and communicates it to the second network device. The forwarding device forwards the response packet to the client. In one configuration, the first network device and forwarding device is an active device, and the second network device is a standby device. In another configuration, the first network device is a standby device, and the second network device and forwarding device is an active device.
US08284652B2
A method for processing forward link channel signals generated by a CDMA base station includes time sharing by several mobile stations of spreading codes, which are orthogonal codes such as Walsh Code, and code-combining soft/softer handoff across sectors in the mobile station active set to increase dimensions on the CDMA2000 and WCDMA downlink while minimizing intra-sector interference. Since different parts of a packet or frame are transmitted to the user by the different base stations in the active set, earlier decoding and therefore early packet termination is enabled.
US08284646B2
An objective lens driving device includes an objective lens holder that holds an objective lens, plural elastic supporting members through that support the objective lens holder, tracking coils and that drive the objective lens holder in the tracking direction, tilting coils that tilt the objective lens holder with respect to the optical axis passing through the objective lens, a tracking control circuit that drives the tracking coils, and a tilting control circuit that drives the tilting coils. The tilting control circuit drives the tilting coils using a signal yielded by multiplying a tracking driving signal from the tracking control circuit by a specific scaling factor so as to cancel out a tilting force of the objective lens holder generated by the tracking coils.
US08284645B2
Provided is an orbiting memory capable of suppressing residual deviation even when a phase difference is caused between a signal to be compensated and information stored in a memory to be fed back and a disc device using the orbiting memory. The disc device includes: an adder to which a signal (s10) to be compensated and having a cyclic frequency component such as a control system error signal is inputted; and a feed back signal system for successively updating and storing an output signal of the adder for each cycle in a memory and inputting one-cycle information stored in the memory to the adder. The feed back signal system includes: a filter unit for outputting a signal contained in a learning band which is arbitrarily set among output signals from the adder; the memory for successively updating and storing the output signal of the filter unit; a phase correction unit capable of arbitrarily setting a phase amount when inputting the output of the memory to the adder; and a gain element for multiplying the one-cycle information subjected to the phase correction by the phase correction unit by a value not smaller than 0 and not greater than 1 and inputting the obtained value to the adder.
US08284641B2
A simple circuit configuration allows an optical disc apparatus to reduce a problem of sound skips occurring due to damage on an optical disc. To this end, an LPF extracts a low-frequency component from a tracking actuator drive signal obtained by a tracking actuator driver. When the optical disc apparatus reads and writes information to and from the optical disc, a sled drive signal supplier outputs a sled pulse signal, as a drive signal for a sled motor, for a set-up predetermined time within each interval of a predetermined length, the sled pulse signal having a level corresponding to a level of the low-frequency component obtained by the LPF. On the other occasions, the sled drive signal supplier outputs the low-frequency component obtained by the LPF as the drive signal for the sled motor.
US08284639B2
An information reproducing control apparatus, a display device, a control method, and a storage medium are disclosed, the control apparatus includes a display control device for controlling to display a reproducing point in sequential content data; an operating device including an operator, a user being able to directly touch the operator, the operator being used for designating a desired point of the content data as a new reproducing point; a specifying device for directly specifying a reproducing point corresponding to the new reproducing point. The operator having an operation area including one end portion provided along with one end portion of a display area of the elapsed time on the display device and the other end portion provided along with the other portion of the display area of the elapsed time on the display device.
US08284636B2
A recording head has a conical tip disposed at a distal end thereof configured to oppose a surface of a medium. The conical tip has an opening for generating near-field light and a side surface forming at least a part of an edge portion of the conical tip surrounding the opening. A magnetic recording element generates magnetization inversion in a minute area on the surface of the medium which is heated by application of the near-field light. The magnetic recording element has a main magnetic pole, a secondary magnetic pole, and a dielectric film arranged between the main and secondary magnetic poles. The main magnetic pole comprises a thin film arranged on side surface of the conical tip for providing a magnetic field to the surface of the medium in a substantially vertical direction. The secondary magnetic pole is arranged on a surface of the conical tip opposite to the side surface thereof for absorbing a part of the magnetic field provided from the main magnetic pole.
US08284635B2
When a semiconductor laser is arranged outside a slider and a light is to be guided to the slider through a waveguide, the following problems will be solved: the stability of the flying slider is deteriorated due to a stress from the waveguide; and when an actuator is arranged near the flying slider, the motions of the slider are hindered by the waveguide. A waveguide for guiding a light to a light irradiating unit inside a slider, which floats over a medium and has the light irradiating unit for irradiating a light to the medium; and a waveguide for propagating a light from the light source to the waveguide inside the slider, are included. The two waveguides are not in contact with each other, and a relative portion between the two waveguides is movable.
US08284627B2
Embodiments of the invention relate to reducing energy consumption and optimizing workload and performance in multi-tier storage systems using extent-level dynamic tiering. An aspect of the invention includes a receiving data access information of a storage extent stored in a storage system and utilization information of storage devices in the storage system. The storage system includes a plurality of storage tiers and each of the plurality of storage tiers is made up of a plurality of storage devices. Storage resources required for each of the plurality of the storage tiers to satisfy the storage extent's performance and capacity requirements are estimated based on the data access information. One storage tier that would incur the lowest power consumption to the storage system for satisfying the storage extent's performance and capacity requirements is determined. The one storage tier is determined by calculating the amount of power that would be consumed by the storage extent in each of the plurality of storage tiers based on the estimated storage resources. At least one storage device in the one storage tier that has available storage resources that would satisfy the storage extent's performance and capacity requirements is determined based on the data access information and utilization information. The storage extent is allocated to the one storage tier and to one storage device (among the at least one storage device) that has the least amount of available storage capacity.
US08284624B2
A level detector, an internal voltage generator including the level detector, and a semiconductor memory device including the internal voltage generator are provided. The internal voltage generator includes a level detector that compares a threshold voltage that varies with temperature with an internal voltage to output a comparative voltage, and an internal voltage driver that adjusts an external supply voltage in response to the comparative voltage and that outputs an internal voltage.
US08284621B2
A method and apparatus for determining correct timing for receiving, in a host in a memory system, of a normal toggle transmitted by an addressed memory chip on a bidirectional data strobe. An offset in the data strobe is established, either by commanding the addressed memory chip, in a training period, to drive the data strobe to a known state, except during transmission of a normal toggle, or by providing a voltage offset between a true and a complement phase in the data strobe, or by providing a circuit bias in a differential receiver on the host the receives the data strobe. A series of read commands are transmitted by the host to the addressed memory chip, which responds by transmitting the normal toggle. Timing of reception of the normal toggle as received by the host chip is adjusted until the normal toggle is correctly received.
US08284611B2
A method of operating a nonvolatile memory device includes precharging bit lines coupled to strings, supplying a first verification voltage to a selected word line and supplying a pass voltage to word lines other than the selected word line, supplying a first sense pulse to switching elements coupled between the bit lines and sense nodes and detecting memory cells, each having a threshold voltage higher than the first verification voltage, supplying a second verification voltage higher than the first verification voltage to the selected word line and supplying the pass voltage to the word lines other than the selected word line, and supplying a second sense pulse to the switching elements and detecting memory cells, each having a threshold voltage higher than the second verification voltage.
US08284607B2
A communication line is connected to first and second chips, and held at a first signal level. A monitor circuit changes a signal level of the communication line from the first signal to a second signal level while one of the first and second chips uses a current larger than a reference current. When the signal level of the communication line is the second signal level, the other of the first and second chips is controlled to a wait state that does not transfer to an operating state of using a current larger than the reference current.
US08284606B2
Shifts in the apparent charge stored on a floating gate (or other charge storing element) of a non-volatile memory cell can occur because of the coupling of an electric field based on the charge stored in adjacent floating gates (or other adjacent charge storing elements). To compensate for this coupling, the read or programming process for a given memory cell can take into account the programmed state of an adjacent memory cell. To determine whether compensation is needed, a process can be performed that includes sensing information about the programmed state of an adjacent memory cell (e.g., on an adjacent bit line or other location).
US08284605B2
An embodiment of the invention provides a semiconductor storage device including a NAND string, a SEN node, and a capacitor. The NAND string includes plural series-connected memory cells, and one end of the NAND string is connected to a bit line while the other end is connected to a common source line. The SEN node is configured to be able to be electrically connected to a voltage source and the bit line. In the capacitor, one end is connected to the SEN node while the other end is connected to a CLK node to which a voltage within a predetermined range is applied. A discharge rate of the SEN node is enhanced by decreasing a capacitance during discharge of the SEN node only when a selected memory cell selected from the plural memory cells is an on-cell.
US08284592B2
The semiconductor memory device executes, in address units, operation for inverting data stored in a memory cell designated by an internal address and writing the data in the memory cell and increments the internal address every time inversion writing operation for the memory cell is executed.
US08284580B2
A system and method for converting a relatively high voltage into a relatively low voltage, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a first series of pulses at the relatively high voltage and a first frequency; and converting the first series of pulses into a second series of pulses at a second voltage lower than the relatively high voltage and a second frequency higher than the first frequency. The first series of pulses may be a waveform and the converting step may be triggered by the waveform of the first series of pulses exceeding the relatively low voltage. The first series of pulses may be direct current pulses and the receiving step may comprise receiving an alternating current voltage and rectifying the alternating current voltage into the first series of pulses. The second frequency may be some multiple of the first frequency, such as twice the first frequency.
US08284571B2
In a PFC (power factor correction) control unit for controlling a PFC converter, a transconductance amplifier is coupled to receive a feedback signal representative of an output voltage of the PFC converter. The transconductance amplifier is coupled to generate an output error signal in response to the feedback signal. A PWM (pulse width modulated) converter is coupled to receive the output error signal, the PWM converter is coupled to generate a PWM signal in response to the output error signal. A chopper is coupled to receive the PWM signal. The chopper is coupled to switch a current representative of an input current of the PFC converter in response to the PWM signal. A filter is coupled to receive the switched current representative of the input current of the PFC converter. The filter is coupled to generate a PFC converter control signal in response to the filtered switched current representative of the input current of the PFC converter.
US08284558B2
An apparatus including: a first interconnector portion configured to fasten to a side part of a first housing portion of a portable apparatus, and a second interconnector portion rigidly connected to the first interconnector portion and configured to fasten to a second housing portion of the portable apparatus.
US08284553B2
A power supply device includes a transformer and a heat-dissipating mechanism. The heat-dissipating mechanism includes a heat-dissipating fan unit and an activating unit. The heat-dissipating fan unit is connected pivotally to the transformer, and is pivotable relative to the transformer to lie on a top surface of the transformer. An inclination angle of the heat-dissipating fan unit relative to the top surface of the transformer is adjustable. The activating unit includes a control switch for controlling activation of the heat-dissipating fan unit.
US08284552B2
Systems and apparatus for providing supplemental functionality to a computer system with an expansion card adaptable for both internal and external coupling to the computer system. An expansion card has a bracket for internally coupling to a host computer and a housing for external coupling to a host computer. The expansion card may receive power from the host computer via an edge connector when internally coupled and through a power adapter via a power port when externally coupled. The expansion card may further receive data from the host computer via the edge connector when internally coupled and through an external bus when externally coupled. When externally coupled, the expansion card is mounted within a housing that may be mounted to an outside surface of a computer rack to preserve space within the rack.
US08284547B2
In a display apparatus and a method for assembling the display apparatus, the display apparatus includes for an embodiment a backlight assembly, a lower receiving member, a display panel and an upper receiving member. The backlight assembly provides light. The lower receiving member receives the backlight assembly. The display panel is disposed over the backlight assembly. An end portion of the upper receiving member is disposed on a non-display area of the first substrate and protrudes between an end portion of the front case and the first substrate. The upper receiving member is combined with the lower receiving member and fixes the display panel. Thus, the display panel may be safely fixed (secured).
US08284526B2
According to one embodiment, a TMR effect element includes a ground layer, an antiferromagnetic layer above the ground layer, a first ferromagnetic layer above the antiferromagnetic layer and exchange-coupled to the antiferromagnetic layer, an anti-parallel coupling layer above the first ferromagnetic layer, a second ferromagnetic layer having a magnetic moment coupled anti-parallel to the magnetic moment of the first ferromagnetic layer via the anti-parallel coupling layer, an insulation barrier layer above the second ferromagnetic layer, and a third ferromagnetic layer above the insulation barrier layer. At least a portion of the second ferromagnetic layer and at least a portion of the third ferromagnetic layer on an insulation barrier layer side are comprised of a crystal, and the insulation barrier layer comprises MgO and an oxide material having an independent cubic crystal structure and complete solid solubility with MgO. Other elements, heads, and formation methods are described according to various embodiments.
US08284516B1
A PMR writer is disclosed wherein a magnetic assist layer (MAL) made of an anisotropic (−Ku) or (+Ku) magnetic material is formed along a main pole trailing side to optimize the vertical magnetic field and field gradient at the air bearing surface. A Ru seed layer is formed between the main pole and (−Ku) MAL to induce a hard axis direction toward the main pole. A (−Ku) MAL is preferably comprised of hcp-CoIr while CoPt and FePt are examples of a (+Ku) MAL. The MAL has a down-track thickness from 5 to 20 nm, a width equal to the track width in a cross-track direction, and extends 100 to 500 nm in a direction toward a back end of the main pole. As a result, flux leakage from the main pole to trailing shield is reduced and aerial density is increased. A method for fabricating the PMR writer is provided.
US08284514B1
Disclosed is a clamp fastener that includes a convex head to prevent damage due to contact from a cover of a disk drive. The disk drive comprises a disk, a spindle motor, a disk clamp mounted to a top surface of the disk, and a clamp fastener. The clamp fastener includes a convex head. The clamp fastener is mounted through the disk clamp to connect the disk clamp and the disk to the spindle motor such that the spindle motor spins the disk, wherein the convex head is nearer to the cover than the disk clamp.
US08284513B2
A bearing mechanism includes a shaft, a sleeve portion, a thrust portion, and a cover portion. Lubricating oil is arranged in a communicating channel in the sleeve portion, a thrust gap between the sleeve portion and the thrust portion, and a tapered gap between an outside surface of the thrust portion and the cover portion. A lower end opening of the communicating channel is defined in an outer circumferential portion of a lower surface of the sleeve portion radially outward of the thrust gap. A radially outermost portion of the thrust portion is arranged either tangent to a wall surface of the communicating channel or closer to a central axis than the wall surface. The tapered gap is arranged closer to the central axis than a radially outermost point of the wall surface. The outer circumferential portion and the cover portion define a guide gap therebetween.
US08284512B2
Copying, dubbing or reproducing copyrighted digital data can be inhibited or restricted to properly protect a copyright. AV data recorded on a pre-recorded tape is output from a reproducing unit of a first digital VCR with protective information indicating whether the copy of the AV data is inhibited or not. The protective information is input with the A/V data to a second digital VCR. Copy permission information of a blank tape loaded in the second digital VCR is discriminated and the second digital VCR records the AV data supplied from the first digital VCR based on the protective information and the copy permission information.
US08284509B2
A voice coil motor includes a stationary member, a moveable member, a base, and two guide posts. The stationary member includes a stationary frame and a number of magnets fixed on the stationary frame. The stationary frame defines a first receiving room. The moveable member is received in the first receiving room and includes a barrel holder and a coil. The barrel holder defines a second receiving room for receiving a lens barrel. The coil wraps around the barrel holder. Two through holes extend from a top surface to a bottom surface of the barrel holder. The base supports the stationary member and the moveable member. The guide posts are perpendicularly fixed on the base and pass through the through holes of the moveable member.
US08284503B2
A large optics stand provides a risk free means of safely tilting large optics with ease and a method of safely tilting large optics with ease. The optics are supported in the horizontal position by pads. In the vertical plane the optics are supported by saddles that evenly distribute the optics weight over a large area.
US08284491B2
A multi-ply mount (frame member) for displaying an image in a lenticular environment includes a lenticular sheet having lenticules. The lenticular sheet has a clear coating deposited on a portion of the front surface thereof. The clear coating at least substantially fills the valleys of the lenticules within the portion to form a filled region that defines a windowed region. A reverse-mounted image, such as a photograph, is disposed along and faces the back surface and is in registration with the windowed region resulting in the reverse-mounted image being viewable through the clear coating without lenticular distortion. A multi-layer backing structure seals the reverse-mounted image within the mount.
US08284486B2
Control apparatus for a microscope having at least one rotary control member for adjustment of the microscope, the apparatus comprising: a motor; a coupling arrangement driven, in use, by the motor; and a mount arrangement to provide adjustable positioning of the motor relative to the control member, to cause the coupling arrangement to engage the rotary control member to cause the control member to be driven by rotation of the motor.
US08284484B2
An assembly (100) and a method are provided for inputting a light beam into a light path extending from the confocal scanning head (102) to the microscope (104) of a scanning confocal microscope system to illuminate a selected region of a sample mounted in the microscope. The assembly comprises a light input for receiving a light beam from a light source; beam directing means (8, 12) for controlling the path of the light beam with reference to the shape of the selected region of the sample; and a beam coupler (16) for selective coupling the light beam into the light path from the confocal scanning head (102) to the microscope (104), with the beam direction being controlled by the beam directing means so as to illuminate the selected region. A scanning confocal microscope system including such an assembly is also described, together with a method of calibrating the system. In addition, an optical switch for selectively switching a light beam between two paths is disclosed.
US08284477B2
A lumped nanocircuit element design at IR and optical frequencies is provided that can effectively act as a lumped “diode” and a lumped “rectifier” for rectifying optical field displacement currents or optical electric field. The lumped nanocircuit element design can also act as a lumped second harmonic generator. The element is formed by juxtaposing an epsilon-negative nanoparticle with a nonlinear optical nanostructure.
US08284476B2
An interferometric display comprises a backlight with light extraction features formed from a desiccant material within the display. A light source is positioned at one or more edges or corners of the back glass, and the desiccant based features patterned in or on the back glass remove unwanted moisture and create uniform light extraction from the back glass.
US08284474B2
An Interferometric Modulator (IMod) is a microelectromechanical device for modulating light using interference. The colors of these devices may be determined in a spatial fashion, and their inherent color shift may be compensated for using several optical compensation mechanisms. Brightness, addressing, and driving of IMods may be accomplished in a variety of ways with appropriate packaging, and peripheral electronics which can be attached and/or fabricated using one of many techniques. The devices may be used in both embedded and directly perceived applications, the latter providing multiple viewing modes as well as a multitude of product concepts ranging in size from microscopic to architectural in scope.
US08284471B2
In a touch control electrochromic device such as a resistive or capacitive touch panel, the electrochromic device combined with a resistive touch panel includes a resistive touch panel unit having a first transparent conductive substrate and a second conductive substrate; an electrochromic material, which is a pure liquid filled into the resistive touch panel unit; an insulator installed at internal peripheries of the first transparent conductive substrate and the second conductive substrate; and a controller electrically coupled to the resistive touch panel unit for turning on/off an external power source of the electrochromic material by an external touch control signal. The resistive touch panel unit directly drives the coloration/decoloration of the electrochromic material to achieve the effect of a power saving window or smart glass.
US08284468B2
An authenticating medium that includes a hologram which is used for authentication or other purposes thereby making more complicated appearance and ease of authentication unnecessary. The medium includes a cholesteric liquid crystal layer (3) on an upper or lower surface of a transparent substrate (2), a hologram-formation layer (4) on a lower surface thereof, and reflective metal layers (5) along the fine relief of the hologram-formation layer (4). The reflective metal layers (5) are formed in a patterned form, as viewed from above, thereby obtaining an authenticating medium (1) capable of solving problems with the prior art. The cholesteric liquid crystal layer may be provided in a double-layer form, and may further have an adhesive layer (7) on the bottom.
US08284465B2
An image scanner includes a feeding unit performing document feeding to sequentially feed sheets, a flatbed glass being loaded with a sheet thereon, a scanning unit performing document scanning in any one of a first mode for sequentially scanning sheets being fed by the feeding unit and a second mode for scanning each sheet which is placed on the flatbed glass on a sheet-by-sheet basis, an interrupting unit detecting an error during the document feeding and interrupting the document feeding, an identifying unit identifying damaged sheets among document sheets to be scanned, and a controller configured to, after the interrupted document feeding is released with the detected error being settled, control the scanning unit to perform the document scanning in the second mode for the damaged sheets and in the first mode for undamaged sheets other than the damaged sheets.
US08284448B2
An image processing apparatus handling combined data including read data from a scanner and written data written by a touch pen, capable of performing appropriate color conversion both on the read data and written data is provided. When a display image obtained by combining the read data and the written data is to be printed, the image processing apparatus executes first image processing on the read data, and second image processing on the written data, respectively. By an image forming apparatus, the combined data including the read data and the written data, which have been appropriately color-converted by respective image processing, is printed.
US08284441B2
An image forming apparatus to set full breed printing automatically in case enlarged divisional printing is set.
US08284437B2
A method selects a folding program for a job to be carried out on a folding system, the job being provided with a job specification. The method includes calculating a fold program and an associated fold configuration based on the job specification, resulting in a set of configuration properties. The method further includes evaluating the fold program to check whether the associated fold configuration properties satisfy a set of configuration conditions. A folding system for folding a job, a printer driver, a computer program and a computer-readable medium for carrying out the method are also included.
US08284424B2
A work information generation system includes: a plurality of terminals that display a document; and a server that conducts communications with the plurality of terminals, wherein each of the plurality of terminals includes a notification section that sends notification of identification information given to each of the plurality of terminals and identification information of a document in association with each other to the server in response to display of the document, and wherein the server includes: a determination section; a work information generation section; and a work information retention section as described in the specification.
US08284419B2
An image-forming system includes a transmission device and an image-forming device. The transmission device includes a transmitting unit that transmits image data, command data instructing to form an image corresponding to the image data on a recording medium having a storing part and to write embedded data to the storing part, and first selection data indicating whether or not the image should be formed when the embedded data cannot be written in the storing part. The image-forming device includes an image-forming unit and a controlling unit. The controlling unit controls, when the image-forming unit cannot write the embedded data in the storing unit, the image-forming unit to form the image if the first selection data indicates that the image should be formed, and to fail to form the image if the first selection data indicates that the image should not be formed.
US08284418B2
Mechanisms for document information acquisition and notification of duplicate document storage are provided. The mechanisms convert a physical hard copy document to an electronic form of the document and generates a first digital fingerprint of the electronic form of the document. The mechanisms further retrieve one or more second digital fingerprints for previously stored electronic forms of documents. The first digital fingerprint is compared to the one or more second digital fingerprints. Storage of the electronic form of the document is controlled based on results of comparing the first digital fingerprint to the one or more second digital fingerprints.
US08284414B2
A managing method of an image forming system having at least one image forming apparatus including a first image forming apparatus, and a plurality of servers including a first server and managing the first image forming apparatus, the managing method includes determining whether the first server operates normally, requesting the plurality of server except the first server to manage the first image forming apparatus, if the first server operates abnormally, and allowing a second server among the plurality of servers except the first server to manage the first image forming apparatus in response to the request.
US08284413B2
An information processing apparatus, comprising: an output unit for outputting output information to a user; a receiving unit for receiving function-restricting information showing whether a printer is in a function-restricted status, from the printer in which utilization of a predetermined function is restricted where it is set that utilization of the predetermined function is restricted in the second print setting existing in the printer side even where it is set that the predetermined function equipped by the printer is utilized in the first print setting existing in the information processing apparatus side; and a controller for controlling so as to always output via the output unit the output information showing whether the printer is in the function-restricted status, based on the function restricting information received by the receiving unit.
US08284399B2
An alignment system for optical lithography uses cameras fixed to a movable stage and to a lithography unit to view unique microscopic non-uniformities that are inherent to the surface of a work piece, e.g., metal or ceramic microcrystalline grains, for position referencing. Stage cameras image two sites on the work piece through windows in the stage to establish original position templates. After the work piece has been repositioned, e.g., reversed topside-down, the same two sites are again viewed and template matching establishes the transformed coordinates of the work piece, e.g. by a lithography unit camera under which the stage moves to approximate site locations. Two corner cameras can serve as a coarse positioning mechanism. The alignment system is particular useful for backside alignment in printed circuit board lithography.
US08284396B2
A system for the optical inspection of glass panels (2) is described, with a conveying device (3) for moving a glass panel (2), and with a first inspection module (5, 6, 7), which includes an illumination device and a camera for illuminating and photographing the glass panel (2), and with a first evaluation module (8, 9, 10, 11) for evaluating the photographs of the glass panel (2). In addition, a second inspection module (5, 6, 7) is provided, which includes an illumination device or a camera for illuminating the photograph of the glass panel (2), and it is connected with a second evaluation module (8, 9, 10, 11) for evaluating the photographs taken of the glass panel, the illumination systems and/or the cameras of the first inspection module (5, 6, 7) and the second inspection module (5, 6, 7) having different designs and/or being located in different places relative to the glass panel (2), which is moved past the inspection modules (5, 6, 7) via the conveying device. The present invention also relates to a method carried out using this system (1).
US08284391B2
The invention relates to a method and an arrangement for measuring power for an optical user signal transmitted via an optical fiber by converting the transmitted optical user signal into a pulsed optical measurement signal, the pulse repetition rate of which is dependent on the power of the transmitted optical user signal, and evaluating the pulse repetition rate of the converted optical measurement signal in order to ascertain the power of the optical user signal transmitted via the optical fiber.
US08284390B1
A vehicle tire changing system is configured with sensors to acquire dimensional information associated with tire service tools and a vehicle wheel assembly. The sensors acquire dimensional information associated with at least one feature of the vehicle wheel assembly or a tire service tool. The vehicle tire changing system is configured to utilize the acquired dimensional information to automate and monitor the movement of an associated tire service tool and optionally, to store or convey the acquired dimensional information for use by other vehicle service systems.
US08284385B2
A welding accessory and a system for detecting UV radiation exposure during welding operations are disclosed. The welding accessory may have a surface exposed to UV radiation generated by electric arc welding, a first image visible without exposure to the UV radiation, and a second image formed from UV activated dye that is visible only after exposure to UV radiation generated by the electric welding arc. A system may include a UV exposure indicator with a first state and at least a second state, and include UV activated dye adapted to provide a reversible or persistent visual indication upon exposure to UV radiation. The visual indication may include any combination of symbols, logos, images, text, or other decorative or informational designs as desired.
US08284383B2
An object recognition apparatus performs a sweep of a scanned region by transmitting scanning wave beams at respective scan angles and successive timings, derives a received-wave signal strength value and reflection location corresponding to each scan wave beam during the sweep, and assigns a set of mutually adjacent reflection locations as a segment. A corresponding range value of the segment is calculated, expressing an estimated distance of a detected object. A threshold value is derived in accordance with the segment range, a region of the segment in which the signal strength values exceed the threshold value is extracted, and the width of the extracted region is designated as the width of the detected object.
US08284381B2
A distance measuring apparatus includes: a reference object; a plurality of optical systems; imaging sections for converting images of an object for distance measurement and the reference object formed in the respective imaging regions into picture data; and a calculation section. The calculation section generates a plurality of picture data of the reference object by light of a first wavelength band and a plurality of picture data of the object for distance measurement by light of a second wavelength band, the second wavelength band being longer in wavelength than is the first wavelength band. From the plurality of picture data, parallax amounts of the reference object and the object for distance measurement are calculated. A distance to the object for distance measurement is calculated based on a corrected parallax amount of the object for distance measurement.
US08284375B2
As the screen size becomes larger, it is required to make the device achieve higher definition, higher open area ratio, and higher reliability. Further, requirements for improvements in productivity and cost minimization are also increased. In the present invention, a substrate is pasted with a counter substrate after the liquid crystal material 114 is discharged (or dripped) only over a pixel area that is on a pixel electrode provided over a substrate with a large area by ink jet. Further, both of applying a seal material and dripping of a liquid crystal may be performed to the counter substrate. The total amount of liquid crystal use in a manufacturing process is reduced by forming a liquid crystal layer by ink jet.
US08284369B2
Provided is a flexible light-emitting device including: a base insulating film; a thin film transistor formed over a first surface of the base insulating film; an interlayer insulating film formed over the first surface of the base insulating film with the thin film transistor interposed therebetween; a first pixel electrode formed on a second surface of the base insulating film opposite to the first surface; an electroluminescent layer formed on the second surface of the base insulating film with the first pixel electrode interposed therebetween; a second pixel electrode formed on the second surface of the base insulating film with the first pixel electrode and the electroluminescent layer interposed therebetween; and a wiring electrically connected to a semiconductor layer of the thin film transistor in a contact hole provided in the interlayer insulating film and electrically connected to the first pixel electrode in a through-hole penetrating through at least the interlayer insulating film and the base insulating film.
US08284368B2
A flat display device includes an array substrate. The array substrate includes a plurality of gate lines, data lines and pixels. The pixels include a plurality of first pixel units and second pixel units, and each of the first pixel units and each of the second pixel units include more than three pixels. The first pixel units and the second pixel units disposed in between two adjacent data lines are arranged alternately, wherein the first pixel units are electrically connected with one of the two adjacent data lines, and the second pixel units are electrically connected with the other data line.
US08284354B2
A liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) display panel and an electronic device using the same are provided. The electronic device comprises the LCOS display panel and a circuit board. The LCOS display panel comprises a silicon substrate, a transparent substrate and a liquid crystal layer. The transparent substrate has a base plate and a mask layer. The circuit board is electrically connected to the display panel. The transparent substrate is disposed opposite to the silicon substrate, and the liquid crystal layer is positioned between the silicon substrate and the transparent substrate. The base plate has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface that faces the silicon substrate. The mask layer is disposed on the second surface and has at least one opening to form at least one light-transmitting region and one light-blocking region, and the light-transmitting region is a displaying region of the transparent substrate.
US08284353B2
A display panel having a display region and a non-display region is provided. The display panel includes a first substrate, a second substrate and a display medium between the first substrate and the second substrate. The substrate has a pixel array, a plurality of lead lines, an organic layer and a conductive pattern thereon. The pixel array is disposed within the display region. The lead lines are disposed within the non-display region and electrically connected to the pixel array. The organic layer covers the pixel array and the lead lines. The conductive pattern is disposed on the organic layer in the lead lines. The second substrate has an electrode layer thereon, and the electrode layer is disposed within the display region and the non-display region. In particular, the electrode layer and the conductive pattern are electrically connected to a common voltage.
US08284345B2
A silicon light-emitting element includes a first conductivity type silicon substrate 10 having a first surface 10a and a second surface 10b on a side opposite to the first surface 10a, an insulating film 11 provided on the first surface 10a of the silicon substrate 10, a silicon layer 12 provided on the insulating film 11, and having a second conductivity type different from the first conductivity type, a first electrode 13 provided on the silicon layer 12, and a second electrode 14 provided on the second surface of the silicon substrate, and the silicon substrate 10 has a carrier concentration of 5×1015cm−3 to 5×1018cm−3, the silicon layer 12 has a carrier concentration of 1×1017cm−3 to 5×1019cm−3, and that is larger by one digit or more than the carrier concentration of the silicon substrate 10, and the insulating film 11 has a film thickness of 0.3 nm to 5 nm. Accordingly, a silicon light-emitting element that is applicable to a silicon photonics light source is realized.
US08284332B2
A touch screen sensor with a conductive micropattern includes one or more features to obscure or reduce the visibility of the conductive micropattern.
US08284322B2
A shared memory video processor including signal processing circuitry. The signal processing circuitry may enable a noise reducer and a de-interlacer to share access to field buffers in a memory device to store various field lines. Some of the stored field lines may also be shared within the signal processing circuitry. The sharing of some stored field lines reduces overall memory bandwidth and capacity requirements. The signal processing circuitry may be capable of performing multiple field line processing. A set of field line buffers may be provided to store field lines for multiple field segments and may provide the data to the corresponding inputs of the signal processing circuitry. To further reduce storage, some of the field line buffers may also be shared among the signal processing circuitry.
US08284310B2
An audio/video system comprises an audio signal processing path having an audio path delay and a video signal processing path having a video path delay. The audio path delay may be different from the video path delay. The audio path delay and/or the video path delay may change, for example because of replacement of a component within the audio signal processing path or the video signal processing path. Delay matching (synchronization) in the audio/video system comprises adjusting the audio path delay to be substantially equal to the video path delay. Matching the audio path delay to the video path delay generally includes adding delay to the signal processing path with the lesser delay.
US08284307B1
A system or a method that produces a similarity (or a differential) value that is used to indicate whether two video fields are either similar or not. The system or method assigns an index value to the current field based on the similarity (or a differential) value. The system or method determines how to process further the current field based on whether the assigned index value comprises an even or an odd number. The system or method processes the current field with the immediately preceding field if the current field's assigned index is an even number, and with the immediately following field if the current field's assigned index is an odd number. The system or method generates at least one output video frame that is at least twice the resolution of the current field being processed.
US08284305B2
A vision system useful in acquiring images includes: a light dome having a window and a perimeter; an annular light curtain positioned within and radially inwardly from the perimeter of the light dome such that an annular gap is formed between the light dome and the light curtain; and a light ring positioned to illuminate the gap between the light dome and the light curtain. The light curtain and window are sized and positioned such that no direct light from the light ring reaches the window. The system further comprises a camera having a lens facing the window to acquire images of an object on a side of the window opposite the camera. The images acquired by the camera can then be compared to stored images to determine whether the identity of the objects (which may be pharmaceutical tablets) is as expected.
US08284300B2
An electronic camera includes an imaging device. The imaging device has an imaging surface irradiated with an optical image of an object scene. A CPU executes an AF process based on output of an AF evaluating circuit to adjust a position of a focus lens to a position to be optically converged on a specific object present in an object scene. Upon completion of the AF process, the CPU detects a distance from a lens distal end to the specific object by referencing a current position of the focus lens, and further detects brightness information of the object scene based on output of an AE/AWB evaluating circuit. Moreover, the CPU adjusts an imaging parameter by determining whether or not an object scene attribute including the detected distance and brightness information satisfies a predetermined condition.
US08284296B2
A continuous focusing method for a digital camera is described, which is applicable to determine whether the digital camera performs a focusing procedure or not when the digital camera switches from a first scene to a second scene in a live view stage. The continuous focusing method includes the following steps. A preview image of a second scene is obtained. A blur detection procedure is performed on the preview image, so as to acquire a corresponding focus value. It is determined whether the focus value exceeds a focusing threshold value or not; if not, a focusing procedure is performed; otherwise, if the focus value is greater than the focusing threshold value, the digital camera still maintains a current focusing focal length, which represents that a focusing focal length of the second scene is the same as that of the first scene.
US08284280B2
A device for controlling an image sensor including at least one photosensitive cell including a photodiode capable of discharging into a sense node via a first MOS transistor, the sense node being connected to the gate of a second MOS transistor having its source connected to a processing system. The device includes a bias circuit capable of increasing the voltage of the source during the discharge of the photodiode into the sense node.
US08284277B2
A solid-state imaging device includes: a pixel array section having an effective pixel region formed by a plurality of pixels which are disposed in the form of a matrix, each of which includes a photoelectric conversion device and a transistor reading out an electric charge obtained by photoelectric conversion at the photoelectric conversion device, and which are illuminated by light and a light-shielded pixel region formed by a plurality of pixels which are shielded from light; a row scan section selecting and controlling each row of pixels of the pixel array section to output a signal from each of the pixels of the selected row of pixels to a column signal line provided in association with the row of pixels; and an A-D conversion section converting the signal output from the signal line into a digital signal.
US08284275B2
A lens barrel includes a correction lens to move along an optical axis to perform zoom tracking, a correction lens driver to drive the correction lens, a zoom lens, a zoom ring to be turned by a user, a zoom lens driver to mechanically move the zoom lens according to an amount of turn of the zoom ring, a position detector to detect a position of the zoom lens, a rate detector to detect a change rate of the position of the zoom lens, a storage unit to store relational information which associates the position of the zoom lens with a focus position of the correction lens, and a controller to control the correction lens driver. The controller determines a focus position of the correction lens corresponding to a position more distant by a predetermined amount from the position of the zoom lens detected by the position detector, by referring to the relational information, and controls the correction lens driver to drive the correction lens with a target position set to the determined focus position. The predetermined amount is changed according to the change rate of the position of the zoom lens detected by the rate detector.
US08284270B2
An imaging device for supporting the user to generate satisfactory synthesized images, not missing photo opportunities. The imaging device generates a plurality of still images continuously and generates a synthesized image from the still images. While the shooting button is pressed to instruct continuous shooting, the imaging device performs a process in which it writes still image data, which is obtained by the continuous shooting, into a recording medium sequentially. After the continuous shooting ends, the imaging device enters a wait state to wait for a new instruction, and then upon receiving an instruction to start generating a synthesized image, it performs a process of generating a synthesized image by using a plurality of pieces of still image data stored in the recording medium.
US08284267B2
A virtual camera component allows multiple camera-use applications to share a camera simultaneously. For example, a first application can request access to the camera for a first set of data, and a second application can also request access to the camera for a second set of data. The virtual camera component is coupled between the first and second applications and the camera, and caches and then processes the data according to respective requirements of the first and second applications.
US08284264B2
An imaging apparatus capable of reliably obtaining and recording an image that satisfies a predetermined condition. When a continuous imaging mode is set through an operation system, an image is obtained through continuous imaging, and a determination is made as to whether or not the image obtained through the continuous imaging satisfies the predetermined condition. If the image is determined to satisfy the predetermined condition, the imaging is terminated and the image satisfying the predetermined condition is recorded.
US08284250B2
A system that facilitates determining a trigger rate for a digital camera to provide a threshold forward overlap for consecutively captured images is described herein. The system includes a receiver component that receives first data pertaining to a distance between the digital camera and a surface. The system additionally includes a rate determiner component that is in communication with the receiver component, wherein the rate determiner component determines the trigger rate for the digital camera based at least in part upon the first data, wherein the trigger rate is indicative of an amount of time between consecutive images captured by the digital camera.
US08284247B2
The present invention is a method and apparatus for optical detection and size evaluation of through-penetrating defects such as pinholes in moving foil or film. The invention comprises the installation of at least one image capture device at a first given distance over the moving foil surface, placement of at least one elongated light source comprising an infinite number of point-sources that are not in phase, and are emitting light independently from one another under the foil, periodic automatic computer-controlled image capture of the foil surface with image capture devices, automatic transmission of the image captured by each device to a control computer, and processing of the transmitted image data to detect of defect light spot, followed by determination of generalized index of its initial image. This generalize index value is equal to the brightness averaged within the spot multiplied by the area of the spot. The invention further includes reporting the presence of a through-penetrating defect when the generalized index value exceeds a preset threshold. characteristics of the defect spots.
US08284238B2
An image processing apparatus and a method for generating a three dimensional representation of a scene, which includes a plurality of objects disposed on a plane, is disclosed. The three dimensional representation is generated from one or more video images of the scene, which include the objects on the plane produced from a view of the scene by a video camera. The method includes processing the captured video images to extract image features from each object, comparing image features with sample image features from a predetermined set of possible example objects, and identifying the objects from the comparison of the image features with the sample image features. The method also includes generating object path data, which includes object identification data for each object which identifies the respective object; and provides a position of the object on the plane in the video images with respect to time.
US08284226B2
A control device controls a laser irradiation device to record visible information on a medium by irradiation of a laser beam. The control device includes a drawing information storage unit which stores drawing information of line segments contained in line images of characters, numbers, and symbols. A drawing information acquiring unit acquires drawing information of a line image as an object to be drawn. A thickness information acquiring unit acquires thickness information which specifies a thickness of each line segment. An overlapping line segment detecting unit detects a pair of line segments drawing ranges of which, inclusive of the line segment thickness, overlap each other, based on the thickness information and the drawing information. A line dividing/shortening unit divides or shortens at least one of the pair of line segments so that the drawing ranges of the pair of line segments do not overlap each other.
US08284217B2
Disclosure is a method for randomly and dynamically generating a dynamic index, incorporated in a dynamic index system to improve the color performance of a display, comprises: transmitting video data to the dynamic index system; dynamically generating a substantially random number by a pseudo-random number generating unit; selecting the m bits of the substantially random number as a target adapted to as a position code of the dynamic pattern index matrix; and generating the two-dimensional dynamic pattern index matrix (S×T) by operating the position code.
US08284196B2
The invention relates to a method, system and computer program product for reconstructing a model of an object of projection data advantageously gathered by X-ray imaging. It is characteristic for the invention, that after a point of at least one object of interest from at least two projection images is marked as a seed point, where said point locates inside the object of interest in the corresponding projection image, the model of the object of projection data is reconstructed by adding plurality of elementary object elements around the marked seed point in each direction until a criteria, such as likelihood criteria, is fulfilled in said direction, where priori information relating to the object of interest is connected with said elementary object element.
US08284188B1
A ray tracing system, method, and computer program product are provided for simultaneously traversing a hierarchy of rays and a hierarchy of objects. In operation, a hierarchy of rays and a hierarchy of objects are simultaneously traversed. Additionally, ray tracing is performed, based on the traversal.
US08284184B2
The present invention directs to a method an device for avoiding image sticking, the method for avoiding image sticking is to adjust a real common electrode voltage by difference between the real common electrode voltage and an ideal common electrode voltage, said difference is obtained by acquiring a real pixel electrode voltage on a panel; the device comprises a difference generation block for generating the difference between the real common electrode and the ideal common electrode voltage and an adjusting block for adjusting the real common electrode voltage, said adjusting block comprises an enabling block for generating a common electrode voltage adjustor enabling signal, a control block for generating a common electrode voltage adjustor control signal, and a common electrode voltage adjustor for adjusting the real common electrode voltage. With the method and device of the present invention, the coupling voltage's influence on a pixel electrode can be eliminated, and image sticking can be alleviated or avoided, and no impact on flicker is generated.
US08284182B2
An inverter circuit includes: first and second transistors connected between first and second voltage lines; a fifth transistor having a drain connected to a fifth voltage line and a source connected to a gate of the second transistor; a first capacitive element between a gate and the source of the fifth transistor; a second capacitive element between a first input terminal and the source of the fifth transistor; and the third capacitive element between a second input terminal and the source of the fifth transistor. A first pulse signal into the first input terminal has a phase advanced more than a second pulse signal into the second input terminal. The second pulse signal is switched while the gate of the fifth transistor and the first voltage line are connected. The first pulse signal is switched while the gate of the fifth transistor and the first voltage line are unconnected.
US08284169B2
A liquid crystal display device includes an active matrix substrate, a counter substrate, a liquid crystal layer arranged between the active matrix substrate and the counter substrate and a capacitive touch panel. The counter substrate is thinner than the active matrix substrate and the capacitive touch panel is arranged on the surface of the active matrix substrate opposite the liquid crystal layer.
US08284143B2
A timing controller includes a frame memory capable of storing previous frame data, a comparator structured to output a selection control signal in response to comparison of the previous frame data supplied from the frame memory with current frame data, an overdriver unit structured to output a compensation data signal in response to comparison of the previous frame data and the current frame data, a saturation voltage data supplying unit structured to generate a saturation voltage data signal in response to comparison of the previous frame data and the current frame data, and an outputting unit capable of selectively outputting either the compensation data signal or the saturation voltage data signal in response to the selection control signal.
US08284123B2
In one embodiment of the present invention, a liquid crystal display apparatus driving circuit selectively supplies positive polarity gray scale voltages or negative polarity gray scale voltages to video signal lines as video signals. The circuit includes a gray scale voltage generation circuit for generating a gray scale voltage for display; and first and second gray scale voltage adjustment sections included in the circuit, for increasing positive and negative polarity gray scale voltages while maintaining a voltage difference between the positive and negative polarity gray scale voltages and respectively adjust a center potentials of the positive and negative polarity gray scale voltages. This makes it possible to provide the liquid crystal display apparatus driving circuit which can make the center values of the positive and negative polarity gray scale voltages proximate to values which makes it possible to further reduce the flicker phenomenon without changing the gray scale property.
US08284120B2
Various embodiments of methods and systems for designing and constructing displays from multiple light emitting elements are disclosed. Display elements having different light emitting and self-organizing characteristics may be used during display assembly.
US08284107B2
Disclosed are apparatus and methodology subject matters relating to an antenna configured for mounting under the glass in a utility meter. The antenna is configured as a patch antenna where a radiating element is mounted on one side of a plastic substrate while a conductive ground plane element is mounted on the other side of the substrate. The ground plane element faces the meter electronics and thereby provides protection to the electronics from the electromagnetic field of the antenna. Both the radiating element and ground plane element may be provided by hot stamping conductive material directly on to the front and rear surfaces of the substrate. The antenna may be feed by a microstrip feedline mounted on the printed circuit board supporting other meter components.
US08284103B2
The disclosed subject matter generally relates to hybrid positioning systems and methods and, more specifically, systems and methods of detecting moved WLAN assess points using a wireless local area network based positioning system (WLAN-PS) and a satellite-based positioning system (SPS) with at least two satellites measurement.
US08284102B2
A displaced feed antenna which has a spaced conducting plate construction that incorporates electronically selectable feed points with associated antenna beam positions, and which comprises (i) a set of one or more beamforming configurations composed of layered, interlinking spaced conducting plates and conducting boundaries that are separated by cavities containing dielectric material or free space; (ii) a set of one or more internal focusing devices for each beamforming configuration to route radio frequency energy to or from the displaced feed points in receive and transmit modes respectively; (iii) a linear or curved array of displaced feeds for each beamforming configuration for coupling radio frequency energy into, or from, the cavity between the plates; (iv) a selection device to allow definable overlapping regions of the focussing devices to be illuminated for each beamforming configuration; and (v) array elements for each beamforming configuration between spaced conducting plates to free space, allowing either single polarizations or dual polarization operation.
US08284100B2
Providing indoor location, position, or tracking of a mobile computer is disclosed. Outdoor location, indoor location, and determined motion information is used to track the mobile computer indoors.
US08284099B2
According to one embodiment, an FMCW signal generation circuit includes a voltage-controlled oscillator, a digital phase detector, a differentiator, a comparator, a low-pass filter, an amplifier, a D/A converter, and an integrator. The voltage-controlled oscillator generates an FMCW signal including an oscillation frequency corresponding to a control signal. The digital phase detector detects phase information of the FMCW signal to generate a detection signal. The differentiator differentiates the detection signal once to generate a differential signal. The comparator compares the differential signal with a target frequency to generate an error signal. The low-pass filter suppresses a high-frequency component of the error signal to generate a filtered signal. The amplifier amplifies the filtered signal to generate an amplified signal. The D/A converter converts the amplified signal to analog to generate an analog signal. The integrator integrates the analog signal to generate the control signal.
US08284093B2
A successive approximation A/D converter, includes a reference voltage generation circuit, a sample/hold circuit, a D/A converter circuit, a comparator, and a control circuit. A potential difference between the comparison target voltage generated by the D/A converter circuit and the internal analog voltage is applied to one input terminal of the comparator through a first signal line, and the reference voltage generation circuit is connected to the other input terminal of the comparator through a second signal line and a switch. Capacitive elements are disposed between the high potential power supply and the second signal line, and between the second signal line and the low potential power supply, respectively. The control circuit turns ON the switch to charge the first and second capacitive elements during a period when the sample/hold circuit samples and holds the internal analog voltage and turns OFF the switch in response to end of the period.
US08284091B2
An analog-to-digital converter comprises a signal input (6) for receiving an analog input signal and a set of comparators (4). Each comparator (4) has a first input (21) connected to the signal input (6) and a second input (22) connected to a reference voltage (16). Each comparator generates an output based on the comparison of the signals at the first input (21) and second input (22). The reference voltage is the same for all comparators. The set of comparators (4) has a non-identical response to the reference voltage (16) and the input signal and is due to an internally arising offset. An adder (25) determines a sum of the outputs of the set of comparators and conversion logic (27) generates an output digital signal dependent on the determined sum. Multiple sets of comparators can be provided, each set having a different respective reference voltage.
US08284089B2
A cyclic digital-to-analog converter includes a first capacitor and a second capacitor. Switching circuitry is selectively configurable to connect the first and second capacitors is at least two modes of operation, wherein a first mode uses the first capacitor during conversion of a bit as a sampling capacitor and uses the second capacitor during conversion of that bit as a holding capacitor, and wherein a second mode uses the second capacitor during conversion of a bit as a sampling capacitor and uses the first capacitor during conversion of that bit as a holding capacitor. A controller swaps converter operation between the first and second modes based on the bit values of a digital word to be converted. If adjacent bits of the digital word to be converted have different logical values, the converter swaps from the first mode to the second mode (or from the second mode to the first mode). Otherwise, the converted remains in the current first or second mode.
US08284088B2
A complementary pulse width modulation circuit is composed of a signal generating circuit 10 for generating first and second pulse width modulation signals (PWM#1 and PWM#2) that are complementary to each other from an input signal (IN) in response to a sampling synchronous signal (Sample) generated in synchronization with a clock (CLK); and a signal output circuit 20 for combining a positive signal and a negative signal of the first pulse width modulation signal (PWM#1) generated by the signal generating circuit, and for combining the first pulse width modulation signal (PWM#1) combined with the second pulse width modulation signal (PWM#2), followed by outputting.
US08284081B2
A method and apparatus for inputting a character in a terminal are provided, in which a key input portion has at least one multi-key for use in inputting a plurality of characters, and when an other key is pressed while one of the at least one multi-key is pressed, a controller determines that one of characters following a first character among a plurality of characters mapped to the pressed multi-key has been input according to the distance between the pressed multi-key and the pressed other key.
US08284079B2
A keyboard structure including a first cover, a second cover, a circuit board and a dirt-proof structure is provided. The circuit board is disposed between the first cover and the second cover, and the dirt-proof structure disposed between the circuit board and the first cover is assembled with the circuit board and the second cover.
US08284076B1
Systems and methods are disclosed for automated notification systems. A representative method, among others, can be summarized by the following steps: monitoring travel data in connection with a mobile thing (MT) that is destined to pickup or deliver an item or service at a stop location; causing initiation of a notification communication session with a personal communications device (PCD) based upon the travel data; and during the notification communication session, enabling a party associated with the PCD to change one or more tasks associated with the pickup or delivery. A representative system, among others, comprises a computer or other automated system that is programmed or designed to perform the foregoing steps.
US08284071B2
An assembly (20) for controlling movement of an automatically moveable door panel (22) includes a sensor (30, 32, 34) positioned on at least one of a door panel (22) or a door frame member (24, 26). The sensitive portion provides an indication of when an object is in contact with or in very close proximity to a sensitive portion. A sensitive portion is established over an area of the door or door frame member at which an object may become caught during automated door movement. A disclosed example includes using an electromechanical film as a sensor so that the sensitive portion is responsive to pressure applied by the object on the sensitive portion. Another disclosed example includes a field effect sensor that generates an electric field that is at least partially interrupted when an object contacts or comes in very close proximity to the sensitive portion. Automated movement of a door is controlled responsive to an indication of the presence of an object in a location where the object may become caught during automatic movement of the door.
US08284069B2
Model zone data and model subzone data is employed to simplify calculations for determining where and/or when a boundary crossing event has occurred. A system for detecting a boundary crossing event employs a memory and a processor. The processor in one embodiment is configured by the memory to perform the steps of sensing current position; comparing the sensed current position to model zone data to determine presence within a geometric figure constructed around a boundary crossing point; comparing the sensed current position to model subzone data to determine presence within a first portion of the geometric figure; comparing the sensed current position to model subzone data to determine presence within a second portion of the geometric figure; and detecting a boundary crossing event as a result of movement from the first portion of the geometric figure to the second portion of the geometric figure.
US08284065B2
A microprocessor controlled hazardous condition detection system with volatile and non-volatile memory containing a sensor package, the sensor package containing sensors exposed to the ambient environment, and an alarm element coupled to the sensor package through a microprocessor where the microprocessor includes a memory storage device containing a plurality of alarm thresholds stored therein, each of the plurality of alarm thresholds being associated with a predetermined set of levels in the ambient environment where the microprocessor receives periodic readings from the sensor package, the microprocessor conditions the received readings by removing a selected amount of noise and attenuation therefrom, selects and employs an optimized alarm threshold from a plurality of stored alarm thresholds and activates the alarm element upon detecting a threshold levels in the ambient environment greater than the selected alarm threshold.
US08284061B1
A communications system and method by which information is transmitted and received bi-directionally between digital signage and individuals viewing scenes displayed on digital signage. The digital signage transmits and receives information via an RFID reader and the individual transmits and receives information via an RFID tag. The system and method are useful in providing subscribers to a product/service information database with individually customized information about products and services based on the personal profiles of the individual subscribers.
US08284060B2
A system for managing a plurality of carriers in a mail sorting facility includes a server configured to create, implement and/or execute a sort plan, a plurality of terminals disposed on the plurality of carriers and each configured to send a wireless beacon signal and at least one gateway in communication with the server and configured to receive the wireless beacon signals from the terminals. The terminals preferably each include an alert mechanism. Preferably, the server is further configured to determine the location of a terminal based on the beacon signal transmitted by the terminals to the servers via the at least one gateway and configured to compare the location of each terminal to the location required by the sort plan and to activate the alert mechanism in any terminal determined to be in an incorrect location.
US08284056B2
A system and method of managing product at a location in which an echolocation RFID tag or a weight-sensing RFID tag is utilized to determine the quantity of material in a container and then this information is read by an RFID reader and then transmitted to a data storage repository and processing program for further handling of the data. The data storage repository and processing program may be near the RFID reader or may be remotely located with respect to the RFID reader.
US08284043B2
A method for communicating a data link message is provided. The method comprises transmitting a data link message from a sender to a receiver, storing the transmitted data link message, and starting a message timer when the data link message is transmitted. The method further comprises determining whether a response to the data link message has been received, and determining whether the message timer has expired if the response has not been received. The sender is notified when the message timer has expired and the response has not been received. Input is requested from the sender whether or not to retransmit the data link message. If input is received from the sender to retransmit, the data link message is displayed to the sender for review and edit. The data link message is then retransmitted from the sender to the receiver.
US08284042B2
A system for detecting a passenger in a rear seating row of a vehicle and alerting an occupant of a vehicle when a passenger safety device in a rear row is not properly used. Occupancy is determined by sensing any actuation of a switch or control in the rear row along with detecting sounds made by the rear row passenger. A processor receives control activity signals indicating that a control has been actuated, receives audio signals generated by a microphone, and uses the control activity signals and the audio signals in combination to determine that the passenger is present. The processor also receives a status signal from the passenger safety device indicating that it is not in proper use. An occupant alerting device provides an alert to the occupant if the processor determines that the passenger is present and the passenger safety device is not in proper use.
US08284036B2
A dual activated pneumatic actuator system for a patient call system includes a dual function hand held actuator for a pneumatic patient call system and having first and second air pressure domes; a pneumatically actuated switching device including two cylinders, contact pins and C-clips connected to the contact pins; and an air conduit system connecting the dual function hand held actuator to the pneumatically actuated switching device. When a first air pressure dome is depressed pressurized air forces a cylinder against its respective pin and C-clip to create a first circuit whereby an electrical signal is sent to an alarm system in the nurse station and when the second air pressure dome is depressed pressurized air forces the other cylinder against its respective pin and C-clip to create a second circuit whereby an electrical signal is sent to an electronic device, for example television or radio.
US08284025B2
The present invention discloses a system and methods for biometric security using hand geometry recognition biometrics in a transponder-reader system. The biometric security system also includes a hand geometry scan sensor that detects biometric samples and a device for verifying biometric samples. In one embodiment, the biometric security system includes a transponder configured with a hand geometry scan sensor. In another embodiment, the system includes a reader configured with a hand geometry scan sensor. In yet another embodiment, the present invention discloses methods for proffering and processing hand geometry scan samples to facilitate authorization of transactions.
US08284024B2
A system and method of issuing patient identification devices to patients in a self service fashion at a provider facility. The system includes a processor for obtaining first patient identification information from a patient, for retrieving second patient identification information from patient records, for positively identifying the patient by comparing the first identification information to the second identification information, for initiating a patient identification device with a code unique to the patient, for issuing the identification device to the patient, and for storing an indication that the identification device has been initiated and issued.
US08284019B2
A multi-factor biometrics authentication method including the steps of: acquiring a non-spectrometric biometric signature (e.g. fingerprint, iris pattern, etc.) of a biometric signature source (e.g. fingertip, iris, etc.) of a subject to be authenticated (e.g. person); acquiring spectral information (e.g. diffuse reflectance spectrum, reflectance spectrum, etc.) of the biometric signature source; using the non-spectrometric biometric signature to determine the unique identity of the biometric signature source; and using the spectral information to verify that the subject to be authenticated belongs to a predetermined class of objects (e.g. living persons). A biometrics system (e.g. fingerprint authentication device, iris pattern authentication device) is augmented with spectral biometrics capability in a practical manner without introducing much overhead to the base biometrics technology or inconvenience to users.
US08284014B2
A digital potentiometer includes a circuit containing multiple string arrays, each having a plurality of switching devices connected to an array of resistors. Each input terminal receives a separate digital input code enabling the resistance of one of the arms to be varied without changing the other.
US08284011B2
A cap (27) for a temperature-dependent switch (10) having a first connection area (22) and at least one second connection area (23) on the outer surface of its housing (11, 12) for the purpose of electrically connecting leads (25, 26) is designed as a cup-like surrounding housing that can be pushed onto the switch (10), preferably with an accurate fit, such that the connection areas (22, 23) for electrical connection are accessible from the outside after said surrounding housing has been pushed on, whereby a first opening (28) for the first connection area (22) and a second opening (29) for the second connection area (23) are provided in said cap (27).
US08284006B2
A dry-type electrical transformer system comprises a transformer and a housing. The transformer includes vertically oriented primary and secondary windings, a core extending through the primary and secondary windings, and top and bottom core clamps securing the top and bottom of the core. The housing includes a base supporting the transformer and having an air inlet, a top including an air outlet, and side walls around the transformer, wherein the housing facilitates air flow through air passages in the windings driven by natural convection in the absence of a powered air mover. Support beams allow air into a base of the housing, and the clamps are designed to allow efficient air flow into and through the air passages in the windings. A top of the housing divides the air flow into separate streams and directs the air to separate vents that release the air vertically upward.
US08284003B2
A control element for a motor vehicle including a control button, a bearing location for the control button located in a housing of the control element, an extension firmly connected with the control button, a first permanent magnet attached to the extension, and a second permanent magnet attached in the housing, where the permanent magnets form a permanent magnet pair, and unlike poles of the magnets face each other at a distance in a mid-position of the control button, wherein a magnetically conductive material is attached at least in some areas and circumferentially to the permanent magnet pair.
US08283998B2
An antenna feed device (100) having a first waveguide (102) and a second waveguide (104) separated from the first waveguide (102), each of which is assigned to feed one polarization of a dedicated antenna and each of said waveguides exhibit an overall L-shape form where at least one section of the L-shape of each waveguide is in parallel to the other, both having respectively a first (106) and a second (108) antenna end ending in one plane for connection to an ortho-mode transducer associated with the antenna, while the other sections of the two L-shape waveguides extend in opposite directions, having respectively a first (110) and a second (112) radio end, each of which ends with a single waveguide port for connection to a radio equipment and the waveguides arrangement yields an overall compact T-shape interconnection of the antenna and the radios dedicated to the orthogonal polarizations.
US08283992B2
A balun that includes a first conductor, a second conductor, and a third conductor. The first conductor has a first length. The first conductor also has a first end connected to a first balanced power amplifier output port. The second conductor has substantially the same first length. The second conductor also includes a first end connected to a second balanced power amplifier output port and a second end connected to a second end of the first conductor. The third conductor has substantially the same first length. The third conductor has a first end connected to an antenna port and a second end connected to a ground potential.
US08283984B2
A phase lock loop is disclosed comprising a first phase detector configured to receive a first clock and a second clock and output a first detector output signal; a second phase detector configured to receive the first clock and the second clock and output a second detector output signal; a summing circuit to sum the first detector output signal and the second detector output signal into a control signal; a loop filter to filter the control signal into a refined control signal; and a controllable oscillator to generate the output clock in accordance with a control by the refined control signal.
US08283979B2
An amplifier system for a power converter includes at least a first switching device and a second switching device formed in an integrated circuit in a substrate of a semiconductor. The first and second switching devices may be formed in a half bridge configuration and may be cooperatively switchable to generate an amplified output signal on an output node of the semiconductor. A resistor and a capacitor may be coupled in parallel between a power supply input node and a substrate node included in the semiconductor. The capacitor may be selectively charged to a de-biasing voltage during a switching cycle of the first and second switching devices to reverse bias a parasitic switching device appearing in the integrated circuit.
US08283974B2
A fast start-up low-voltage bandgap reference voltage generator uses two current generators to provide a first current having a positive temperature coefficient and a second current having a negative temperature coefficient, respectively, and a resistor to generate a temperature independent output voltage according to the sum of the first and second currents. The current generator for providing the first current has a self-bias circuit which uses a single MOSFET to establish the first current, and thereby avoids error caused by mismatched MOSFETs.
US08283969B2
Provided is a semiconductor apparatus including a divided voltage generation circuit that includes a first resistor element and a first transistor connected in series between a first power supply and a second power supply and generates a divided voltage by dividing a voltage difference between the first power supply and the second power supply with a resistance ratio of the first resistor element and the first transistor specified according to a level of a first current flowing to the first transistor, and a current control circuit that includes a second transistor that is connected in a mirror configuration to the first transistor and determines the level of the first current by a control current flowing from a first terminal to a second terminal, and increases and decreases the control current according to an increase and decrease in a voltage difference between the first power supply and a ground power supply.
US08283967B2
A technique to implement a stable and high impedance current sink or source onto a display substrate using a single device. The high output current source or sink circuit includes an input that receives a fixed reference current and provides the reference current to a node in the current source or sink circuit during a calibration operation of the current source or sink circuit. The circuit further includes a first transistor and a second transistor series-connected to the node such that the reference current adjusts the voltage at the node to allow the reference current to pass through the series-connected transistors during the calibration operation. The circuit includes one or more storage devices connected to the node, and an output transistor connected to the node to source or sink an output current from current stored in the one or more storage devices to a drive an active matrix display with a bias current corresponding to the output current.
US08283966B2
An integrator circuit is provided in the present invention, which utilizes a first capacitor and a first switching unit to sample an input signal and carries out distribution of charges between the first capacitor and a second capacitor. The second capacitor is larger than the first capacitor in capacitance. The integrator circuit transmits the charges stored in the second capacitor to a node of the first capacitor which is coupled to a ground previously. Accordingly, a direct current voltage level of the first capacitor may increase, facilitating an increase in a direct current voltage level at the second capacitor. Thereby, the accuracy and linearity of the integrator circuit may improve.
US08283958B2
A delay locked loop is provided. The delay locked loop controls the number of delay cells that delay the phase of an input clock during a locking operation and controls a phase delay value of at least one delay cell among a plurality of delay cells after the locking operation is completed.
US08283944B2
In the electronic circuit device with stacked plural components of the same function, this invention enables to select an arbitrary component among plural components by a control element, without setting pre-determined identification information in each component. By installing a sequential logic circuit in each component, and changing a state of the sequential logic circuit by control data transmitted from the component stacked in a preceding stage or the control element, the state of the controlled component is set to a state that accepts a selection made by the control element.
US08283941B2
An AC stress test circuit for HCI degradation evaluation in semiconductor devices includes a ring oscillator circuit, first and second pads, and first and second isolating switches. The ring oscillator circuit has a plurality of stages connected in series to form a loop. Each of the stages comprises a first node and a second node. The first and second isolating switches respectively connect the first and second pads to the first and second nodes of a designated stage and both are switched-off during ring oscillator stressing of the designated stage. The present invention also provides a method of evaluating AC stress induced HCI degradation, and a test structure.
US08283934B2
A capacitance sensor includes a first charging voltage detector configured to detect a change in a voltage loaded into a first capacitor between an electrode and a ground terminal a second charging voltage detector configured to detect a change in a voltage loaded into a second capacitor among a plurality of electrodes and a determiner configured to generate a determination signal based on a detection voltage transmitted from each of the first charging voltage detector and second charging voltage detector.
US08283926B2
A method and system are disclosed for gathering information about an object including single domain particles which have a diameter in the range of about 5 to 80 nm. In one aspect, a method includes generating a static magnetic field of less than about 0.1 Tesla on the object and generating an RF energy, pulsed or continuous wave, so as to generate electron paramagnetic resonance of the single domain particles. The method also includes detecting the electron paramagnetic resonance of the single domain particles in the form of an image of the object. The single domain particles may have a predetermined diameter and a predetermined saturation magnetization and the applied magnetic field may be such that the single domain particles reach a magnetization being at least about 10% of the saturation magnetization. The method may be used for detecting tags in an object and for activating tags.
US08283909B2
A switching mode power supply apparatus includes a conversion unit to convert input power into output power having a predetermined voltage by performing a switching operation, a light emitting unit to emit light if the voltage of the output power exceeds a predetermined threshold voltage, a light receiving unit to receive the light emitted from the light emitting unit and output a signal indicative of the voltage of the output power, a switching controller to control the switching operation of the conversion unit according to the voltage of the output power indicated by the signal output from the light receiving unit, and a disconnection unit to disconnect power applied to the light receiving unit if a voltage of the power applied to the light receiving unit exceeds a predetermined trigger voltage.
US08283903B2
The method determines the optimal settings for the controllable taps ut of voltage regulating transformers and the capacitor bank switches uc in a distribution network. Var optimization is calculated with the controllable tap settings ut fixed at an initial value, or the best value found so far, to output an optimized set of control settings uc. Voltage optimization is calculated with the control settings uc fixed at the best solution found so far, to output an optimal set of control settings ut. Using an objective function, system performance is evaluated using the optimal set of control settings ut and uc and repeating the steps until either the control values ut and uc do not change from one iteration to the next, the objective function value does not change or if the new objective function value is greater than the last. The control values ut and uc are then output to a distribution control system.
US08283901B2
A power converter and method of controlling a power switch therein to improve power conversion efficiency at low output current. In one embodiment, the power converter includes a first power switch coupled to a source of electrical power and a second power switch coupled to the first power switch and to an output terminal of the power converter. The power converter also includes a controller configured to alternately enable conduction of the first and the second power switches with a duty cycle in response to an output characteristic of the power converter. The controller is configured to control a level of current in the first power switch when the second power switch is substantially disabled to conduct.
US08283892B2
Lower order control devices control plural battery cells configuring plural battery modules. An input terminal of the low order control device in the highest potential, an output terminal of the low order control device in the lowest potential, and a high order control device are connected by isolating units, photocouplers. Diodes which prevent a discharge current of the battery cells in the battery modules are disposed between the output terminal of the low order control device and the battery cells in the battery module on the low potential side. Terminals related to input/output of a signal are electrically connected without isolating among the plural low order control devices.
US08283891B2
A method and system for assessing health of a power source includes measuring voltage and current of a power source in a system using a device in the system as the load. An internal resistance of the power source is determined based on the measured voltage and current. A health assessment of the power source is determined and provided based at least on the determined internal resistance and a stored baseline internal resistance for the power source.
US08283890B2
A charging station for a battery powered biopsy apparatus includes a charging dock having a housing and a charging unit contained in the housing. The charging unit has a set of electrical contacts. The housing is received in a first cavity of a driver assembly with the electrical contacts being coupled in electrical communication with the driver assembly when the driver assembly is mounted on the charging dock for charging. The charging unit provides a signal to the driver assembly to reset the driver assembly to an initialized state when the driver assembly is mounted to the charging station.
US08283889B2
A charging device (10, 100) includes a charging unit (12) and at least one interchangeable, rechargeable energy storage unit (14), in particular an interchangeable battery (18), of a power tool (16). Each energy storage unit (14) has first contact means (24) for contacting the corresponding power tool (16) and additional contact elements (38) for contacting the charging unit (12) in such a way that the charging unit (12) is able to charge the energy storage unit (14) via the additional contact elements (38), both when the unit is connected to the power tool (16) and when it is disconnected from the power tool (16).
US08283884B2
A five-axis machining tool that machines a workpiece mounted on a table using three linear axes and two rotary axes is controlled by a numerical controller. The numerical controller calculates a translational compensation amount and a rotational compensation amount by obtaining axis-dependent translational compensation amounts and axis-dependent rotational compensation amounts on the basis of commanded axis positions. Then, the numerical controller moves the three linear axes and the two rotary axes of the five-axis machining tool to positions obtained by adding the translational compensation amount and the rotational compensation amount thus calculated to a command linear axis position and a command rotary axis position, respectively.
US08283880B2
A motor drive device including a converter for a power running operation and a power regenerative operation. The converter has power switching elements, a first power regenerative control unit for controlling the power switching elements in the power regenerative operation by using pulse width modulation signal whose pulse width changes with a value indicated by a command signal; a second power regenerative control unit for controlling the power switching elements in the power regenerative operation to generate respective power regenerative currents in a phase representing the maximum potential among three phases of a three-phase AC power supply and a phase representing the minimum potential among the three phases, and a power regenerative operation switching unit for switching a control of the power switching elements in the power regenerative operation between a control by the first power regenerative control unit and a control by the second power regenerative control unit.
US08283878B2
The invention provides a high-efficiency battery storage device system, and a motor driving body and a moving body using the system. The battery storage device system comprises (1) a main battery storage device A having high energy density relative to an auxiliary battery storage device B, (2) the auxiliary battery storage device B having high output density relative to the main battery storage device A, (3) a warm-up means for warming up the main battery storage device A to a predetermined temperature or more, (4) a warm-up monitoring means for monitoring a need for warm-up with respect to the main battery storage device A, (5) an operation mode switching means for selecting an operation mode from a warm-up operation mode and a normal operation mode and performing the selected operation mode, and (6) an electricity supply system supplying an electric power to an outside of the battery storage device system.
US08283876B2
Systems and methods to achieve a circuit for driving one or more infrared transmitter LEDs with temperature compensation have been disclosed. In a preferred embodiment of the invention the circuit has been applied for a rain sensing system. The junction temperature of the LED is measured and compensated by adjusting the driver current of a voltage-to-current converter driving the LED. The LED junction temperature is measured by comparing the difference in the forward diode voltage at different current densities. This voltage difference is extracted when switching the drive currents between different constant values. The measurement results are converted to digital values, which are used by a buffered dual ladder resistive DAC structure to adjust the drive current to temperature variations.
US08283874B2
An LED lighting system, with first and second types of LEDs of different efficacies, has a reduced-power usage mode. A control system independently controls first and second control groups of first and second types of LEDs, respectively. The control system has one or more modes including a reduced-power usage mode for decreasing the overall power consumption of the lighting system while maintaining a light level of at least a predetermined percentage of the level present when the first control group of LEDs operates at a power level between less-than-full power and full power and the second control group is off. The predetermined percentage is 50. The control system decreases the overall power consumption of the lighting system in the reduced-power usage mode by turning off or dimming the first control group and turning on the second control group to at least some extent.
US08283867B2
A light source turn-on/off controller includes an input section of a turn-on/off timing signal, a PWM signal generating section for generating a pulse signal responding to a rise or a fall of the timing signal, a duty cycle of the pulse signal changing so as to simulate a rise or a fall of emission in turn-on or turn-off of a filament, an emission control section for controlling an emitting section responding to the pulse signal from the PWM signal generating section, and a storage section for storing a control data table for duty cycle control by the PWM signal generating section. The control data table includes a rise table to be referred to in the rise of emission and a fall table to be referred to in the fall of emission, and each of the rise table and the fall table indicates association between elapsed time from the rise or the fall of the timing signal and the duty cycle of the pulse signal, and a relationship between the tables indicates that they cannot be superposed on each other.
US08283860B2
A method of fabricating an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display is provided. According to the method, a first electrode overlaps a scan line, a common power supply line and/or a data line. A pixel defining layer (PDL) is etched by backside exposure so that an aperture ratio of the OLED may be enhanced.
US08283824B2
A fluid deflecting baffle is provided for use on an electric motor to be used in an environment where liquid may otherwise pass through a vent opening in an endshield of the motor. The baffle is secureable to the endshield and extends in a partial covering relationship with the vent opening. The baffle includes a vent passage therethrough and has at least one liquid flow obstructing louver that extends across the vent opening to deflect liquid away from the vent passage while allowing venting air to flow through the vent passage. The louver includes a generally flat liquid deflection surface that is disposed at an oblique angle relative to the axis of the motor and at least partially faces a venting direction of incoming air and fluid.
US08283823B2
A motor shield covered on a motor of a drainage device over a cooling vane is disclosed to include a shield body having an arched portion and a straight portion, a guide wall disposed in the shield body and having an arched segment and a straight segment connected to the straight portion of the shield body, an airflow zone defined in the shield body in an interference relationship relative to the cooling vane and surrounded by the arched segment and straight segment of the guide wall and the arched portion and straight portion of the shield body, horizontally extending air outlets and vertically extending air outlets respectively located on the arched portion and straight portion of the shield body, and air inlets located on the periphery of the shield body. During rotation of the cooling vane, a flow of air is induced to carry heat out of the shield body through the vertically and horizontally extending air outlets efficiently.
US08283821B2
A superconducting apparatus includes a magnetic field generating portion including a superconducting coil, an extremely low temperature generating portion maintaining the superconducting coil at an extremely low temperature and in a superconducting state, a container defining a heat insulation chamber that accommodates the superconducting coil, a first terminal electrically connected to the superconducting coil and supplying an electric power to the superconducting coil, a second terminal connected to an external electric power source and supplying the electric power to the first terminal in a case where the magnetic field generating portion is driven, and a heat penetration preventing element holding one of the first and second terminals and thermally separating the first and second terminals from each other in a case where a driving of the magnetic field generating portion is stopped, the heat penetration preventing element restraining a heat penetration from the second terminal to the first terminal.
US08283819B2
In a voltage adjuster for a vehicle AC generator which has a cooing member for cooling a circuit portion of the voltage adjuster and in which plural fins of the cooling member are disposed so as to face an air suction hole formed in a case, the cooling member is constructed by assembling a first cooling plate having the same cross-sectional surface in a generating and processing direction and at least a second cooling plate having the same cross-sectional surface in a generating and processing direction and the same cross-sectional surface shape as the first cooling plate, and the fin end surfaces of one cooling plate are abutted on the other cooling plate so as to face the ventilation paths formed by the plural fins of the other cooling plate.
US08283811B2
An antenna for the collection of atmospheric static electricity in which an electrically conductive hub is suspended from a balloon or blimp via a tether. The hub is either solid or uses a spoke/arm arrangement. A number of rods extend from the hub enhance the collection of atmospheric static electricity. The collected atmospheric electricity is conducted from the rods to an electrical connection where the electricity is conducted to earth via a conductive line.
US08283809B2
A detecting device for detecting an operating mode is disclosed. The detecting device includes a pulse generator and a hold-up unit. The pulse generator is disposed for issuing a one-shot pulse signal in response to each of button signals respectively. The hold-up unit is disposed for receiving the button signals to respectively generate delayed button signals by way of clock delay determined by a clock signal. The one-shot pulse signal and the delayed button signals are used to determine an operating mode of a system.
US08283808B2
A switch arrangement comprises a first and a second terminal (1, 2), a first switch (3), a current sensor (10), a first and a second control circuitry (20, 30). The first switch (3) comprises a control terminal (4), a first terminal (5) which is coupled to the first terminal (1) of the switch arrangement and a second terminal (6) which is coupled to the second terminal (2) of the switch arrangement. The current sensor (10) is realized for the measurement of a load current (Iload) flowing through the first switch (3). The first control circuitry (20) is coupled to an output terminal of the current sensor (10) and to the control terminal (4) of the first switch (3). The second control circuitry (30) is coupled to the control terminal (4) of the first switch (3).
US08283802B2
A power distribution unit disclosed herein includes a plurality of power outlets arranged in adjacent columns, the first and the second terminals of the power outlets in a first column formed along a first line, the first and the second terminals of the power outlets in a second column formed along a second line, ground terminals of the power outlets in the first column formed along a third line, and ground terminals of the power outlets of the second column formed along a fourth line, wherein the first line, the second line, the third line, and the fourth line are arranged in parallel, and wherein the plurality of power outlets are arranged in one of an arrangement in which the third and fourth lines are positioned between the first and second lines, and an arrangement in which the first and second lines are positioned between the third and fourth lines.
US08283801B2
The invention essentially concerns an aircraft seat, comprising control units, at least one node to execute a particular action or function, and a display for viewing video data. The node and the display are capable of being actuated by the control units. A keyboard for transmitting a command signal addressed to the control units is connected to the control units. The control units are shared between the display, the keyboard and the node.
US08283791B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor device includes a plurality of first interconnects, a second interconnect, a third interconnect, and a plurality of conductive members. The plurality of first interconnects are arranged periodically to extend in one direction. The second interconnect is disposed outside a group of the plurality of first interconnects to extend in the one direction. The third interconnect is provided between the group and the second interconnect. The plurality of conductive members are disposed on a side opposite to the group as viewed from the second interconnect. A shortest distance between the first interconnect and the third interconnect, a shortest distance between the third interconnect and the second interconnect, and a shortest distance between the first interconnects are equal. A shortest distance between the second interconnect and the conductive member is longer than the shortest distance between the first interconnects.
US08283790B2
An electronic device includes a carrier, a surface mounting device, and solders. The carrier has a plurality of bonding pads, and at least one of the bonding pads has a notch, such that the bonding pad has a necking portion adjacent to the notch. The surface mounting device is disposed on the carrier. Besides, the surface mounting device has a plurality of leads, and each of the leads is connected to the necking portion of one of the bonding pads, respectively. The notch of each of the bonding pads is located under one of the leads. The solders connect the bonding pads and the leads.
US08283785B2
Some embodiments include interconnect regions. The regions may contain, along a cross section, a closed-shape interior region having an electrically conductive material therein, a first dielectric material configured as a liner extending entirely around a lateral periphery of the interior region, and at least two dielectric projections joining to the dielectric material liner and being laterally outward of the interior region. The dielectric projections may have an outer dielectric ring surrounding an inner dielectric region. The outer ring may consist of the first dielectric material and the inner dielectric region may be a composition different from a composition of the first dielectric material, and in some embodiments the composition within the inner dielectric region may be gaseous.
US08283784B2
A method for making a power semiconductor module and a module produced by that method, wherein the module includes a substrate, a connection device and load terminal elements, wherein power semiconductor components are arranged on a conductor track of the substrate and connected to one of the load terminal element by the connection device. The power semiconductor module has auxiliary contact pads which can be connected to an external printed circuit board. The primary production step in this case is cohesively connecting respective first contact areas of the first conductor tracks to at least one second contact area of a power semiconductor component and at least one third contact area of a load terminal element; afterwards, the assemblage composed of at least one power semiconductor component of a connection device and load terminal elements is arranged to form a housing of the power semiconductor module.
US08283780B2
A surface mount semiconductor device has a semiconductor die encapsulated in a molding compound. Electrical contact elements of an intermediate set are disposed on the molding compound. A set of coated wires electrically connect bonding pads of the semiconductor die and the electrical contact elements of the intermediate set. A layer of insulating material covers the coated wires, the die and the electrical contact elements of the intermediate set. Electrically conductive elements are exposed at an external surface of the layer of insulating material and contact respective electrical contact elements of the intermediate set through the layer of insulating material.
US08283770B2
A semiconductor module includes a semiconductor device including a mounting board, a semiconductor chip disposed at a first surface of the mounting board, a first inductor which is provided at a surface side of the semiconductor chip not facing the mounting board in order to perform communication between the semiconductor chip and the outside, a sealing resin layer which is formed at the first surface of the mounting board in order to seal the semiconductor chip, and a recess or an opening which is provided in the sealing resin layer and which includes the inductor inside when seen in a plan view; and a second inductor, which is located in the recess or the opening of the semiconductor device so that the second inductor performs communication with the first inductor.
US08283764B2
A microelectronic assembly and a method for forming a microelectronic assembly are provided. A semiconductor substrate is provided. The semiconductor substrate has first and second opposing sides and first and second portions. A tuning depression is formed on the second opposing side and the second portion of the semiconductor substrate. A radio frequency conductor is formed on the first opposing side of the first semiconductor substrate. The radio frequency conductor has a first end on the first portion of the first semiconductor substrate and a second end on the second portion of the first semiconductor substrate. A microelectronic die having an integrated circuit formed therein is attached to the first opposing side and the first portion of the semiconductor substrate such that the integrated circuit is electrically connected to the first end of the radio frequency conductor.
US08283762B2
A method of manufacturing a semiconductor package, where the package includes a surface for attachment of the package to a device by a joint formed of a connective material in a joint area of the surface. The method is characterized in that it comprises the step of patterning one or more channels on the surface which channels extend away from the joint area towards an edge of the surface. Also the method has the step of applying a compound to one or more channels which compound interacts with the connective material, such that when the semiconductor package is attached to the device the interaction defines one or more paths in the connective material. These correspond to the one or more channels on the surface and allow the passage of waste material away from the joint area to the outer edge of the surface.
US08283761B2
Packaged microelectronic devices and methods for manufacturing packaged microelectronic devices are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a packaged microelectronic device can include a support member and at least one die in a stacked configuration attached to the support member. The support member may include a leadframe disposed longitudinally between first and second ends and latitudinally between first and second sides. The leadframe includes a lead extending between the first end and the first side.
US08283759B2
A lead frame base is coated with a four-layer plating. The four-layer plating includes an underlayer plating (Ni), a palladium plating, a silver plating and a gold plating arranged in this order from bottom to top.
US08283756B2
An electronic component includes a metal substrate, a semiconductor chip configured to be attached to the metal substrate, and a buffer layer positioned between the metal substrate and the semiconductor chip configured to mechanically decouple the semiconductor chip and the metal substrate. The buffer layer extends across less than an entire bottom surface of the semiconductor chip.
US08283750B2
The invention relates to an electric device including an electric element, the electric element comprising a first electrode (104) having a first surface (106) and a pillar (108), the pillar extending from the first surface in a first direction (110), the pillar having a length measured from the first surface parallel to the first direction, the pillar having a cross section (116) perpendicular to the first direction and the pillar having a sidewall surface (120) enclosing the pillar and extending in the first direction, characterized in—that, the pillar comprises any one of a score (124) and protrusion (122) extending along at least part of the length of the pillar for giving the pillar (108) improved mechanical stability. The electrode allows electrical elements such as capacitors, energy storage devices or diodes to be made with improved properties in a cost effective way.
US08283747B2
A semiconductor device including a first conduction type semiconductor layer; a second conduction type element forming region formed above the first conduction type semiconductor layer and formed with at least one semiconductor element formed on a surface region of the second conduction type element forming region; a first conduction type element-isolation region insulating and segregating the second conduction type element forming region from the exterior; and a second conduction type buried region formed at the interface of the first conduction type semiconductor layer and the second conduction type element forming region, formed separated from the first conduction type element-isolation region. In the semiconductor device a second conduction type high concentration region is buried in the surface of the second conduction type element forming region and formed to surround the semiconductor element and separated from the first conduction type element-isolation region.
US08283744B2
Methods of forming transparent conducting oxides and devices formed by these methods are shown. Monolayers that contain indium and monolayers that contain molybdenum are deposited onto a substrate and subsequently processed to form molybdenum-doped indium oxide. The resulting transparent conducing oxide includes properties such as an amorphous or nanocrystalline microstructure. Devices that include transparent conducing oxides formed with these methods have better step coverage over substrate topography and more robust film mechanical properties.
US08283736B2
A hydrogen ion sensing device of the present invention includes: a reference electrode; a sensing portion which senses hydrogen ions by contacting an ion aqueous solution; and a plurality of ring-like lateral bipolar junction transistors, each including a lateral collector, an emitter, a vertical collector and a floating gate connected to the reference electrode, with the emitter surrounded by the floating gate and the lateral collector, wherein the plurality of ring-like lateral bipolar junction transistors are formed on a common substrate and are connected in parallel.
US08283732B2
Provided is a semiconductor device including a substrate, a gate insulating film which is formed on the substrate, and a gate electrode which is provided on the gate insulating film. The gate electrode includes a first metal silicide including a first metal material, and a second metal silicide including one of a second metal material and the second metal material in a contact portion between the gate insulating film and the gate electrode. The second metal silicide including the second metal material is a metal-rich silicide in which the composition ratio of the second metal material to silicon in the second metal silicide including the second metal is greater than 1.
US08283730B2
A negative differential resistance (NDR) device is designed and a possible compact device implementation is presented. The NDR device includes a voltage blocker and a current blocker and exhibits high peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) as well as high switching speed. The corresponding process and design are completely compatible with contemporary Si CMOS technology and area efficient. A single-NDR element SRAM cell prototype with a compact size and high speed is also proposed as its application suitable for embedded memory.
US08283727B1
A circuit with electrostatic discharge protection is described. In one case, the circuit includes trigger device configured to protect a component connected to a node of the circuit during an electrostatic discharge event, the trigger device includes an isolation structure interposed between a gate oxide layer and an extended drain region. A portion of the extended drain region proximate the isolation structure is substantially metal-free.
US08283718B2
A method for forming an integrated circuit system is provided including forming a semi-conducting layer over a substrate, forming a spacer stack having a gap filler adjacent to the semi-conducting layer and a inter-layer dielectric over the gap filler, forming a transition layer having a recess over the semi-conducting layer and adjacent to the spacer stack, and forming a metal layer in the recess.
US08283717B2
Device isolation/insulation films each have a first height within a first area and a second height higher than the first height within a second area. At least the device isolation/insulation films adjacent to a contact diffusion region exist in the second area, and the device isolation/insulation films adjacent to memory transistors exist in the first area. The device isolation/insulation films are implanted with an impurity of a first conductivity type, and device formation regions each have a diffusion region of the first conductivity type, the diffusion region being formed by diffusion of the impurity of the first conductivity type from the device isolation/insulation films.
US08283710B2
A pixel cell having a substrate with a isolation channel formed of higher carbon concentrate such as SiC or carbonated silicon. The channel comprising SiC or carbonated silicon is provided over the substrate of the pixel cell to reduce the dark current leakage.
US08283707B2
A MOS transistor includes an etch stop layer presenting a density of less than a determined threshold value, below which the material of said stop layer is permeable to molecules of dihydrogen and/or water. The material may comprise a nitride. A material used for the etch stop layer preferably has a density value of less than about 2.4 g/cm3.
US08283706B2
A die is formed with different and optimized critical dimensions in different device levels and areas of those device levels using photolithography and etch techniques. One aspect of the invention provides for a memory array formed above a substrate, with driver circuitry formed in the substrate. A level of the memory array consists of, for example, parallel rails and a fan-out region. It is desirable to maximize density of the rails and minimize cost of lithography for the entire memory array. This can be achieved by forming the rails at a tighter pitch than the CMOS circuitry beneath it, allowing cheaper lithography tools to be used when forming the CMOS, and similarly by optimizing lithography and etch techniques for a device level to produce a tight pitch in the rails, and a more relaxed pitch in the less-critical fan-out region.
US08283705B2
A switching power supply has a start-up circuit that includes a field effect transistor (JFET), which has a gate region (a p-type well region) formed in a surface layer of a p-type substrate and a drift region (a first n-type well region). A plurality of source regions (second n-type well regions) are formed circumferentially around the drift region. A drain region (a third n-type well region) is formed centrally of the source region. The drain region and the source regions can be formed at the same time. A metal wiring of the source electrode wiring connected to source regions is divided into at least two groups to form at least two junction field effect transistors.
US08283697B2
An internal combustion engine igniter semiconductor device is disclosed which is low cost yet secures energy withstand and reverse surge withstand capability. An IGBT includes a clamping diode between a collector electrode and a gate electrode. The IGBT has two n-type buffer layers of differing impurity concentrations between a p+ substrate and an n-type base layer of the IGBT, wherein the total thickness of the two-layer buffer layer is 50 μm or less, and the overall impurity amount is 20×1013 cm−2 or less.
US08283695B2
Symmetrical/asymmetrical bidirectional S-shaped I-V characteristics with trigger voltages ranging from 10 V to over 40 V and relatively high holding current are obtained for advanced sub-micron silicided CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor)/BiCMOS (Bipolar CMOS) technologies by custom implementation of P1-N2-P2-N1//N1-P3-N3-P1 lateral structures with embedded ballast resistance 58, 58A, 56, 56A and periphery guard-ring isolation 88-86. The bidirectional protection devices render a high level of electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity for advanced CMOS/BiCMOS processes with no latchup problems. Novel design-adapted multifinger 354/interdigitated 336 layout schemes of the ESD protection cells allow for scaling-up the ESD performance of the protection structure and custom integration, while the I-V characteristics 480 are adjustable to the operating conditions of the integrated circuit (IC). The ESD protection cells are tested using the TLP (Transmission Line Pulse) technique, and ESD standards including HBM (Human Body Model), MM (Machine Model), and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) IEC 1000-4-2 standard for ESD immunity. ESD protection performance is demonstrated also at high temperature (140° C.). The unique high ratio of dual-polarity ESD protection level per unit area, allows for integration of fast-response and compact protection cells optimized for the current tendency of the semiconductor industry toward low cost and high density-oriented IC design. Symmetric/asymmetric dual polarity ESD protection performance is demonstrated for over 15 kV HBM, 2 kV MM, and 16.5 kV IEC for sub-micron technology.
US08283691B2
Provided are a light emitting device package and a lighting device. The light emitting device package includes a base, a light emitting device on the base, a plurality of electrode pads on the base, the plurality of electrode pads electrically connected to the light emitting device, a frame disposed on the base, wherein a size of the frame is smaller than a size of the base, a silver layer on a portion of the plurality of electrode pads, the silver layer directly contacted with the frame and an optical member covering the light emitting device.
US08283689B2
An LED device and LED module are provided. The LED device is coupled to a lead frame with a first plane and a second plane opposite to the first plane, the lead frame having a LED chip disposed on the first plane. The LED device includes a reflection cup structure disposed on the lead frame, a lens structure and at least one fixing structure. The LED chip is disposed in the reflection cup structure and electrically connected to the first plane of the lead frame. The lens structure covers the first plane and the second plane of the lead frame. The fixing structure and the fixing structures are formed integrally and cover the lead frame cooperatively.
US08283685B2
The invention relates to a light-generating arrangement comprising a light-emitting semiconductor element provided with electric supply lines and a transparent light-directing element (2) which is arranged upstream of the semiconductor element in the emission direction at a distance therefrom and which is used for concentrating the light emitted by said semiconductor element in such a way that a light stream is formed. The light output surface (4) of the light-directing element (2) comprises a microstructure (6) consisting of a plurality of elevations and cavities deviating the trajectory of the light stream by <5°.
US08283683B2
A light emitting diode chip includes a permanent substrate having a holding space formed on the permanent substrate; an insulating layer and a metal layer sequentially formed on the permanent substrate and the holding spacer; a die having a eutectic layer and a light-emitting region and bonded to the metal layer within the holding space via the eutectic layer coupling to the metal layer; a filler structure filled between the holding space and the die; and an electrode formed on the die and in contact with the light-emitting region.
US08283673B2
The present invention relates to a crack-free monocrystalline nitride layer having the composition AlxGa1−xN, where 0≦x≦0.3, and a substrate that is likely to generate tensile stress in the nitride layer. The structure successively includes the substrate; a nucleation layer; a monocrystalline intermediate layer having a selected thickness on the nucleation layer; a monocrystalline seed layer of an AlBN compound in which the boron content is between 0 and 10% having a selected thickness on the intermediate layer and a relaxation rate, at ambient temperature, of less than 80%; and the monocrystalline nitride layer.
US08283667B2
A thin film transistor is provided, which includes a gate electrode layer over a substrate, a gate insulating layer over the gate electrode layer, a layer including an amorphous semiconductor over the gate insulating layer, a pair of crystal regions over the layer including the amorphous semiconductor, and source and drain regions over and in contact with the pair of crystal regions. The source and drain regions include a microcrystalline semiconductor layer to which an impurity imparting one conductivity type is added.
US08283660B2
Disclosed is a small molecule semiconductor of Formula (I): wherein R1 and R2 are as described herein. The compound is useful in a semiconducting layer for an electronic device, such as a thin-film transistor. Devices including the compound exhibit high mobility and excellent stability.
US08283651B2
A phase change memory device having an improved word line resistance and a fabrication method of making the same are presented. The phase change memory device includes a semiconductor substrate, a word line, an interlayer insulation film, a strapping line, a plurality of current paths, a switching element, and a phase change variable resistor. The word line is formed in a cell area of the semiconductor substrate. The interlayer insulation film formed on the word line. The strapping line is formed on the interlayer insulation film such that the strapping line overlaps on top of the word line. The current paths electrically connect together the word line with the strapping line. The switching element is electrically connected to the strapping line. The phase change variable resistor is electrically connected to the switching element.
US08283648B2
Methods, devices, and systems associated with phase change memory structures are described herein. One or more embodiments of the present disclosure can reduce thermal crosstalk associated with phase change memory cells, which can provide various benefits including improved data reliability and retention and decreased read and/or write times, among various other benefits. One or more embodiments can reduce the number of processing steps associated with providing local interconnects to phase change memory arrays.
US08283643B2
An EUV light source device is described herein which may comprise a laser beam travelling along a beam path, at least a portion of the beam path aligned along a linear axis; a material for interaction with the laser beam at an irradiation site to create an EUV light emitting plasma; a first reflector having a focal point, the first reflector positioned with the focal point on the linear axis, the first reflector receiving laser light along the beam path; and a second reflector receiving laser light reflected by the first reflector and directing the laser light toward the irradiation site.
US08283640B2
A fluorescence detection method allows fluorescence intensity detection from a fluorescently-labeled biological sample with high accuracy in shorter time, even when a fluorescence intensity from a microchip itself acting as background. A fluorescence intensity from an equivalent microchip, which is equivalent to a microchip with the fluorescently-labeled biological sample, is detected for a period from the start of application of excitation light until the intensity sufficiently attenuates, and a temporal change of the intensity is stored. The light is applied to the microchip and the sample is fed before the fluorescence intensity from the microchip sufficiently attenuates to detect the fluorescence intensity for a period from the start of application of the light to a point after the sample is fed. Values of the temporal change are subtracted from the intensity detected from the microchip with the sample to detect an intensity of fluorescence emitted from the sample.
US08283639B2
A system and method for sterilizing a surface on an input device is disclosed. A chamber is configured to enclose an input device such as a keyboard and is configured to be switched between an open and a closed state. A drive unit may be provided to switch the chamber between states. In an embodiment, the drive unit may include a motor. A sensor provides a signal to a controller when the chamber is the closed state and the controller actuates a UV light. In an embodiment, the controller actuates the drive unit and the UV light in response to a trigger. In an embodiment, the trigger may be provided from a change in state in a computer coupled to the input device.
US08283621B2
An optical device includes a first optical component and a second optical component that are adjacent to each other in a direction of an optical axis. The optical device further includes a holding member that is formed with a resin material absorbing laser beams and that holds the first optical component via an elastic property of the resin material. The second optical component is formed with a resin material that allows the laser beams to pass and that is compatible with the resin material forming the holding member, and is fixed to the holding member by laser welding.
US08283619B2
Methods, devices and systems for harvesting energy from electromagnetic radiation are provided including harvesting energy from electromagnetic radiation. In one embodiment, a device includes a substrate and one or more resonance elements disposed in or on the substrate. The resonance elements are configured to have a resonant frequency, for example, in at least one of the infrared, near-infrared and visible light spectra. A layer of conductive material may be disposed over a portion of the substrate to form a ground plane. An optical resonance gap or stand-off layer may be formed between the resonance elements and the ground plane. The optical resonance gap extends a distance between the resonance elements and the layer of conductive material approximately one-quarter wavelength of a wavelength of the at least one resonance element's resonant frequency. At least one energy transfer element may be associated with the at least one resonance element.
US08283617B2
A display device is applied to a light sensing system. The display device includes a display module and a pattern layer. The pattern layer is made of optical material and formatted on the display module. The pattern layer includes patterned optical material and gaps without optical material. The pattern layer selectively reflects or absorbs invisible light with specific wavelength emitted from the display module, such that a light sensor cannot sense the invisible light reflected or absorbed by the optical material or just can sense a little invisible light through the optical material. However, the invisible light can be emitted out of the gaps without the optical material, such that the light sensor can selectively sense the invisible light. Based on the light sensing result, the light sensor can recognize the corresponding pattern.
US08283602B2
An electric heating blanket including a flexible sheet-like heating element and a shell. The shell covers the heating blanket an includes two sheets of flexible material welded together.
US08283588B2
A process is provided for analyzing the physical characteristics of flat articles being sorted to determine which downstream operations the articles should be processed with next. Length, height, width and stiffness information are received from sensors, and the data is analyzed to determine if the mail piece is automation compatible, extended capability or manual letter, or a flat.
US08283587B2
A portable electronic device attached to a housing includes a button, a elastic plate and a switch. The housing defines a through button hole. The button includes an operating portion and a resisting portion. The operating portion extends out of the housing from the button hole. The elastic plate is fixed to the housing. The elastic plate includes an arched portion and defines a guiding hole, the arched portion resists the button. The resisting portion is received in the guiding hole. The resisting portion contacts the switch to form an electronic signal when the button is pressed down. The arched portion of the elastic plate pushes the button to return to original position by a rebounding force when the button is released.
US08283580B2
A method and apparatus for counting nominally identical articles employs weighing apparatus, which comprises a load hod (102) for holding a number of articles to be weighed and a load transducer (20) responsive to loading of the hod (102) to produce a derived electrical signal indicative of the apparent weight of articles in the hod (102). The signal is susceptible to fluctuation as a result of local air currents acting on the hod (102) or on the articles contained therein. The transducer derived signal is filtered to extract a component signal representative of such fluctuation. After further processing, the filtered component signal is used to correct the original transducer signal thereby to indicate the true weight of articles in the hod (102). The number of articles in the hod (102) is then determined by dividing the true weight indication by an expected average weight of an article. Fluctuations in the transducer signal due to air currents may also be removed by a system of validation of the signals depending on whether or not they are within range limits based on a running average.
US08283573B2
A multi-layer printed circuit board including a core structure including resin layers and conductor circuits sandwiched by the resin layers, the core structure having a first surface and a second surface on an opposite side of the first surface, a first conductor layer including conductor circuits formed on the first surface of the core structure, and a second conductor layer including conductor circuits formed on the second surface of the core structure. The core structure includes a first via hole and a second via hole, the first via hole and the second via hole sandwich one or more conductor circuits in the core substrate and are positioned vertically to form a through hole electrically connecting respective ones of the conductor circuits of the first and the second conductor layers, and the first via hole and the second via hole are deviated from each other in a vertical direction.
US08283558B2
A solar cell assembly and method are disclosed. The solar cell assembly comprises a substrate having a front surface and a back surface, wherein the substrate has a p-n junction providing reverse bias protection, and wherein the substrate functions as a bypass diode. The solar cell assembly further comprises a multijunction solar cell having a plurality of solar cell layers, wherein the multijunction solar cell has a first surface and a second surface, the first surface being attached to the front surface of the substrate. The solar cell assembly further comprises an electrical connector element positioned adjacent the front surface of the substrate and the first surface of the multijunction solar cell, a first contact coupled to the back surface of the substrate, and at least one second contact coupled to a portion of the second surface of the multijunction solar cell.
US08283547B2
A method for use with a musical instrument includes receiving a signal representative of a sound produced by the musical instrument, receiving a selection of an audio effect from a wireless controller, applying the audio effect to the signal representative of a sound produced by the musical instrument, and providing an output signal representative of the audio effect applied to the sound produced by the musical instrument. Other methods include causing an image to be responsive to a signal representative of motions of the musical instrument, and causing an image to be responsive to a signal representative of sound produced by the musical instrument. A computer readable storage medium may store a computer program adapted to cause a processor based system to execute the steps of any one or more of these methods.
US08283544B2
Methods and systems for automatically tuning a drum are disclosed. In some embodiments, the methods and systems include the following: (a) exciting a drum head to cause it to resonate; (b) sensing a vibration frequency at one or more points relative to each tension rod; (c) determining a global average vibration frequency of the vibration frequencies for the points relative to each tension rod; (d) comparing the vibration frequencies of each of the points relative to each tension rod to the global average vibration frequency to determine a correction value for each point relative to the global average vibration frequency; (e) automatically turning each tension rod based on the correction value for the relative points; (f) automatically repeating steps (a)-(e) until each of the vibration frequencies of each of the points relative to each tension rod is substantially similar; and (g) automatically turning each tension rod in a uniform direction substantially simultaneously.
US08283543B2
A bass drum support hoop for supporting one or more percussive instruments, and a method of supporting one or more percussive instruments, above a bass drum. The hoop comprising: an inward face, an outward face, a front edge, and a drum head edge adapted to engage a drum head; the hoop adapted to receive a plurality of tensioners opposite the drum head edge and at least one percussive instrument support for mounting at least one percussive instrument; the hoop capable of supporting the at least one percussion instrument above the outward face; whereby when the hoop is tensioned by the tensioners attached to a bass drum shell to apply pressure to the drum head positioned across the bass drum shell and in contact with the drum head edge, the hoop is capable of supporting the at least one percussive instrument support, and the at least one percussive instrument mounted on the support and positioned above the outward face of the hoop, while maintaining substantially uniform axial pressure against the drum head and not applying substantial radial pressure against the drum shell.
US08283537B1
A rice hybrid designated XP754 is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of rice hybrid XP754, to the plants of rice hybrid XP754 and to methods for producing a rice plant produced by crossing the hybrid XP754 with itself or another rice plant. The invention further relates to hybrid rice seeds and plants produced by crossing the hybrid XP754 with another rice plant. This invention further relates to growing and producing blends of rice seeds comprised of seeds of rice hybrid XP754 with rice seed of one, two, three, four or more of another rice hybrid, rice variety or rice inbred.
US08283533B2
The invention relates to the novel cotton variety designated 09R573B2R2. Provided by the invention are the seeds, plants, plant parts and derivatives of the cotton variety 09R573B2R2. Also provided by the invention are tissue cultures of the cotton variety 09R573B2R2 and the plants regenerated therefrom. Still further provided by the invention are methods for producing cotton plants by crossing the cotton variety 09R573B2R2 with itself or another cotton variety and plants produced by such methods.
US08283531B2
The invention relates to the soybean variety designated A1023484. Provided by the invention are the seeds, plants and derivatives of the soybean variety A1023484. Also provided by the invention are tissue cultures of the soybean variety A1023484 and the plants regenerated therefrom. Still further provided by the invention are methods for producing soybean plants by crossing the soybean variety A1023484 with itself or another soybean variety and plants produced by such methods.
US08283529B2
A novel soybean variety, designated XB005C10 is provided. Also provided are the seeds of soybean variety XB005C10, cells from soybean variety XB005C10, plants of soybean XB005C10, and plant parts of soybean variety XB005C10. Methods provided include producing a soybean plant by crossing soybean variety XB005C10 with another soybean plant, methods for introgressing a transgenic, mutant trait, and/or native trait into soybean variety XB005C10, methods for producing other soybean varieties or plant parts derived from soybean variety XB005C10. Soybean seed, cells, plants, germplasm, breeding lines, varieties, and plant parts produced by these methods and/or derived from soybean variety XB005C10 are further provided.
US08283526B1
According to the invention, there is provided a novel soybean variety designated RJS37001. This invention thus relates to the seeds of soybean variety RJS37001, to the plants of soybean RJS37001 to plant parts of soybean variety RJS37001 and to methods for producing a soybean plant produced by crossing plants of the soybean variety RJS37001 with another soybean plant, using RJS37001 as either the male or the female parent.
US08283524B2
The invention provides nucleic acids, and variants and fragments thereof, obtained from strains of Bacillus thuringiensis encoding polypeptides having pesticidal activity against insect pests, including Lepidoptera. Particular embodiments of the invention provide isolated nucleic acids encoding pesticidal proteins, pesticidal compositions, DNA constructs, and transformed microorganisms and plants comprising a nucleic acid of the embodiments. These compositions find use in methods for controlling pests, especially plant pests.
US08283515B2
An absorbent article such as a diaper, pant diaper, adult incontinence guard, sanitary napkin and the like contains a skin conditioning agent in at least a portion of the article so as to be transferable to the skin of the wearer. The skin conditioning agent is contained in a hydrogel foam material (9; 19; 20) intended to be applied in skin contact with the wearer, either directly or indirectly via a liquid permeable material (2).
US08283509B2
The invention comprises an absorption heat pump to supply energy to a distillation process or an outside process. The streams used to effect the absorption heat pump are to be combined in any case as a feedstream to a conversion process, and energy thus is conserved by avoiding the necessity of reseparating the streams.
US08283508B2
The present invention is a method for producing an aromatic compound by substituting the sulfonic acid group in a sulfonic acid aromatic-ester with a hydrogen atom in the presence of a platinum group metal catalyst, wherein an alkali metal carboxylate and/or an ammonium formate are made to coexist in the system. According to the present invention, an aromatic compound where the sulfonic acid group in a sulfonic acid aromatic-ester is substituted with a hydrogen atom, can be produced efficiently with good operability without using metal magnesium.
US08283502B2
An autocatalytic process for the synthesis of chiral propargylic alcohols.
US08283501B2
Disclosed herein are optically active biphenol derivatives represented by the following formulas (1) and (2), a method for optically resolving a biphenol derivative represented by formula (2′), a production method of an optically active biphenol derivative (1) comprising a step for reacting a Brønsted acid with a biphenol derivative (2), and a production method of an optically active biphenol derivative (3) comprising a step for reacting a Lewis acid with an optically active biphenol derivative (1) or an optically active biphenol derivative (2).
US08283499B2
The present invention relates the use of 2,3-dihalonaphthoquinone compounds of Formula I wherein R1 and R2 are leaving groups like halogens selected from the group comprising Cl, Br, I and F and the R1 and R2 may be the same halogen or may contain different halogen groups, or sulphonyl groups, for making napthoquinone compounds of Formula IA wherein X is any aryl, heteroaryl, alkyl, cyclohexyl, substituted cylohexyl groups and the like.
US08283495B2
Optically active cyclic amines of the formula (I) or salts thereof in which A, R0, R are each as defined in claim 1, and R0 and A, or R and A, or R0 and R may also form rings, where R and the NH—R0 group on the two ring carbon atoms marked with an asterisk (*) in each case are arranged in cis arrangement to one another and the stereochemical configuration on these carbon atoms is different from the racemic configuration, can be prepared effectively by a process, which comprises converting an imine (a racemic imine) of the formula (II) in which A, R0 and R are each as defined in formula (I), in the presence of hydrogen or a hydrogen donor and a nonenzymatic catalyst which comprises a catalytically active optically active complex of one or more transition metals from the group of ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, iridium, osmium, platinum, iron, nickel and samarium with organic ligands, to the compound of the formula (I).
US08283477B2
The present invention relates to a method of preparing N-substituted maleimide in high purity and high yield, wherein, unlike a conventional method of preparing N-substituted maleimide after preparing N-substituted maleamic acid, an organic solvent, an acid catalyst, a dehydration co-catalyst and a stabilizer are added into a reactor without separately preparing N-substituted maleamic acid, and then a primary amine is added into the reactor to form an amine salt, maleic anhydride is added into the reactor, and the resulting mixture is subjected to a dehydration-cyclization reaction, wherein water produced during the reaction is azeotropically distilled with the organic solvent so as to effectively suppress formation of a maleimide polymer. Particularly, the invention simplifies the process, has high yield, minimizes side reactions, eliminates the introduction of expensive raw materials and the complicated treatment of the reaction solution and significantly shortens the time over which the raw materials and maleic anhydride are added.
US08283476B2
The present invention relates to a process for the regioselective synthesis of compounds of the formula I, wherein R0; R1; R2; R3; R4; R5; A1; A2; A3; A4, Q and J have the meanings indicated in the claims. The present invention provides a direct transition metal catalyzed process to a wide variety of multifunctional 2H-indazoles or 2H-azaindazoles of the formula (I) from 2-halo-phenylacetylenes or (2-sulfonato)phenylacetylenes and monosubstituted hydrazines.
US08283474B2
The present invention relates to novel compounds of formula (I) or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof: wherein G is selected from a group consisting of: phenyl, pyridyl, benzothiazolyl, indazolyl; p is an integer ranging from 0 to 5; R1 is independently selected from a group consisting of: halogen, hydroxy, cyano, C1-4alkyl, haloC1-4alkyl, C1-4alkoxy, haloC1-4alkoxy, C1-4alkanoyl; or corresponds to a group R5; R2 is hydrogen or C1-4alkyl; R3 is C1-4alkyl; R4 is hydrogen, or a phenyl group, a heterocyclyl group, a 5- or 6-membered heteroaromatic group, or a 8- to 11-membered bicyclic group, any of which groups is optionally substituted by 1, 2, 3 or 4 substituents selected from the group consisting of: halogen, cyano, C1-4alkyl, haloC1-4alkyl, C1-4alkoxy, C1-4alkanoyl; R5 is a moiety selected from the group consisting of: isoxazolyl, —CH2—N-pyrrolyl, 1,1-dioxido-2-isothiazolidinyl, thienyl, thiazolyl, pyridyl, 2-pyrrolidinonyl, and such a group is optionally substituted by one or two substituents selected from: halogen, cyano, C1-4alkyl, haloC1-4alkyl, C1-4alkoxy, C1-4alkanoyl; and when R1 is chlorine and p is 1, such R1 is not present in the ortho position with respect to the linking bond to the rest of the molecule; and when R1 corresponds to R5, p is 1; processes for their preparation, intermediates used in these processes, pharmaceutical compositions containing them and their use in therapy, as modulators of dopamine D3 receptors, e.g. to treat drug dependency or as antipsychotic agents.
US08283473B2
The present invention provides a novel dinuclear platinum(II) complex compound that can bind to DNA by a mode different from that of cisplatin-type drugs, a method of producing this compound and an anticancer agent comprising this compound as an effective component. This compound is a tetrazolato-bridged platinum complex compound represented by the following formula (I), wherein A is optionally substituted tetrazolato, B is an inorganic or organic anion, and m and n are integers determined in accordance with the charge number of the platinum complex ion and the charge number of the anion.
US08283469B2
The present invention discloses a soluble and air-stable perylene diimide (PDI) derivative to function as an N-type organic semiconductor material. In the PDI derivative of the present invention, the core thereof is substituted by electron withdrawing groups, and the side chains thereof are substituted by benzene functional groups, whereby are promoted the solubility and air-stability of the molecule. The PDI derivative of the present invention can be used to fabricate an organic semiconductor element via a soluble process at a low temperature and under an atmospheric environment.
US08283468B2
An organometallic complex [Cu2(pyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate)2]n is provided by bonding a plurality of Cu2(pyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate)2 repeating units to each other. The organometallic complex can be obtained by the steps of dissolving copper acetate monohydrate or anhydrate and pyridine-3,5-dicarboxylic acid in a solvent, heating the solution at 50° C. to 140° C. for 24 to 168 hours to generate a reaction product, and then removing a guest molecule from the reaction product.
US08283466B2
Catalytic processes for preparing caprolactam, pipecolinic acid, and their derivatives, from lysine or alpha-amino-epsilon-caprolactam starting materials, and products produced thereby. A process for preparing caprolactam or a derivative thereof, the process comprising contacting a reactant comprising lysine or alpha aminocaprolactam with a catalyst and a gas comprising hydrogen gas, in the presence of a solvent. The catalyst may be provided on a support material, such as a transition metal.
US08283461B2
The present invention provides multiple-promoter expression cassettes for simultaneous delivery of RNAi, preferably to mammalian cells in vivo.
US08283457B2
The present invention provides a nucleic acid molecule having an ability to bind to a rabbit anti-mouse IgG antibody, which can be prepared more easily than an antibody and has a binding ability equal to or higher than that of an antibody. The nucleic acid molecule according to the present invention may have the sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOS: 1 to 5. The nucleic acid molecule according to the present invention may be a nucleic acid having an ability to bind to a rabbit IgG antibody, which substantially has homology to its sequence. The nucleic acid molecule according to the present invention may have a binding constant (KD) of 1.18×10−7 (M) or less to the rabbit IgG antibody.
US08283456B2
The present invention relates to triterpene glycoside saponin-derived adjuvants, syntheses thereof, intermediates thereto, and uses thereof. QS-7 is a potent immuno-adjuvant that is significantly less toxic than QS-21, a related saponin that is currently the favored adjuvant in anticancer and antiviral vaccines. Tedious isolation and purification protocols have hindered the clinical development of QS-7. A novel semi-synthetic method is provided wherein a hydrolyzed prosapogenin mixture is used to synthesize QS-7, QS-21, and related analogs, greatly facilitating access to QS-7 and QS-21 analogs for preclinical and clinical evaluation.
US08283454B2
Provided are processes for the preparation of complexes that are useful in purifying compounds having an inhibitory effect on sodium-dependent glucose cotransporter SGLT. The processes can reduce the number of steps needed to obtain the target compounds and the complexes formed in the processes are typically provided in a crystalline form.
US08283444B2
A conjugate comprises: (a) a mitochondrial membrane-permeant peptide; (b) an active agent or compound of interest such as a detectable group or mitochondrial protein or peptide; and (c) a mitochondrial targeting sequence linking said mitochondrial membrane-permeant peptide and said active mitochondrial protein or peptide. The targeting sequence is one which is cleaved within the mitochondrial matrix, and not cleaved within the cellular cytoplasm, of a target cell into which said compound is delivered. Methods of use of such compounds are also described.
US08283434B2
Methods for preparing a poly(ether carbonates) of the formula HO—[(CH2CH2—O)n—CO2]m—(CH2CH2—O)n—H are provided. The method comprises polymerizing an activated oligomer of the formula of H—O—(CH2CH2—O)n—CO2—Z, where Z is reactive leaving group.
US08283431B2
The invention pertains to a process to polymerize one or more monomers wherein at most 90% w/w of a safely useable amount of a first initiator is used and a second initiator is dosed at least after the start of the polymerization, in an amount such that essentially the full cooling capacity of the polymerization reactor is used, resulting in a cost efficient process to make polymers, particularly polymers comprising polymerized vinyl chloride.
US08283428B2
This invention relates to a polymacromonomer comprising at least one macromonomer and from 0 to 20 wt % of a C2 to C12 comonomer, wherein the macromonomer has vinyl termination of at least 70%, and wherein the polymacromonomer has: a) a g value of less than 0.6, b) an Mw of greater than 30,000 g/mol, c) an Mn of greater than 20,000 g/mol, d) a branching index (g′)vis of less than 0.5, e) less than 25% vinyl terminations, f) at least 70 wt % macromonomer, based upon the weight of the polymacromonomer, g) from 0 to 20 wt % aromatic containing monomer, based upon the weight of the polymacromonomer and h) optionally, a melting point of 50° C. or more. This invention also relates to processes to make such polymacromonomers.
US08283426B2
The present invention relates to a process for the production of fibers and filaments with polypropylene having a broad polydispersity index. The present invention also relates to high elongation nonwoven prepared from such fibers and filaments. It further relates to films and laminates prepared from high elongation nonwoven.
US08283418B2
Polypropylene composition comprising a) an isotactic polypropylene (iPP) produced in the presence of a single-site catalyst and said isotactic polypropylene (iPP) has a mean isotactic block length between two structural chain defects, as a statistical average, greater than 70, and b) an atactic polypropylene (aPP) with an absorbance ratio of the absorption band at 998 cm−1 to the absorption band at 973 cm−1 [A998/A973] below 0.80 wherein the weight ratio of said atactic polypropylene to the sum of said atactic polypropylene and said isotactic polypropylene (aPP/(aPP+iPP)) is at least 0.50 wt.-%.
US08283417B2
The instant invention is an impact resistant composition, method of producing the same, and articles made therefrom. The impact resistant composition comprises (1) at least 85 percent by weight of poly(vinyl chloride), based on the weight of the impact resistant composition; and (2) less than 10 percent by weight of an impact modifier composition, based on the weight of the impact resistant composition, comprising; (a) less than 30 percent by weight of high-density polyethylene, based on the weight of the impact modifier composition; and (b) at least 70 percent by weight of chlorinated polyethylene, based on the weight of the impact modifier composition; wherein the impact resistant composition has an instrumented dart drop impact of greater than 0.90 inch-pounds per mil at −10° C. The method for producing the impact resistant composition comprises the steps of (1) selecting poly(vinyl chloride); (2) selecting an impact modifier composition comprising; (a) less than 30 percent by weight of high-density polyethylene, based on the weight of the impact modifier composition; and (b) at least 70 percent by weight of chlorinated polyethylene, based on the weight of the impact modifier composition; (3) melt blending the poly(vinyl chloride) and the impact modifier composition; and (4) thereby producing the impact resistant composition comprising at least 85 percent by weight of poly(vinyl chloride), based on the weight of the impact resistant composition; and (2) less than 10 percent by weight of the impact modifier composition.
US08283416B2
Processes for manufacturing a composition of a solvolysis product of an ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer, which comprises: conducting solvolysis of an ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer (A′) and a modified ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer (B′) comprising a unit derived from a compound represented by the general formula (2) in one system to manufacture the composition of a solvolysis product of an ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer comprising a solvolysis product (A) of the ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer and a solvolysis product (B) of the modified ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer comprising a unit represented by the general formula (1), wherein a ratio of an ethylene content (B′)/(A′) of copolymer (A′) and copolymer (B′) in conducting solvolysis is 1 or more, and a blending ratio (B′)/(A′) of the ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer (A′) and the modified ethylene-vinyl ester copolymer (B′) is from 50/50 to 1/99 by weight:
US08283407B2
The invention provides for processes to produce elastomeric compositions, the processes including contacting at least one elastomer with a processing aid, wherein the processing aid includes the reaction product of at least one functionalized polymer having at least one anhydride group contacted with at least one polyamine, wherein the at least one polyamine includes at least one primary amine. The invention also provides for articles such as innerliners for tires produced from the aforementioned elastomeric compositions.
US08283405B2
This invention provides water-based paint compositions which can form coating film excelling in finished appearance such as coated surface smoothness and also of excellent performance in such properties as water resistance, which comprise water-dispersible acrylic polymer particles (A), reactive group-containing resin (B) and optionally curing agent (C), the water-dispersible acrylic polymer particles (A) having a weight-average molecular weight of at least 1,100,000 and an absorbance not higher than 0.2 at the wavelength of 330 nm as measured with spectrophotometer in the state of a liquid dispersion at a mass concentration of 1.35% in 1,4-dioxane solvent.
US08283396B2
Disclosed is a curable fluorine-containing polyether composition comprising (A) 100 parts by weight of a fluorine-containing polyether compound of the formula: wherein R1 is a hydrogen atom, a C1-C3 alkyl group, or a phenyl group, X is a bromine or iodine atom, l and m are integers of 10 or more, and l+m is 30 to 200; (B) 1 to 20 parts by weight of a fluorine-containing aromatic boronic acid ester compound of the formula: wherein R2 is a C2-C10 divalent aliphatic hydrocarbon group, and Y is a C1-C20 fluoroalkyl group; (C) 0.0001 to 1 parts by weight of a zero-valent or divalent organopalladium compound; (D) 0.5 to 10 parts by weight of a basic inorganic or organic compound; and (E) 0 to 5 parts by weight of an organophosphorus compound. The curable fluorine-containing polyether composition can produce a cured product that has improved compression set characteristics.
US08283394B2
The use of water redispersible thermoplastic polymer powder stabilized with protective colloid as a binder in cork products produced from cork flour or granules allows use of reduced amounts of binder without compromising physical properties.
US08283382B2
The invention provides methods and compositions for treating and preventing a skin rash secondary to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy, where the method comprises applying a vitamin K analog or a phosphatase inhibitor to the skin.
US08283380B2
New uses of safinamide, safinamide derivatives and MAO-B inhibitors in novel types of treatment for Parkinson's Disease are described. More specifically, the invention relates to methods for treating Parkinson's Disease through the administration of safinamide, a safinamide derivative, or a MAO-B inhibitor, in combination with other Parkinson's Disease agents or treatments, such as levodopa/PDI or dopamine agonists.
US08283377B2
Provided is a method for inhibiting blood vessel stenosis in a subject, comprising administrating to the subject an effective amount of an active ingredient selected from a group consisting of a compound of formula (I), a pharmaceutically acceptable salt of the compound, a pharmaceutically acceptable ester of the compound, and combinations thereof. Also provided is a method for inhibiting blood vessel stenosis in a subject, comprising administration to the subject an effective amount of an Angelicae Sinensis extract comprising the compound of formula (I).
US08283373B2
This invention provides chemical inhibitors of the activity of various phospholipase enzymes, particularly cytosolic phospholipase A2 enzymes (cPLA2), more particularly including inhibitors of cytosolic phospholipase A2 alpha enzymes (cPLA2α). In some embodiments, the inhibitors have the Formula I: wherein the constituent variables are as defined herein.
US08283369B2
Described herein are compounds useful in the modulation of blood uric acid levels, formulations containing them and methods of using them. In some embodiments, the compounds described herein are used in the treatment or prevention of disorders related to aberrant levels of uric acid.
US08283364B2
Compounds of formula (I) and salts are provided: wherein R4 is fluoro, R5 is selected from hydrogen, halogen, cyano, C1-6alkyl, C1-6alkyl substituted with one or more fluorine atoms, C1-6alkoxy, and C1-6alkoxy substituted with one or more fluorine atoms; and R6 is selected from halogen, cyano, C1-6alkyl, C1-6alkyl substituted with one or more fluorine atoms, C3-6cycloalkyl, C3-6cycloalkyl substituted with one or more fluorine atoms, C1-6alkoxy and C1-6alkoxy substituted with one or more fluorine atoms, and Q is hydrogen or C1-6alkyl. The compounds are expected to be useful for therapy, for example in the treatment of psychotic disorders and cognitive impairment.
US08283360B2
The present invention relates to novel Bicyclic Heterocyclic Derivatives, pharmaceutical compositions comprising the Bicyclic Heterocyclic Derivatives and the use of these compounds for treating or preventing treating allergy, an allergy-induced airway response, congestion, a cardiovascular disease, an inflammatory disease, a gastrointestinal disorder, a neurological disorder, a cognitive disorder, a metabolic disorder, obesity or an obesity-related disorder, diabetes, a diabetic complication, impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose.
US08283356B2
Disclosed are pyrimidine derivatives of formula wherein R0, R1, R3 to R9, and Z have a signification as indicated in claim 1, which have interesting pharmaceutical properties.
US08283352B2
A solution-type preparation of lurasidone comprising N-[4-[4-(1,2-benzisothiazol-3-yl)-1-piperazinyl]-(2R,3R)-2,3-tetramethylene-butyl]-(1′R,2′S,3′R,4′S)-2,3-bicyclo[2,2,1]heptanedicarboxyimide hydrochloride (lurasidone) as an active ingredient and containing at least one substance selected from benzyl alcohol, N,N-dimethylacetamide, lactic acid and propylene glycol.
US08283351B2
The present invention relates to compositions and methods for treating a disease in an animal, which disease is responsive to inhibiting of the functional cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) polypeptide by administering to a mammal in need thereof an effective amount of a cyclic or acyclic hydrazine derivative including those of formulas II or III: or compositions thereof, thereby treating the disease. The present invention particularly, relates to a method of treating diarrhea and polycystic kidney disease.
US08283334B2
The present invention relates to the use of oligonucleotides for the preparation of a pharmaceutical composition for the prevention or treatment of a disease, wherein neurogenesis and/or neuroregeneration has a beneficial effect, in particular a disease like Morbus Alzheimer, Morbus Parkinson, Lewy Body Dementia, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Spinocerebellar Atrophies, Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, Frontemporal Dementia, Morbus Pick, AIDS Dementia Complex, Vascular Dementia, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, Corticobasal Degeneration, Multisystem-Atrophy, Hallervorden Spatz Disease, Huntington's disease, Stroke, Traumatic Brain and spinal cord Injury, Retinitis Pigmentosa, Macular Degeneration, Glaucoma, Cochlea Degeneration, Depression, Schizophrenia, Multiple Sclerosis, and developmental neurodegeneration.
US08283328B2
The invention relates to a class of soft or semi-soft CpG immunostimulatory oligonucleotides that are useful for stimulating an immune response.
US08283323B2
Provided are methods for screening for drugs effective for treating fibrotic conditions. One screening method comprises exposing a cell to a test compound, monitoring the effect of the test compound on the amount or form of a cell molecule, comparing the amount or form of the cell molecule with the result obtained by treatment of the cell with an anti-fibrotic -effective amount of a withanolide compound, and selecting a drug effective for treating a fibrotic disease based on the ability of the test compound to provide the effect obtained by the withanolide compound on the cell molecule. Also provided is a method of treating a fibrotic disease comprising administering an anti-fibrotic effective amount of a withanolide compound to a mammal in need of treatment for fibrosis.
US08283322B2
Improved methods and compositions for the treatment of native tissues with crosslinkers are provided. The methods and compositions will find particular use in increasing resistance to tearing, fissuring, rupturing, and/or delamination.
US08283321B2
This invention provides: novel protein homologous of a Kunitz domain, which are capable of binding kallikrein; polynucleotides that encode such novel proteins; and vectors and transformed host cells containing these polynucleotides.
US08283311B2
A safe and widely-applicable food intake regulator can be provided by using at least one peptide selected from the group consisting of a fish or mammalian melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) and enzymatic digests thereof, which have the activity to suppress food intake.
US08283309B2
The present invention discloses compounds of formula I, or pharmaceutically acceptable salts, esters, or prodrugs thereof: which inhibit serine protease activity, particularly the activity of hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3-NS4A protease. Consequently, the compounds of the present invention interfere with the life cycle of the hepatitis C virus and are also useful as antiviral agents. More specifically, the invention relates to oxime compounds containing a carbocyclic P2 unit, and the oxime is tethered to one of the carboxylic acid on P2. The present invention further relates to pharmaceutical compositions comprising the aforementioned compounds for administration to a subject suffering from HCV infection. The invention also relates to methods of treating an HCV infection in a subject by administering a pharmaceutical composition comprising the compounds of the present invention.
US08283297B2
Provided are a formulation which creates protection layers on the metal friction and wear surface and a method for preparing the same. The formulation provided here comprises 45-99 parts laminar hydroxyl silicate powders, 1-50 parts formulation which creates protection layers on the metal surface and method for preparing the same and 0.05-6 parts carbonization-graphitization catalyst, calculated by weight. Also provided is method for preparing the same. The formulation provided here could create a friction-reducing and wear-resistant nanocrystal protection layer in situ on the metal friction and wear surface, at the same time, it has high hardness of cermet and elastic modulus of formulation which creates protection layers on the metal surface and method for preparing the same high grade alloy steel.
US08283295B1
Precipitation vessel for precipitation of flocculants from lubricating oil includes a hollow housing having an interior volume capable of containing oil; an entry port capable of allowing oil to enter into the interior volume; a stirrer capable of stirring contained oil; a heater capable of heating the contained oil; a product exit port capable of allowing oil to exit the interior volume; an upper exterior access port; and a lower exterior access port. Contaminated lubricating oil can be cleaned from solid particulates by a method of providing a vessel for containing oil; providing contaminated lubricating oil to the vessel; contacting the contaminated lubricating oil with a coagulant, and, maintaining the resulting mixture at a mildly elevated temperature throughout the vessel, inducing flocculation of solid particles and settlement of flocculated particles under low thermo-current, if not thermo-current-free, conditions; and drawing off lubricating oil cleaned from settled flocculated solid particles. The vessel or method can be employed as part of a system for reclaiming used lubricating oil, which, for example, may also employ vacuum separation of gasses, water and solvents under mild temperature conditions.
US08283291B2
The present invention relates to a herbicidal composition having a synergistic herbicidal effect against weeds, said herbicidal composition including 3-[(5-difluoromethoxy-1-methyl-3-trifluoromethylpyrazol-4-yl)methylsulfonyl]-4,5-dihydro-5,5-dimethylisoxazole and salts thereof as a component A and a component B selected from the group consisting of paraquat, ametryn, acetochlor, clodinafop-propargyl, diclofop-methyl, cycloxydim, tepraloxydim, tralkoxydim, amidosulfuron, mesosulfuron-methyl, sulfosulfuron, tribenuron-methyl, imazamethabenz-methyl, imazamox, imazapic, florasulam, hexazinone, chlorotoluron, pyraflufen-ethyl, metazachlor, S-metolachlor, isoxaben, fluroxypyr, qinclorac and pinoxaden.
US08283287B2
A thermosensitive recording material including a support, a thermosensitive recording layer composed mainly of a leuco dye and a developer, provided on one surface of the support, and a back layer provided on the other surface of the support, wherein the back layer contains an isobutylene-maleic anhydride copolymer ammonium salt, and at least one of an aziridine compound, and a cross-linked product of the isobutylene-maleic anhydride copolymer ammonium salt and the aziridine compound.
US08283285B2
Disclosed are a scratch color-developable ink comprising an electron-donating colorless or light-color dye precursor, an electron-accepting color developer and a varnish, wherein a solid particle component contained therein has an average particle diameter of 0.3 to 25 μm, a scratch color-developable ink comprising an electron-donating colorless or light-color dye precursor, an electron-accepting color developer and a varnish, wherein an azaphthalide compound is contained as the electron-donating colorless or light-color dye precursor, and an invisible information printed sheet obtained by printing invisible information on a support with the above scratch color-developable ink.The above scratch color-developable ink makes invisible information visible easily by scratching with a finger nail although the color of an invisible information printed portion is hard to develop by frictional contact during usual handling, gives a high developed color intensity and is free from the occurrence of dust during the visualization of invisible information.
US08283283B2
A direct thermal label and methods of making thereof are provided. In one embodiment, a direct thermal label comprising a first substrate and a thermal barrier coating is provided, wherein the first substrate has a thermally sensitive coating situated over the thermal barrier coating on at least a first side thereof.
US08283282B2
There is disclosed a ceramic structure which comprises a material having a controlled pore distribution and including cordierite as the main crystal phase. In the pore distribution, the volume of pores having pore diameters smaller than 20 μm accounts for 15% or less of the total pore volume, and the volume of pores having pore diameters of 20 to 100 μm accounts for 70% or more of the total pore volume. This ceramic structure is suitable for realizing a ceramic catalyst body which has excellent purification efficiency, is reduced in pressure loss, and is mountable even in a limited space.
US08283278B2
The present invention relates to a process for sulfurizing a hydrocarbon treatment catalyst, comprising: at least a first step of depositing, on the surface of the catalyst, one or more sulfurization auxiliaries of formula (I): and at least a second step of placing the catalyst in contact with a sulfur-containing gaseous mixture containing hydrogen and a sulfur compound.
US08283269B2
The borosilicate glass with improved solarization-resistance has a transmittance curve within an area bounded by respective curves defined by the corresponding equations τ=1.7·(λ−277) and τ=1.6·(λ−284) in a wavelength range of 283 nm to 325 nm. This glass has a composition, in wt. % based on oxide content, of: 55-82, SiO2; 10-20, B2O3; 1-10, Al2O3; 0-5, Li2O; 0-10, Na2O; 0-10, K2O; 0-10, ΣM2O; 0-5, MgO; 0-10, CaO; 0-5, SrO; 0-15, BaO; 0-15, ΣMO; 0-3, ZrO2; 0-5, ZnO; 0-2, CeO2; 0-3, WO3; 0-2, SnO2: 0-0.1, Fe2O3; 0.05-2, MoO3; 0-5, Bi2O3; 0-1, TiO2 and 0-5, oxides of selected rare earth and Group IVB to VIIIB elements. The transmittance is adjusted by varying the MoO3 content and if necessary the TiO2 and Bi2O3 content. The glass is especially suitable for use in a weathering apparatus.
US08283268B2
The colorless transparent colloid-former-containing glass that is convertible into a colorless transparent glass ceramic or a metal colloid-colored glass ceramic via respective heat treatments contains a combination of one or more metal colloid formers and one or more redox partners. The metal colloid formers are compounds containing Au, Ag, As, Bi, Nb, Cu, Fe, Pd, Pt, Sb and/or Sn. The redox partners are compounds containing As, Ce, Fe, Mn, Sb, Sn and/or W, with the proviso that the redox partner must be different from the metal colloid former.
US08283254B2
There are provided an etching method and an etching apparatus suitable for etching an antireflection coating layer by using a resist film as a mask. The etching method includes forming the antireflection coating layer (Si-ARC layer) on an etching target layer; forming a patterned resist film (ArF resist film) on the antireflection coating layer; and forming a desired pattern on the antireflection coating layer by introducing an etching gas including a CF4 gas, a COS gas and an O2 gas into a processing chamber and etching the antireflection coating layer by the etching gas while using the resist film as a mask.
US08283242B2
A method includes forming a photoresist pattern over a certain portion of a material layer to expose an ion implantation region, implanting impurities in the ion implantation region of the material layer using the photoresist pattern as an ion implantation barrier, and removing the photoresist pattern using plasma of a gas mixture including a hydrocarbon-based gas.
US08283237B2
A through-silicon via fabrication method comprises forming a substrate by bonding the front surface of a silicon plate to a carrier using an adhesive layer therebetween to expose the back surface of the silicon plate. A silicon nitride passivation layer is deposited on the exposed back surface of the silicon plate of the substrate. A plurality of through holes are etched in the silicon plate, the through holes comprising sidewalls and bottom walls. A metallic conductor is deposited in the through holes to form a plurality of through-silicon vias.
US08283230B2
A fabrication method of a self-aligned power semiconductor structure is provided. Firstly, a trenched polysilicon gate is formed in a silicon substrate. Then, a self-aligned polysilicon extending structure is formed on the trenched polysilicon gate. A width of the self-aligned polysilicon extending structure is smaller than that of the trenched polysilicon gate. Thereafter, the self-aligned polysilicon extending structure is oxidized to form a silicon oxide protruding structure on the trenched polysilicon gate. Then, a first spacer is formed on a sidewall of the silicon oxide protruding structure to define a source contact window.
US08283224B2
A method of manufacturing a memory cell 200. The method comprises forming a memory stack 215. Forming the memory stack includes pre-treating an insulating layer 210 in a substantially ammonia atmosphere for a period of more than 5 minutes to thereby form a pre-treated insulating layer 310. Forming the memory stack also includes depositing a silicon nitride layer on the pre-treated insulating layer.
US08283218B2
A production method of a semiconductor element having a channel includes forming a resist pattern film on a thin film formed on a substrate, and pattering the thin film by etching. The production method also includes forming a second resist pattern film by applying a fluid resist material inside a channel groove after channel etching or inside a resist groove formed above a channel region before channel etching. The production method may also include forming a gate electrode, a gate insulating film, a semiconductor film, and a conductive film on an insulating substrate. The method may include applying the fluid resist material inside the channel groove, thereby forming the second resist pattern film, and patterning the semiconductor film using at least the second resist pattern film.
US08283216B2
As a substrate gets larger, time of manufacture is increased due to the repetition of film formations and etchings; waste disposal costs of etchant and the like are increased; and material efficiency is significantly reduced. A base film for improving adhesion between a substrate and a material layer formed by a droplet discharge method is formed in the invention. Further, a manufacturing method of a liquid crystal display device according to the invention includes at least one step for forming the following patterns required for manufacturing a liquid crystal display device without using a photomask: a pattern of a material layer typified by a wiring (or an electrode) pattern, an insulating layer pattern; or a mask pattern for forming another pattern.
US08283207B2
Through substrate vias for back-side electrical and thermal interconnections on very thin semiconductor wafers without loss of wafer mechanical strength during manufacturing are provided by: forming desired device regions with contacts on the front surface of an initially relatively thick wafer; etching via cavities partly through the wafer in the desired locations; filling the via cavities with a conductive material coupled to some device region contacts; mounting the wafer with its front side facing a support structure; thinning the wafer from the back side to expose internal ends of the conductive material filled vias; applying any desired back-side interconnect region coupled to the exposed ends of the filled vias; removing the support structure and separating the individual device or IC assemblies so as to be available for mounting on a further circuit board, tape or larger circuit.
US08283205B2
A semiconductor die has a first semiconductor die mounted to a carrier. A plurality of conductive pillars is formed over the carrier around the first die. An encapsulant is deposited over the first die and conductive pillars. A first stepped interconnect layer is formed over a first surface of the encapsulant and first die. The first stepped interconnect layer has a first opening. A second stepped interconnect layer is formed over the first stepped interconnect layer. The second stepped interconnect layer has a second opening. The carrier is removed. A build-up interconnect structure is formed over a second surface of the encapsulant and first die. A second semiconductor die over the first semiconductor die and partially within the first opening. A third semiconductor die is mounted over the second die and partially within the second opening. A fourth semiconductor die is mounted over the second stepped interconnect layer.
US08283197B2
A fabricating method for a pixel structure is provided. First, a substrate having an active device and a capacitor electrode line thereon is provided. Next, a passivation layer is formed on the substrate to cover the active device. After that, a light shielding layer is formed on the passivation layer to define a unit area. Next, an ink-jet printing is performed to form a color filter pattern within the unit area defined by the light shielding layer. After that, a portion of the color filter pattern is removed to form a first hole above active device. Next, the passivation layer exposed by the first hole is removed so as to form a contact hole exposing a portion of the active device. After that, a pixel electrode is formed on the color filter pattern to fill into the contact hole so as to electrically connect with active device.
US08283185B2
The present invention includes a magnetically susceptible polymer component, a method of making the same, and apparatuses and systems for mixing, separating or localizing a magnetically susceptible polymer compound in a reaction. The magnetically susceptible polymer component includes a polymer and a magnetically susceptible particle of a predetermined size, which yields a component having a much-improved magnetic reactivity due to the increase in magnetic material by mass percentage. The apparatuses and systems of the present invention employ controllable magnetic fields distributable in perpendicular directions in order to precisely control the orientation, position and relative motion of any magnetically susceptible components within a reaction vessel.
US08283181B2
This invention provides improved components (e.g. array “pins”, print head, substrate platen, print head platen, and the like) for microarray printing devices as well as microarray printing devices incorporating such components. In one embodiment, this invention provides a microarray print head comprising a plurality of glass or quartz spotting capillaries disposed in a support that maintains a fixed spacing between the spotting capillaries and that permits the spotting capillaries to move in a direction parallel to the long axis of the capillaries.
US08283174B2
A formation fluid sampling tool is provided with reactants which are carried downhole and which are combined in order to generate heat energy which is applied to the formation adjacent the borehole. By applying heat energy to the formation, the formation fluids are heated, thereby increasing mobility, and fluid sampling is expedited.
US08283173B2
This invention relates to a process utilizing natural carbon-13 isotope for identification of early breakthrough of injection water in oil wells. All natural water sources are labeled by unique ratios of carbon isotopes (13C/12C). Following the requirements of the invention, the carbon isotope ratio for oil bearing formation water and for local aquifer water which is to be injected in to the oil reservoir rock is determined. The carbon isotope ratio of the produced water from the selected oil wells is then monitored periodically. When the carbon isotope ratio of the produced (oil well) water shows deviation from the formation water value and tends towards injection water value, then the early breakthrough phenomenon of injection water is identified. Thus the contrast in natural carbon isotope ratios of injection water, formation water and produced water from selected oil wells serve as tracer in the identification of “Early Breakthrough” phenomenon of injection water and its movement.
US08283172B2
A lunar dust simulant containing nanophase iron and a method for making the same. Process (1) comprises a mixture of ferric chloride, fluorinated carbon powder, and glass beads, treating the mixture to produce nanophase iron, wherein the resulting lunar dust simulant contains α-iron nanoparticles, Fe2O3, and Fe3O4. Process (2) comprises a mixture of a material of mixed-metal oxides that contain iron and carbon black, treating the mixture to produce nanophase iron, wherein the resulting lunar dust simulant contains α-iron nanoparticles and Fe3O4.
US08283170B2
Disclosed are mammalian expression vectors for expressing simultaneous expression of immunoglobulins as both a secreted and cell surface bound form.
US08283169B1
A device and method in which cells of a heterogeneous population are separated through a column partially packed with antibody coated beads. The antibody coated beads may be placed in a gradient fashion such that each layer binds to and selects a subset of cells from the entire sample population. A lipoaspirate fluid, or other fluid containing cells, may be brought through the column by positive pressure on the specimen bag side and negative pressure at the base of the column with a vacuum line and waste trap. The column may then be inverted and irrigated internally with a wash buffer to remove unhomogenized macroscopic tissue material and unbound residual cells. The column may be closed at the ends and shaken and/or washed with an enzymatic buffer. Cells may be removed from the device with an elution buffer.
US08283160B2
Methods and compositions for preventing and treating the damaged and/or degenerating CNS experiencing loss or death of CNS cells. Various embodiments of the invention transport a therapeutically effective amount of, inter alia, at least one therapeutic cell to the CNS by intranasal application to the upper-third of the nasal cavity, thereby bypassing the blood-brain barrier. A pharmaceutical composition according to the invention may comprise at least one therapeutic cell, at least one delivery-enhancement agent, at least one antibiotic, at least one regulatory factor and/or at least one immunosuppressive agent, wherein the composition is delivered to the upper-third of the nasal cavity. The therapeutic cells, once delivered to the CNS, migrate preferentially to the area of damage or degeneration or injury.
US08283157B2
An electrolytic system includes an analyte chamber having an access port for introducing a sample containing a molecules of interest, such as DNA. Electrodes create an electric field along a length of the analyte chamber to drive molecules toward an interaction region containing a nanopore, thereby increasing the arrival rate of molecules at the nanopore. Additional electrodes may be utilized to create an electric field through the nanopore to drive a molecule into the nanopore. A current sensor may be utilized to count, discriminate or characterize the molecules as they interact with the nanopore. Advantageously, system can be utilized for unamplified DNA sequencing.
US08283152B2
Disclosed is a strain of Escherichia sp., capable of producing O-acetyl homoserine in high yield, with the introduction and enhancement therein of the activity of: homoserine acetyl transferase, aspartokinase and homoserine dehydrogenase; and at least one enzyme selected from a group consisting of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, aspartate aminotransferase and aspartate semi-aldehyde dehydrogenase. Also, a method of producing O-acetyl homoserine using the strain is provided.
