US08413332B2
A fencing/railing assembly adapted to be positioned between a pair of posts and mounted thereto. The assembly includes a plurality of pickets, a plurality of rails extending transverse to the pickets, and one or more pivoting, sliding connectors for connecting a picket to a rail, with the sliding, pivotal connection concealed by the rail. The connector is slidably mounted to the rail and is pivotally connected to the picket. The sliding, pivotal connection allows the pickets to be oriented at greater angles relative to the rails (i.e. it allows the assembly to rack to a greater degree, thereby allowing the fencing/raining to following more-steeply changing terrain or contours). In one embodiment, an elongated connector strip is concealed by the rail and spans multiple pickets. In another embodiment, the assembly includes a plurality of shorter connectors, one for each picket/rail connection.
US08413329B2
The present invention minimizes the assembly time of a dispenser head by inserting a rigid seal retaining element. The seal retaining element comes in different configurations thus allowing a variety of compressed gas cartridge dispensing options. Additional features are integrated into a molded dispenser head thus requiring fewer components to accomplish a useable dispenser thus reducing manufacturing costs. Reliance on conformable plastic allows for relaxed dimensional tolerances. This method of making a dispenser head can equally apply to threaded or non-threaded lance housings.
US08413327B2
A checker array print head is able to output an image with possible white or black stripes made unnoticeable even when the conveyance direction of a print medium with respect to the ink jet print head is skewed. A first chip located on an upstream side in a conveyance direction (X direction) and a second chip located on a downstream side in the conveyance direction are arranged such that a dot printed via the first chip and a dot printed via the second chip are printed at intervals shorter than a print resolution in an ejection port arrangement direction (Y direction). Thus, even if the conveyance direction of the print medium is skewed by meandering thereof or the like, possible white stripes, which are particularly noticeable, can be inhibited.
US08413323B2
A method for RF matching of an RF plug connector includes a printed circuit board having contact points for RF contacts and contact points for insulation-displacement contacts, with one contact point for the RF contacts in each case being connected to a respective contact point for the insulation-displacement contacts, and with capacitive coupling which causes near-end crosstalk occurring between the RF contacts, with at least one first conductor track being arranged on the printed circuit board and, together with at least one second conductor track which is arranged on and/or in the printed circuit board, forming a capacitor, with at least one frequency-dependent parameter of the arrangement being measured and being compared with a nominal parameter, and the conductor track with which contact is made on one side being partially removed or cut through as a function of the difference.
US08413320B2
In some embodiments, a method removes gold plating on an electronic component. The method includes forming a gold and solder mixture on the electronic component via a first incrementally controlled heating procedure; incrementally cooling the electronic component via a first cooling procedure; wicking part or all of the gold and solder mixture from the electronic component to a metallic screen via a second incrementally controlled heating procedure; and incrementally cooling the electronic component via a second cooling procedure.
US08413312B2
Described herein are methods of installing one or more photovoltaic structures onto a mounting system and slider clips that support simplified installation of photovoltaic structures. The methods include installing photovoltaic structures on a support element having preassembled slider clips for holding edge portions of the photovoltaic structures.
US08413305B2
Circular comb for a combing machine for combing textile fibers, comprising a base body with a center longitudinal axis, a peripheral surface and two end faces, a plurality of bar tacks, which are arranged on the peripheral surface of the base body and define a combing region of the circular comb, a plurality of fastening devices attached to the base body for the non-positive connection of one of the bar tacks in each case to the base body and unlocking units to release the non-positive connections, each unlocking unit having an unlocking device and an unlocking means to actuate the unlocking device, wherein the unlocking units are accessible from outside the combing region, in particular from at least one of the end faces, and an additional positive securing connection to secure the bar tacks is provided on the base body.
US08413300B1
A gate hinge to facilitate wide angular rotation between a gate and the fence post to which it is attached can be fabricated from a vertically oriented hinge pin having a transverse hole near the top of the pin and a threaded attachment pin affixed to the bottom of the hinge pin for secure attachment to the fence post. A hinge round adjustably attached to a vertical member of the gate and positioned to encircle the hinge pin provides support for the gate and permits the gate to swing and rotate about the hinge pin in a hinge-like fashion. The hinge pin and hinge round are securely mated by inserting a security pin, sized to fit, through the hole in the top of the hinge pin.
US08413297B2
An apparatus for use with a post (602) and a corresponding pivoting barrier (601) comprises a post-mountable bracket (300) and a pivoting barrier-mountable bracket (500). The former comprises a frame (301) configured to be affixed to the post, a barrier pivot (305) that is affixed to the frame, and a linear actuator arm mounting bracket (307) that is also affixed to the frame. The pivoting barrier-mountable bracket can comprise a frame (501) configured to be affixed to the pivoting barrier, a post pivot (505) that is affixed to the frame and that is configured to pivotally mate with the barrier pivot, and a linear actuator arm mounting bracket (507).
US08413296B1
A coaster for heavy equipment in a commercial kitchen permits easier movement of the equipment for cleaning purposes. The coaster has a rigid, high strength body which includes a recess in the top surface which receives a leg of the heavy equipment, such as a commercial range. The coaster is cylindrical with a rounded lower edge and includes a drain passage between the floor of the recess and the outside of the sidewall. The coaster is made of a low friction polymer which is rugged and chemically resistant, such as polyoxymethylene.
US08413289B1
The multiple paint roller holder includes a roller frame and a handle connected to the roller frame. The handle is preferably connected to the frame by a bent or angled neck to place the handle in a raised position. The roller frame includes an upper cross member having corresponding upper roller holding pins, a lower cross member having corresponding lower roller holding pins, and an center beam interconnecting the upper and lower cross members. Each pair of upper roller holding pin and lower roller holding pin rotatably holds a paint roller therebetween. The upper cross member includes members pivotally joined end-to-end in a U-shaped saddle at the upper end of the center beam by a setscrew.
US08413287B2
A method and device for cleaning golf equipment while on the golf course, the device being mounted to, and rotating in conjunction with, a golf cart wheel.
US08413273B2
A patient support apparatus includes a frame having a patient support deck that is movable between a horizontal position to support a patient in a lying position and a chair egress position to support the patient in a sitting position. Depending upon a height of the patient, a lift system is operated to support the patient support deck relative to an underlying floor at different heights when the patient support deck is moved to the chair egress position. Depending upon a weight of the patient, at least one bladder of a mattress is either deflated or further inflated when the patient support deck is moved to the chair egress position and the patient is in the process of egressing from the patient support apparatus.
US08413272B2
A medical imaging facility has a transport device which is able to be moved at least partly in at least one direction. A position detection device has at least one transmit element which detects the position of the transport device and sends out a position measurement beam. The position detection device has at least one detector element and at least one reflector element.
US08413271B2
A patient support apparatus is provided. The patient support apparatus includes a plurality of therapeutic devices including a rotation device and a percussion-vibration device for carrying out rotation, percussion, and vibration therapy for a patient. The patient support apparatus includes a control system for controlling operation of the plurality of therapeutic devices. The control system comprises a touch-screen display segmented into a main menu portion and a data window portion. The therapeutic functions are represented by touch selectable buttons on the main menu portion. When any of these buttons are selected, a plurality of adjustable operating parameters appears in the data window portion. At the same time, the buttons corresponding to the therapeutic functions in the main menu portion remain visible such that an operator can easily select another therapeutic function. A method of tracking the therapeutic functions performed is provided. A rotation monitoring system and temperature control system of the patient support apparatus are provided. A display activation system is also provided.
US08413268B2
According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a rest arrangement is provided, comprising a first support element and a lying-down facility. The lying-down facility comprises a first fastening region which in turn comprises a first fastening element and a second fastening element. The lying-down facility is affixed to the support element with the use of the first and the second fastening elements. The lying-down facility is slidable or pivotable between a first state in which the lying-down facility is arranged so as to be essentially horizontal, and a second state, wherein the transition between the first state and the second state takes place as a combined rotational movement and translational movement.
US08413265B1
A glove comprising integrated features specifically designed for use while ice fishing is herein disclosed. An outer covering comprises a durable material of construction, such as leather, that stands up to the rigors of ice fishing and is also coated with a flexible plastic coating to help keep a user's hands dry. The glove is lined for warmth. A finger tip region of the glove is left open to allow the passage of a user's digits, thereby allowing dexterity when tying lures or handling fishing line. A palm region comprises an integral and retractable ice pick, which extends outward from the side of the palm, opposite the thumb, and is automatically gripped when the user closes their hand and makes a fist. The pick is extended by a spring-loaded mechanism that the user locks in place for safety. As such, the ice pick can be used to safely pick through any ice at a fishing hole or be used for similar ice-related tasks.
US08418259B2
A Trusted Activation License (TAL) can be comprised of a key unique to a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and identifying information of the software applications bundled with the computing device having that TPM. To activate the software applications, the identifying information in the TAL can be compared against that of the software applications being activated, and the unique TPM key in the TAL can be compared against that of the TPM on the computing device on which the activation is taking place. Subsequent validations can be based on a protected association between the TAL and an Attestation Identity Key (AIK) that can be generated by the TPM as part of the activation step. Optionally, Platform Configuration Registers (PCRs) of the TPM can be periodically changed during validation to protect against useage of one TPM for validations on multiple computing devices.
US08418256B2
A data storage apparatus is provided that realizes a measure against deterioration of a flash memory in which integrity check data is stored. A content playback apparatus (1000) uses a hash value of playback history information as integrity check data (confirmation data) for confirming whether the playback history information has been falsified. A first address calculation unit (1004) and a second address calculation unit (1006) determine a read-in address and a storage destination address for the integrity check data, with use of the hash value. Accordingly, the storage destination addresses can be diffused, thus enabling preventing deterioration of the flash memory.
US08418251B1
A security module determines cost characteristics reflecting costs incurred in developing and/or deploying a software application, and determines whether the software application is malicious based at least in part on the cost characteristics. The security module determines (1) cost characteristics reflecting costs associated with an installer tool used to generate an installation package of the software application, (2) cost characteristics reflecting costs associated with a development tool used to develop the software application, and (3) cost characteristics reflecting costs incurred in deploying the software application. If the cost characteristics indicate that substantial cost was incurred in developing and/or deploying the application, the security module determines that the application is legitimate. Otherwise the security module considers other traits of the application to determine whether it is malicious.
US08418244B2
Techniques are provided for securing instant communications, such as text, audio, and video. A tunnel management module is included in an instant communication suite that comprises one or more instant communication applications. Any communication between a user of the instant communicate suite and a contact passes through the tunnel management module, which may use TLS (or IPSec) technologies to ensure security of the instant communications. Each contact of a user may be associated with a different set of security mappings, which may be specified by the user. A tunnel configuration file is generated from a security mapping and is used to create a tunnel through which secure instant communications may pass.
US08418236B1
A system, method, computer program and/or computer readable medium for providing streaming of one or more applications from streaming servers onto one or more clients. The computer readable medium includes computer-executable instructions for execution by a processing system. The one or more applications are contained within one or move isolated environments, and the isolated environments are streamed from the servers onto clients. The system may include authentication of the streaming servers and authentication of clients and credentialing of the isolated environments and applications the clients are configured to run. The system may further include encrypted communication between the streaming servers and the clients. The system may further include a management interface where administrators may add, remove and configure isolated environments, configure client policies and credentials, and force upgrades. The streamed isolated environments may be isolated from other applications and the host operating system on the clients and applications within the isolated environments may run without performing an application-installation on the client.
US08418232B2
A method and apparatus for providing resource access to a user within a computer network of the automatic contact distribution system. The method includes the steps of providing a permission set that defines a limited set of features within the computer network that the user can access, the user signing into the computer network of the automatic call distribution system, the system retrieving the permission set for the user and the system providing the user with limited access to the computer system based upon the permission set.
US08418228B2
There is provided a converged access control method using a network access device at an edge node of an IP network of a convergence ALL-IP network that performs authentication control, QoS control, traffic control and mobility control in a consistent manner using a network access device located at penetration nodes of an IP network of a convergence ALL-IP network to effectively accommodate a subscriber network in various access environments, thereby ensuring network flexibility and scalability.
US08418224B2
Disclosed is a technique which aims to suitably limit access to stored information from an external apparatus which is not permitted to access the information. An information processing apparatus such as an MFP authenticates a portable information terminal, and stores information input within a predetermined period after the authentication in association with the portable information terminal. When accepting a request for processing the stored information from a portable information apparatus after the predetermined period, the information processing apparatus identifies whether the portable information terminal having transmitted the request is the device associated with the information of interest. If the portable information terminal is identified as the device associated with the stored information, the information processing apparatus executes the processing of the information in accordance with the request.
US08418220B2
A mobile equipment having television function is capable of recording a television program being watched and of rendering the recorded television program to be watched later, even if an Web browser or an application program is started. The mobile equipment having television function includes a tuner control section (29b) for receiving digital broadcast waves including image data, voice data, and contents for data broadcasting, a television control section (22a) for outputting an image and a voice to a display section (11) and a speaker (26b) in accordance with the received image data and voice data, a browser for data broadcasting (22b) for displaying link information and the like in the display section (11) in accordance with the received contents for data broadcasting, and a control section (24) for storing, by the use of a storage control section (23a), the image data and the voice data of the television program in the data storing section (23b) when a start of the application program is requested during watching the television program, and for starting the application program of which the start is requested.
US08418218B2
A method for data communication is provided and may include storing multimedia data in a first database, the multimedia data being associated with metadata. Enhanced metadata may be created based on user data of user profiles stored at a central management unit, associated to the multimedia data, and stored in the first database. Multimedia data may be selected from the first database based on the metadata, the enhanced metadata, and a user profile. The selected multimedia data may be modified to produce user-specific multimedia data which may be stored in a second database and may be communicated from the second database to a user terminal. An alarm to a user interface of the user terminal may be generated, if in producing the user-specific multimedia data from the profiled multimedia data, it was not possible to generate the user-specific multimedia data in conformance with the user specific hardware or network characteristics.
US08418213B2
There is a provided a method for providing contents referencing information (CRI) for personal data broadcasting service, including the steps of: searching a program identifier (PID) having a CRI section, and searching a container having a specific identifier; extracting container data from the searched container; searching a CRI structure which indicates a contents referencing information identifier (CRID) list from the extracted container data; searching and extracting CRID data based on a CRID data container which represents an identifier of the container having the CRID data in the CRID list of the searched CRI structure; and searching and extracting result data for the extracted CRID from a result locator.
US08418206B2
A media guidance application is provided by which users can define rules for assigning user equipment devices as destinations for media content. For example, a user may define a rule by which selected media content having attributes that satisfy a user-defined condition are downloaded, recorded, or streamed to a particular, user-specified user equipment device. The user may define and manage rules using media guidance menus, and may restrict other users from accessing the rules (e.g., parents restricting children).
US08418197B2
Content is downloaded to a mobile handheld device (MHD) and buffered on the MHD prior to, and during, viewing. Normal wireless bandwidth varies with atmospheric conditions, distance, obstructions in the path, etc. and hence the speed at which a content-buffer (CB) on the MHD is replenished changes. Because this can result in very low quality viewing experience for the user, the capability for alternate content scheduling provided a micro-splicer is used to enable stored alternate-content or advertisement insertion during periods of low viewing quality, when the CB does not hold sufficient content during the viewing period. This alternate content insertion allows the CB to be refilled before the user resumes content viewing.
US08418196B2
A method and apparatus are described that provide enhanced network operator control. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method comprises determining at a head-end and data center whether to inform one or more users of an interactive television service of available content, the one or more users connected with head-end and data center via a network. Responsive to determining to inform the one or more users of the available content, generating a hot key signal indicating availability and a location of the alternate content. The hot key signal is inserted into a content signal transmitted to the one or more users from the head-end and data center via the network.
US08418191B2
An apparatus receives a first message based on a transmission trigger when receiving the transmission trigger indicating a transmission of the first message containing flow definition information for specifying an execution sequence of a plurality of applications performing a cooperative processing; calls an application to be executed according to the flow definition information contained in the first message; and transmits the second message containing the flow definition information and a result of execution by the called application to the transmission addressee executing the next application.
US08418182B2
A system and method for controlling a scheduling order per category is disclosed. A scheduling order can be designated for the delivery and playback of multimedia content (e.g., music, news, other audio, advertising, etc) with respect to particular slots within the scheduling order. The scheduling order can be configured to include a forward order per category or a reverse order per category with respect to the playback of the multimedia content in order to control the scheduling order for the eventual airplay of the multimedia content over a radio station or network of associated radio stations. A reverse scheduling technique provides an ideal rotation of songs when a pre-programmed show interferes with a normal rotation. Any rotational compromises can be buried in off-peak audience listening hours of the programming day using the disclosed reverse scheduling technique.
US08418178B2
A system may include a thread monitor that is arranged and configured to monitor progress of multiple threads of a workflow process at a synchronization point with each of the threads having a state, and configured to generate at least one inspection trigger for inspection of the threads. A thread inspector may inspect the threads at the synchronization point for a change in the state in any of the threads in response to the inspection trigger. A firing rules engine may determine whether or not the synchronization point should fire based at least in part on the change in the state of at least one of the threads.
US08418176B1
Some embodiments provide a method for a server hosting environment that includes several nodes, where each node is for using one or more hypervisors in order to host several configurations of several computer systems. The method receives a first configuration of a particular computer system. The first configuration accesses a first set of virtual hardware provided by a first hypervisor of a first node. The method generates a second configuration that is based on the first configuration. The second configuration is operable on a different second hypervisor of a second node in the several nodes. The method installs the second configuration on the second node. The second configuration accesses a second set of virtual hardware provided by the second hypervisor to host the second configuration using the second hypervisor.
US08418175B2
Processing circuitry executes hypervisor software to support the execution of multiple virtual machines on the processing circuitry. A memory system stores data for access by the processing circuitry and includes secure memory and non-secure memory . The secure memory is only accessible via a secure access request. Address translation circuitry is responsive to an access request issued by a current virtual machine specifying a virtual address, to perform an address translation process to identify a physical address in the memory, and to cause a modified access request to be issued to the memory system specifying the physical address. The hypervisor software sets a trusted virtual machine identifier if the current virtual machine is to be trusted to access the secure memory. The address translation circuitry can only cause the modified access request to be issued as a secure access request to the secure memory if the trusted identifier is set.
US08418174B2
A mechanism is provided to enhance the scalability of network caching capabilities. All network client applications running on a partition in a virtualized environment are configured to query information from a single virtual input/output server (VIOS) network caching daemon. Thus, the illustrative embodiments provide a 1:n model where a VIOS partition has a network caching daemon, and each of the n partitions uses the network caching daemon of the VIOS partition. The mechanism of the illustrative embodiments only requires the system administrator to control one copy of the local files on the VIOS server. The system administrator does not need to monitor all of these local files on each individual partition. The system administrator consolidates the entries used by the different individual partitions into one single file on the VIOS server side.
US08418170B2
A method and system for assessing deployment and un-deployment of a software application installation are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving as an input a software application installation. Native code is extracted from the software application installation and executed. Information regarding the execution of the native code is provided to a user.
US08418167B2
An original version of content is in-place updated to an updated version in a non-volatile storage device including blocks, by obtaining an update package, copying the original version to volatile memory, and updating the original version to provide an uncompressed updated version. The methods may also include compressing the uncompressed updated version so as to independently or interdependently compress each amount of uncompressed updated content and writing the compressed updated version in place of the original version in the storage device. Each of the independently compressed amounts may be written to a separate storage blocks.
US08418157B2
A compiler comprises an analysis unit that detects directives (options and pragmas) from a user to the compiler, an optimization unit that is made up of a processing unit (a global region allocation unit, a software pipelining unit, a loop unrolling unit, a “if” conversion unit, and a pair instruction generation unit) that performs individual optimization processing designated by options and pragmas from a user, following the directives and the like from the analysis unit, etc. The global region allocation unit performs optimization processing, following designation of the maximum data size of variables to be allocated to a global region, designation of variables to be allocated to the global region, and options and pragmas regarding designation of variables not to be allocated in the global region.
US08418152B2
An approach to profiling software programs that uses a small pinned buffer and a large unpinned histogram buffer is presented. When a process that is being profiled receives a time slice, the process' program counter is written to the small pinned buffer by a kernel routine. The small pinned buffer is configured to be large enough to store several program counters. When the small pinned buffer is full, or almost full, an internal profiling signal is sent by the kernel routine. When the process is resumed, any outstanding signals are processed before resuming the process. The profiling signal is handled by reading the program counters from the small pinned buffer, calculating a slot in the histogram buffer that corresponds to each of the program counters, incrementing the value in the corresponding histogram slots, and clearing the small pinned buffer so that it can be reused.
US08418147B1
A computer-implemented method of developing software includes receiving successive code changes for a software product. Input is received specifying that one or more code changes involve a work item associated with development of the software product. A plurality of build runs of the software product is generated. Respective build runs of the plurality correspond to one or more of the successive code changes. Data is stored associating the work item with one or more build runs that each correspond to at least one of the one or more code changes specified as involving the work item. A user input selecting the work item is received; in response, respective identifiers of at least one build run of the one or more build runs associated with the work item are displayed.
US08418144B2
A system for fast rendering of an applet in a Web browser environment. A server process pre-determines the order in which the applet classes are loaded by the applet. The server process determines the classes of the applet that are required for applet start-up, and these startup classes are bundled into an initial JAR file on the server for the applet, along with a list of other class files belonging to the original JAR files. After the initial JAR file is downloaded, and while the JVM on the client system is loading the applet classes from the initial JAR file to bring up the applet, the rest of the applet classes (i.e. non-startup classes) are downloaded from the server to the client in the background. As each such non-startup class is received by the client system, it is loaded into the correct JAR file based on the class list.
US08418139B2
A computer implemented method for updating initialization parameters for application software from within a software development environment. The method involves changing a value of at least one initialization parameter contained in a configuration file of a developer computer system. The method also involves starting application software deployed on an application server in response to the value change. Thereafter, the configuration file including the changed value of the initialization parameter is communicated from the developer computer system to the application server. Once the configuration file is received at the application server, the application software is initialized using the configuration file.
US08418138B2
A method, system and computer-usable medium for automatically tracking changes in an application such as, for example, a software solution. A particular definition can be created, which is indicative of an application artifact to be tracked during the development of the application, which includes the application artifact. The particular definition can be qualified by specifying a user authorized to modify the application artifact. The user can be identified by the particular role that the user plays during the development of the application. Thereafter, modifications to the application can be automatically tracked based on the particular role that the user plays during the development of the application with respect to the application artifact, thereby permitting modifications to the application to be tracked and recorded in a comprehensive manner.
US08418137B2
The invention concerns a method for automatically adapting a computer program product to an environment, the computer program product comprising executable parts and data parts, the method comprising the steps of configuring the computer program product for the environment and executing the software in the environment. Furthermore the method comprises the steps of observing effects of the execution, i.e. metering the behavior, of the executable parts, analyzing the inter-relation of the observed effects with the software, and modifying executable parts based on rules in order to reduce undesirable observed effects like in-efficiency or failure. The present invention relates also to the automatically adapting computer program product, and a method for manufacturing the automatically adapting computer program product.
US08418136B2
The present invention defines a method for assembling software components using an application controller. The application controller provides a conduit through which calling client modules can access functionality provided by various handlers in a manner that results in greater flexibility when additional functionality is required. Additional functionality can be provided to the clients by adding additional handlers to the application controller without the need to modify any of the individual clients. The client will continue invoking the application controller in the same manner as it did previously, whilst the application controller provides additional functionality by accessing the additional handlers. Indeed, the only changes that are required are to an agent, which in preferred embodiments includes a relatively straightforward to modify XML configuration file.
US08418130B2
Methods and arrangements to manage comment data that is associated with computer executable code are provided. Comment data associated with a line or lines of executable code can be stored, and a tag can be assigned to the comment, data or the line(s) of code. When it is desired to locate, information about lines of code, tags allow for an improved way to search for the desired lines of code. Thus, in response to a user query for information, a search engine can locate a specific tag or groups of tags and display code and comments associated with the located tag(s).
US08418126B2
A method, system, and computer-readable medium is presented for maintaining and supporting a semantic reconciliation of canonical data model exchange formats in support of software factory workflow management, state determination governing model transformations, and tool enabled processes across software development roles and methodologies used by a software factory.
US08418119B2
A logic synthesis program, method and system for simplifying and/or reducing a logic design receives output from a logic simulator that uses symbolic values for stimulus and contains symbolic values in the logic simulator output. Relationships between the nodes dependent on symbolic values can be used to merge nodes or otherwise simplify the logic design. Behaviors such as oscillators, transient values, identical signals, dependent logical states and chicken-switch determined states that depend on the symbolic values can be detected in the simulation results and the netlist simplified using the results of the detection. The netlist can be simplified by inserting registers to represent nodes that assume a symbolic value or combination based on symbolic values either statically or after an initial transient. Oscillating nodes can be replaced with equivalent oscillator circuits, and nodes having values dependent on chicken-switch operation can be detected and replaced with registers initialized from the chicken-switch input states.
US08418118B2
Systems and methods are disclosed to automatically determine an optimal number format representation for a model or code to be implemented in a custom integrated circuit (IC) by determining a ratio of dynamic range to static range in the model or code, and selecting a floating point or a fixed point number representation based on the ratio; determining the optimal number representation format based on a cost function that includes hardware area and power cost associated with a predetermined bit precision arithmetic; automatically generating a processor architecture customized to the optimal number representation format; and synthesizing the generated processor architecture into a computer readable description of the custom integrated circuit for semiconductor fabrication.
US08418116B2
Some embodiments of the present invention provide techniques and systems for efficiently optimizing a circuit design for one or more multi-mode multi-corner (MCMM) scenarios. A system can select an optimizing transformation for a logic gate, which if applied to the logic gate, does not degrade a timing metric in a local context of the logic gate. Next, the system can determine whether applying the optimizing transformation to the logic gate degrades the timing metric in a zone around the logic gate. If so, the system can reject the optimizing transformation. Otherwise, the system can determine whether applying the optimizing transformation to the logic gate degrades the timing metric in the circuit design. If so, the system can reject the optimizing transformation. Otherwise, the system can accept the optimizing transformation.
US08418115B1
A method of component placement for a multi-die integrated circuit (IC) can include partitioning a plurality of components of a netlist among a plurality of dies of the multi-die IC and selecting a superimposition model specifying a positioning of at least two of the plurality of dies at least partially superimposed with respect to one another. The method also can include assigning, by a processor, components of the netlist to hardware units within each of the plurality of dies according, at least in part, to a wire-length metric calculated using the superimposition model.
US08418114B2
A semiconductor device has first wiring layers and a plurality of dummy wiring layers that are provided on the same level as the first wiring layers. The semiconductor device defines a row direction, and first virtual linear lines extending in a direction traversing the row direction. The row direction and the first virtual linear lines define an angle of 2-40 degrees, and the dummy wiring layers are disposed in a manner to be located on the first virtual linear lines. The semiconductor device also defines a column direction perpendicular to the row direction, and second virtual linear lines extending in a direction traversing the column direction. The column direction and the second virtual linear lines define an angle of 2-40 degrees, and the dummy wiring layers are disposed in a manner to be located on the second virtual linear lines.
US08418112B2
A method of generating resistance-capacitance (RC) technology files is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a plurality of metal schemes from an IC foundry and dividing the plurality of metal schemes into one or more modular RC groups. The method further comprises identifying a modular RC structure; calculating capacitance values of the modular RC structure by means of a field solver; calculating an equivalent dielectric constant and an equivalent height of the RC structure based upon a variety of interconnect layers not having interconnects; calculating an equivalent dielectric constant and an equivalent height for each of the plurality of metal schemes; and deriving capacitance values of each of the plurality of metal schemes from the capacitance values of the modular RC structure.
US08418105B1
A method for fabricating an integrated circuit is disclosed that includes, in accordance with an embodiment, providing a drawn layout logical design for the integrated circuit, the logical design including a plurality of patterns; checking the plurality of patterns for double patterning technology compliance; identifying a non-double patterning technology compliant pattern; providing a double patterning technology compliant pattern for replacing the identified non-double patterning technology compliant pattern, thereby creating a modified logical design; generating a mask set implementing the modified logical design; and employing the mask set to implement the modified logical design in and on a semiconductor substrate.
US08418099B2
Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with performance counters are described. In one embodiment, a method includes generating a first register transfer level (RTL) description of an integrated circuit that includes a performance counter. The integrated circuit is emulated in hardware and statistical data is collected with the performance counter. The performance counter is then removed from the integrated circuit.
US08418096B1
Various methods for inhibiting reverse engineering of a circuit design are provided. In one embodiment, a circuit design is initially mapped to a plurality of identified hardware components of a target device using a first table that indicates a first set of logic patterns that hardware components of the target device can implement. Unused hardware components are identified, and at least one logic pattern of the circuit design is remapped to one of the unused hardware components using a second mapping table. The second table indicates a second set of logic patterns, not indicated by the first mapping table, that one of the unused hardware components is configurable to implement.
US08418093B2
Methods and systems are provided for reducing an original circuit design into a simplified circuit design by merging gates that may not be equivalent but can be demonstrated to preserve target assertability with respect to the original circuitry design. A composite netlist is created from the simplified netlist and the original netlist. The composite netlist includes a number of targets that imply the existence of a target in the simplified netlist and a corresponding target in the original netlist. The implications are verified and then validated to ensure the simplified circuit design is a suitable replacement for the original circuit design.
US08418079B2
A system and method of managing applications and event notifications using a cursor-based GUI, wherein the cursor-based GUI is located adjacent to the cursor and provides a user with the ability manage and monitor a plurality of dynamically updated applications, commands and event notifications via a persistent and centralized interface. Since the cursor-based GUI is persistent in nature, the plurality of applications, commands and event notifications can be accessed regardless of the user's computer environment. The user can manage user authentication requirements and other configuration information for the cursor-based GUI.
US08418078B2
A method and system to display a pop-up window when a user leaves a website are disclosed. A user accesses a website with a web browser. When a web page from the website is loaded into the user's browser, a client-side variable is set to a particular value, such as the current time. When the web page from the website is unloaded from the browser, a hidden pop-up window is loaded. The hidden pop-up window is programmed to sleep and then check the value of the client-side variable. A change in the value of the client-side variable indicates a new web page from the same web server has been loaded into the web browser and the user has not left the website. However, if a web page from a different web server is loaded into the browser, then the value of the client-side variable remains unchanged. Consequently, when the hidden pop-up window awakes and checks the value of the client-side variable, the pop-up window can determine whether the user has left the original website. If the user has left the original website, the pop-up window is displayed. If not, the pop-up window is unloaded before ever being displayed to the user.
US08418077B2
Scrolling through a large file using a small scroll handle can be challenging for users. Using the small scroll handle to navigate through the large file rarely produces accurate results. Functionality can be implemented to navigate through file content without the user having to locate, click on, and drag the scroll handle. Content navigation can be achieved by employing knowledge of a current focus in the file and performing scroll jumps in accordance with binary search techniques. Navigation scope for the file can be refined at each iteration, based on a user indicating whether to move up or down in the file after each intermediate position. Such a technique for content navigation can help users locate content in a file with greater speed and accuracy.
US08418074B2
This disclosure provides various embodiments for providing UI services. An application-independent, reusable UI framework receives a request from a first application, to perform a first operation on a first set of data relating to presentation of the first set of data on a UI. A subset of the first set of data is received from a data provider independent of the UI framework. At least one first service is identified in response, the first service hosted by the UI framework and adapted to perform the first operation on the first set of data. The first operation is performed on the subset of the first set of data using the at least one identified first service to produce a first processed set of data adapted for presentation on a UI of the first application. The first processed set of data is sent to the first application.
US08418065B2
In a system for dynamically and remotely providing user interface (UI) display and processing information to a touch panel embedded within a multifunction peripheral (MFP) such as a digital copier having an internal computer for controlling the touch panel, a method that comprises linking the internal computer to an external data communication network having an external remote computer on the network; and upon the inputting of desired selections by a user at the UI and communicating the same over the network to the external computer, providing information from the external computer via the network back to the internal computer that enables dynamically changing or updating the UI display and behavior during run time of the MFP.
US08418046B2
Data receiver circuitry in the device is provided with one or more error signal output leads. An error signal on such a lead includes an error indication as soon as possible after the associated low level circuitry detects a data error. The timing of such an error indication is compared to the timing of noise from various possible noise sources in the device. The noise source that produced significant noise closest in time prior to the error indication is identified as the noise source responsible for the data error that caused the error indication.
US08418035B2
A Single Carrier Block Transmission (SCBT) system employs an inherently parallel approach to error correction processing. At the transmission system (200), an incoming data stream is split (210) into P parallel data streams, each having a data rate equal to a fraction of the incoming data stream's data rate. The parallel data streams are then each separately encoded (220) in P parallel encoding processes (beneficially, using P parallel encoders (222)). The P separately encoded data streams are then merged (330), interleaved (320), and mapped (310) into a single stream of encoded symbols, which are transmitted to the receiver using an arbitrary modulation (240) and transmission scheme. At the receiver (255), the received data stream is de-interleaved (350) and split into P encoded data streams, which are then decoded (285) using P parallel decoders. Then, the decoded data streams are combined or multiplexed (295) into a single data stream.
US08418032B2
The invention relates to a method of processing bit errors in a bit frame emanating from a digital audio coder, comprising a step of receiving a current bit frame liable to comprise bit errors. According to the invention, the bit frame comprises sensitive bits to be protected which are catalogued in at least one category according to the type of parameter that they code and the method furthermore comprises the steps of receiving protection bits, of reading the sensitive bits received in the current bit frame, the number of sensitive bits being lower than the number of bits of the bit frame, of detecting bit errors as a function of said protection bits received and of said sensitive bits received and in the event of detecting at least one erroneous bit in said bit frame, of modifying the current bit frame before decoding, as a function of the category in which the erroneous bit is catalogued. The invention also pertains to a device implementing the method according to the invention as well as to a decoder and a coding/decoding system comprising such a device.
US08418031B1
In a method of encoding data, a data block is received; transformed, error-corrected encoded data blocks based on the received data block are generated and one is selected based on a constraint; and the selected data block is transmitted. The method may include adding, to the received data block, pivot data corresponding to different transformations. In an apparatus, an encoded data generator is configured to generate different encoded data block candidates based on a received data block, and a selector is configured to select one of the candidates to output as encoded data based on a constraint. The encoded data generator may include a transformer configured to apply one or more transformations to the received data block, and an error correction code (ECC) encoder configured to apply error correction to the received data block. The encoded data generator and the selector may be included in a transmitter.
US08418019B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for data processing. As an example, a data processing circuit is disclosed that includes a decoder circuit and a scalar circuit. The decoder circuit is operable to perform a data decoding algorithm by processing at least one decoder message, and the scalar circuit is operable to multiply the decoder message by a variable scalar value.
US08418018B2
A system and method for encoding information is disclosed. In one embodiment, information is encoded using a high protection code for the least significant bit and a low protection code for the next three most significant bits. The remaining bits are uncoded. The high protection code may be a turbo code and the low protection code may be a trellis coded modulation code. In this embodiment, the collection of bits is then mapped according to a diagonally shifted QAM constellation technique.
US08418017B2
The present disclosure is directed to network communication between a sender and a receiver. Network communication is established between the sender and the receiver using a first acknowledgment mechanism for signifying receipt of data by the receiver. The first acknowledgment mechanism is selected from one of a receiver positive acknowledgment mechanism (RPA) and a receiver negative acknowledgment mechanism (RNA). Communication information is monitored, wherein the communication information indicates at least a current state of performance for network communication. Based on the communication information, a message is exchanged between the sender and the receiver to negotiate a switchover to a second acknowledgment mechanism for signifying receipt of data by the receiver. The second acknowledgment mechanism is selected from the other of the receiver positive acknowledgment mechanism (RPA) and the receiver negative acknowledgment mechanism (RNA). Network communication is then established between the sender and the receiver using the second acknowledgment mechanism.
US08418015B2
The present invention discloses a method, an apparatus and a system for low-density parity-check (LDPC) coding and decoding. The coding method includes the following steps: constructing each layer of a check matrix of a layered LDPC code used as an error correcting code; when data is initially sent by a data transmitting terminal, performing first-layer-coding of the data to be sent by using the first layer of a check matrix of the LDPC code, sending the first-layer-coded data; when data for (n−1)th retransmission is sent by the data transmitting terminal, performing nth-layer-coding of the data by using the nth layer of a check matrix of the LDPC code, sending the nth-layer-coded data, wherein n is an integer no less than 2. It is possible to reduce the system overhead, decrease the decoding delay, and improve the decoding performance by using the technical solution of the present invention which is also adapted to high-speed data services.
US08418014B2
Data digits and correction digits are received in each of a number of integrated circuit (IC) devices. Apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed that operate to check the data digits for error in each IC device according to an algorithm associated with the IC device, the algorithm being different for each IC device. Each IC device will act in response to the data digits if no error is detected in the data digits. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US08418008B2
A scan clock modifier, a method of providing a variable scan clock, an IC including a scan clock modifier and a library including a cell of a scan clock modifier. In one embodiment, the scan clock modifier includes: (1) logic circuitry configured to provide at least one selected clock signal based on a test scan clock signal and a first clock control signal, both of the test scan clock signal and the first clock control signal received from test equipment and (2) comparison logic configured to provide a scan clock signal based on the at least one selected clock signal and at least one other clock control signal received from the test equipment, wherein the first and the at least one other clock control signals are different clock control signals.
US08417998B2
Technologies are described herein for performing targeted, black-box fuzzing of input data for application testing. A dataflow tracing module traces an application while it reads and processes a set of template data to produce operation mapping data that maps data locations in the template data to operations performed by the application in processing the data at the location. The tracing is performed without requiring the application source code, knowledge of the syntactical structure of the input data, or specially instrumented binaries for the application. A fuzzing module is then utilized to target a specific operation or operations in the application by fuzzing data locations within the template data according to the operation mapping data until the desired outcome is achieved.
US08417997B2
The disclosure presents categorization of users into groups comprising expert users and novice users. A system and method analyzes the users' inputted data in helpdesk troubleshooting software to determine the deviation of novice users from expert users, or the deviation of novice users to a preconfigured behavior as determined by management policy. Other embodiments are also disclosed.
US08417994B2
A computer implemented method, system and/or computer program product handle problems caused by a modification to an information technology (IT) system. Problem-data, describing a known problem to a first IT system that occurred during a modification to the first IT system; severity-data, describing a severity of the known problem; and solution-data, describing a solution of steps to be taken to correct the known problem, are received and stored. A modification alert indicates that the modification will be applied to a second IT system that is different from the first IT system. If the first IT system and the second IT system share a pre-determined amount of common features, then a severity map, which describes the known problem, the severity of the known problem, and the solution to the known problem as applied to the second IT system, is displayed to a user of the second IT system.
US08417987B1
Embodiments of the present invention provide novel, reliable and efficient technique for tracking, tolerating and correcting unrecoverable errors (i.e., errors that cannot be recovered by the existing RAID protection schemes) in a RAID array by reducing the need to perform drastic recovery actions, such as a file system consistency check, which typically disrupts client access to the storage system. Advantageously, ability to tolerate and correct errors in the RAID array beyond the fault tolerance level of the underlying RAID technique increases resiliency and availability of the storage system.
US08417972B2
A power supply control circuit used to control a power supply to supply a MCU includes a first transistor switch, a RC circuit, a power switch control circuit, and an input signal control circuit. When the power switch control circuit is grounded via the MCU, the RC circuit is discharged to ground and the first transistor switch is switched on, such that the power supply supplies power to the MCU. When the MCU outputs a control signal to the input signal control circuit, the RC circuit is discharged to ground and the first transistor switch is switched on, such that the power supply supplies power to the MCU. When the MCU stops outputting the control signal to the input signal control circuit, the RC circuit is charged and the first transistor switch is switched off, such that the power supply does not supply power to the MCU.
US08417962B2
Booting a computing device includes executing one or more firmware components followed by a boot loader component. A protection component for the computing device, such as an anti-malware program, is identified and executed as an initial component after executing the boot loader component. One or more boot components are also executed, these one or more boot components including only boot components that have been approved by the protection component. A list of boot components that have been previously approved by the protection component can also be maintained in a tamper-proof manner.
US08417961B2
Techniques relating to a processor including instruction support for implementing a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) operation. The processor may issue, for execution, programmer-selectable instructions from a defined instruction set architecture (ISA). The processor may include a cryptographic unit configured to receive instructions that include a first instance of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) instruction defined within the ISA, where the first instance of the CRC instruction is executable by the cryptographic unit to perform a first CRC operation on a set of data that produces a checksum value. In one embodiment, the cryptographic unit is configured to generate the checksum value using a generator polynomial of 0x11EDC6F41. In some embodiments, the first instance of the CRC instruction specifies an initial value to be used in performing the first CRC operation, the set of data, and a storage location in which the cryptographic unit is configured to store the checksum value produced by the first CRC operation.
US08417960B2
A personal authentication system using biometrics information. The system orders, when an characteristic element in the biometrics information (such as a characteristic point in a fingerprint) can be expressed with two types of information (such as, for instance, a coordinate values for a characteristic point in a fingerprint and a local partial image), the characteristic points using one type of information (for instance, local partial image) as label information, and outputs other type of information (such as coordinate values) as key information according to the order.
US08417959B2
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and/or method of identifying a user comprising illuminating a user with electromagnetic energy to induce luminescence and producing an output data signal. A reference data signal corresponding to the luminescence of a selected user may be identified and compared to the output data signal. In such a manner, an identification may be made as to whether a selected user is present.
US08417958B2
Systems and methods for electronic postmarking of location data are provided. Electronic postmarking of location data (S.20) includes generating a hash value corresponding to merged data (S.30). Electronic postmarking further includes generating an electronic postmark data structure (S.40) comprising the hash value and a date/time stamp. The electronic postmarking data structure (S.40) may further include a digital signature.
US08417957B2
The user of any one portable terminal sends a content information request including a user ID to a distribution server. In response, the distribution server distributes a stream data of content that can be used on the user's terminal. If the user of a first portable terminal intends to let a second portable terminal try out a certain content, the user sends to the distribution server the trial permission information including the user's own user ID, a content ID of the content of interest, and a digital signature. The distribution server authenticates the received information before distributing a streaming data of a trial-oriented content with the content ID and user ID attached to it as search keys. This allows the content that can be used on a given user terminal to be tried out on another user terminal without the latter user having recourse to the steps of searching for the content in question.
US08417956B2
Methods, apparatus, and systems are disclosed for, among other things, providing an electronic record (e.g., MICROSOFT WORD document, AUTOCAD drawing, etc.) that can be signed by “printing” that record to a special “virtual signature printer,” which provides the user with an intuitive, simple way of authenticating an electronic record. The “virtual signature printer” system can produce an output file (or multiple files) that can be sent to a recipient for viewing, printing, and validation. The recipient can view or print the file and, with special software, can validate the signature on the file.
US08417955B2
An entity bidirectional authentication method and system, the method involves: the first entity sends the first message; the second entity sends the second message to the credible third party after receiving the said first message; the said credible third party returns the third message after receiving the second message; the said second entity sends the fourth message after receiving the third message and verifying it; the said first entity receives the said fourth message and verifies it, completes the authentication. Compared with the conventional authentication mechanism, the invention defines an on-line retrieval and authentication mechanism of a public key, realizes the centralized management for it, simplifies the operating condition of the protocol, and facilitates the application and implement.
US08417953B2
A method and system for restricted service access is described. To access adult content, the user has to enter an administrator personal identification number into a mobile device. Upon receipt of the administrator personal identification number, an access code is generated, which is provided to a content provider. The content provider can calculate a valid time window and/or request an acknowledge message from a central server. If the current usage is within the valid time window or otherwise verified, access to the content is allowed. Thus, children are prevented from accessing adult content, while adult access is permitted.
US08417943B2
A method and apparatus is described for processing of network data packets by a network processor having cipher processing cores and authentication processing cores which operate on data within the network data packets, in order to provide a one-pass ciphering and authentication processing of the network data packets.
US08417930B2
A modular integrated circuit includes a hub module that is coupled to a plurality of spoke modules via a plurality of hub interfaces. A memory module stores hub software and hub data and configuration data. The hub software operates in accordance with a memory map that includes a plurality of first reserved blocks corresponding to memory reserved for the plurality of spoke modules, and at least one second reserved block corresponding to memory reserved for at least one optional spoke module. The plurality of first reserved blocks are activated based on the configuration data and the at least one second reserved block is deactivated based on the configuration data.
US08417928B2
A computer system includes a hard disk drive and a non-volatile semiconductor memory. The hard disk drive stores a first set of data that includes boot up data. The non-volatile semiconductor memory is distinct from semiconductor memory of the hard disk drive and semiconductor memory of a host of the computer system. A turbo boot driver module stores the boot up data in the non-volatile semiconductor memory and transfers the boot up data from the non-volatile semiconductor memory to a file system of the host during a boot up mode of the host.
US08417926B2
A provisioning server can perform configuration management services on target machines served by the provisioning server. The provisioning server can maintain a set of management templates. The set of management templates can be utilized to generate management configuration files for target machines. The management configuration files, generated from the management templates, can cause the target machines to operate according to a defined role (e.g. web server, client device, application server, etc.). To enable configuration management services, the provisioning server can associate the management templates with provisioning objects (e.g. profiles, provisioning templates, system records, etc.).
US08417925B2
An information handling system includes a processor that may perform general purpose register recovery operations after an instruction flush operation that an exception, such as a branch misprediction causes. The processor receives an instruction stream that may include multiple instructions that operate on a particular target register that stores instruction result information. The general purpose register may temporarily store instruction opcode and register bits information for use during dispatch, execution and other operations. The processor includes a recovery buffer unit for use during flush recovery operations. The processor may use recovery valid and recovery pending bits that correspond with each instruction during the register recovery from flush operation.
US08417917B2
A mechanism is provided for improving the performance and efficiency of multi-core processors. A system controller in a data processing system determines an operational function for each primary processor core in a set of primary processor cores in a primary processor core logic layer and for each secondary processor core in a set of secondary processor cores in a secondary processor core logic layer, thereby forming a set of determined operational functions. The system controller then generates an initial configuration, based on the set of determined operational functions, for initializing the set of primary processor cores and the set of secondary processor cores in the three-dimensional processor core architecture. The initial configuration indicates how at least one primary processor core of the set of primary processor cores collaborate with at least one secondary processor core of the set of secondary processor cores.
US08417913B2
A method of assigning virtual memory to physical memory in a data processing system allocates a set of contiguous physical memory pages for a new page mapping, instructs the memory controller to move the virtual memory pages according to the new page mapping, and then allows access to the virtual memory pages using the new page mapping while the memory controller is still copying the virtual memory pages to the set of physical memory pages. The memory controller can use a mapping table which temporarily stores entries of the old and new page addresses, and releases the entries as copying for each entry is completed. The translation lookaside buffer (TLB) entries in the processor cores are updated for the new page addresses prior to completion of copying of the memory pages by the memory controller. The invention can be extended to non-uniform memory array (NUMA) systems. For systems with cache memory, any cache entry which is affected by the page move can be updated by modifying its address tag according to the new page mapping. This tag modification may be limited to cache entries in a dirty coherency state. The cache can further relocate a cache entry based on a changed congruence class for any modified address tag.
US08417910B2
The present invention provides an approach for SAN forecasting in a heterogeneous environment. Specifically, under the present invention capacity data on the heterogeneous environment is gathered. Capacity management techniques will then be used to analyze the SAN utilization, identify growth trends and patterns. Proactively, plans are made to account for these changes. Thereafter, a Capacity Planning Margin (CPM) will be applied to the forecast to reflect actual customer usage. The CPM adjusted forecasts will then be reviewed. Then, the SAN environment can be monitored by comparing actual vs. planned and return to adjust the forecast accordingly.
US08417909B2
A block management method for managing a plurality of physical blocks is provided. The method includes grouping the physical blocks into a plurality of physical units, grouping a portion of the physical units into a data area and a spare area, configuring a plurality of logical units, and grouping the logical units into a plurality of logical unit groups and configuring another portion of the physical units as a plurality of global random physical units corresponding to the logical unit groups, wherein each of the global random physical units corresponds to one of the logical unit groups. The method further includes getting the physical units from the spare area as global random substitute physical units of the global random physical units. Accordingly, the method can store data in the global random physical units or the global random substitute physical units, thereby reducing the time for executing a host write command.
US08417899B2
A system and method for controlling access to a shared storage device in a computing cluster having at least two nodes configured as cluster members provide fencing and quorum features without using the device controller hardware/firmware so fencing can be provided with storage devices that do not support disk reservation operations, such as with non-SCSI compliant disks. A polling thread on each node periodically reads a designated storage space on the shared storage device at a polling interval to determine if its corresponding node registration key is present, and halts the node if the key has been removed. A cluster membership agent removes a corresponding node registration key from the designated storage space of the shared storage device and publishes new membership information indicating that the corresponding node has departed the cluster only after delaying for a time period greater than the polling interval.
US08417895B1
A proxy device monitors memory access operations between clients and a storage media. The proxy device stores at least some of the data from the storage media in a faster tiering media and provides the data from the faster tiering media to the clients for certain associated memory access operations. The proxy is also configured to monitor Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) communications between the clients and the storage media and invalidate at least some data in the tiering media when particular SCSI messages in the SCSI communications indicate the tiering media contains data that is out of sync with the data in the storage media.
US08417894B2
A processor (10) of processes data using a cache circuit (12). The processor (20) is coupled to a functionally detachable device (19) via the cache circuit (12). When a cache line is loaded into cache memory (120), it is tested whether the cache line has an address within a detachable device address range allocated to the detachable device (19). If so, identification of the cache line, or a range of addresses that includes the address of the cache line is stored. When a flush command is received that requires write back cached data to the detachable device, the identification is used to select the cache line for selective write back to the detachable device. Thus less cache data needs to be invalidated when a device is functionally detached from the circuit.
US08417887B2
A storage system for controlling attributes for data stored in virtual storage areas includes a logical storage area management unit 1140 that manages the linking of virtual storage areas and attributes such as encryption attributes to logical storage area groups. When receiving a command to change an attribute of a virtual storage area or virtual volume, the logical storage area management unit determines the presence or absence of a unit logical storage area in a logical storage area group or pool linked to a different attribute and that is not yet allocated to a virtual storage area. The logical storage area management unit links a unit logical storage area determined to be present to a virtual storage area, reads data stored in the unit logical storage area linked to a virtual storage area subjected to an attribute change, and stores the read data in accordance with the different attribute.
US08417886B2
The storage system includes a disk controller for receiving write commands from a computer, and a plurality of disk devices in which data is written in accordance with the control of the disk controller. The size of the first block which constitutes the data unit handled in the execution of the input/output processing of the data in accordance with the write command by the disk controller is different from the size of the second block which constitutes the data unit handled in the execution of the input/output processing of data by the plurality of disk devices. The disk controller issues an instruction for the writing of data to the disk devices using a third block unit of a size corresponding to a common multiple of the size of the first block and the size of the second block.
US08417879B2
A method for suppressing errors is provided. The method is applied to a controller of a Flash memory, where the Flash memory includes a plurality of blocks. The method includes: according to an address of data to be written into or read from the Flash memory, determining whether to utilize an original seed as an input seed of a randomizer/derandomizer, where the randomizer/derandomizer is arranged to generate a random function according to the input seed, with the random function being utilized for adjusting a plurality of bits of the data bit by bit, and with regard to at least each block of the blocks, a value of the original seed remains unvaried; and when it is determined that the original seed should not be utilized as the input seed, generating the random function according to a new seed to adjust the data.
US08417875B2
A non-volatile memory controller, system and method capable of processing a next request as an interrupt before completing a current operation are disclosed. The non-volatile memory system includes a first memory storing meta data loaded from a flash memory; a second memory storing the meta data copied from the first memory; and a flash memory controller copying the meta data from the first memory to the second memory, changing the meta data in the second memory, and then re-copying the changed meta data from the second memory to the first memory during a first-type operation that requires changes in the meta data.
US08417873B1
In one embodiment of the invention, a memory apparatus is disclosed. The memory apparatus includes a memory array, a block read/write controller, and a random access read memory controller. The memory array is block read/write accessible and random read accessible. The block read/write controller is coupled between the memory array and an external interconnect. The block read/write controller performs block read/write operations upon the memory array to access blocks of consecutive memory locations therein. The random access read memory controller is coupled between the memory array and the external interconnect in parallel with the block read/write access controller. The random access read memory controller performs random read memory operations upon the memory array to access random memory locations therein.
US08417858B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide for an IOC that does not limit each CPU to a particular port. Instead, the IOC may allow each CPU to communicate with all ports. Thus, the IOC can process CPU communications to determine which port to send them to, and send them to the correct port as well as process incoming communications from the ports to determine which CPU to send them to and send these communications to the correct CPU. This may significantly increase the flexibility and efficiency of a storage network.
US08417853B2
A USB host control method is provided for a USB host controller. The USB host controller includes a USB device and a buffer, the USB device includes one or more endpoints. The USB host control method includes the steps of: storing first output data to be sent to a first endpoint into one or more buffer units used for the first endpoint; sending the first output data to the first endpoint; and when a first predetermined response from the first endpoint is received, configuring fake releasing labels and information tags corresponding to the first endpoint in the one or more buffer units, and not releasing the one or more buffer units.
US08417846B2
Device for real-time streaming to an array of solid state memory device sets, said device comprising receiving means for receiving data from data streams of individual data rate in parallel, an input cache for buffering received data, a bus system for transferring data from the input buffer to the solid state memory device sets, and a controller adapted for using a page-receiving-time t_r, a page-writing-time wrt_tm, the data amount p and the individual data rates for dynamically controlling the bus system such that data received from the first data stream is transferred to solid state memory device sets comprised in a first subset of said array of solid state memory device sets, only, and data received from the at least a second data stream is transferred to solid state memory device sets comprised in a different second subset of said array of solid state memory device sets, only.
US08417844B2
In one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a first interface circuit, a direct memory access (DMA) controller coupled to the first interface circuit, and a host coupled to the DMA controller. The first interface circuit is configured to communicate on an interface according to a protocol. The host comprises at least one address space mapped, at least in part, to a plurality of memory locations in a memory system of the host. The DMA controller is configured to perform DMA transfers between the first interface circuit and the address space, and the DMA controller is further configured to perform DMA transfers between a first plurality of the plurality of memory locations and a second plurality of the plurality of memory locations.
US08417807B2
Systems and methods enable displaying an indication of traffic quality. The system retrieves keyword or other traffic data for at least one keyword associated with at least one search engine. The system compares the traffic data for a first time period to the traffic data for a second time period, according to one or more date ranges and other parameters selected by a user for each time period. As a result of the comparison, an indication of the traffic quality associated with a disparity between the first time period data and the second time period data, if any, is displayed.
US08417806B2
A network device includes a port coupled to a device, another port coupled to another device, and an access control list with an access control entry that causes the network device to permit log in frames to be forwarded from the first device to the second device. The network device receives a frame addressed to the second device and determines the frame type. If the frame type is a log in frame, then the frame is forwarded to the second device and another access control entry is added to the access control list. The second access control entry causes the network device to permit data frames to be forwarded from the first device to the second device. If not, then the frame is dropped based upon the first access control entry.
US08417803B2
In one embodiment, a method for interfacing between a command-line-interface (CLI)-based application program (CLI-AP) residing in a client network device, and remote network devices. The method includes predefining at least one CLI-based program routine (CLI-PR) comprising at least one CLI-based command wherein the CLI-PR is defined externally to the CLI-AP, determining by CLI-AP a set of data to be obtained from the remote network device; selecting by CLI-AP a predefined CLI-PR from the predefined CLI-PRs, the selected predefined CLI-PR corresponding to the remote network device and determined set of data to be obtained; instructing the client network device by CLI-AP to execute the selected predefined CLI-PR, wherein executing selected predefined PR will cause the selected predefined CLI-PR to obtain the determined set of data from remote network device and to configure the obtained data in a predetermined format; and querying configured data by CLI-AP to retrieve the determined set of data.
US08417789B1
Memory demands of large-memory applications continue to remain one step ahead of the improvements in DRAM capacities of commodity systems. Performance of such applications degrades rapidly once the system hits the physical memory limit and starts paging to the local disk. A distributed network-based virtual memory scheme is provided which treats remote memory as another level in the memory hierarchy between very fast local memory and very slow local disks. Performance over gigabit Ethernet shows significant performance gains over local disk. Large memory applications may access potentially unlimited network memory resources without requiring any application or operating system code modifications, relinkling or recompilation. A preferred embodiment employs kernel-level driver software.
US08417788B1
A file system that utilizes Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) addressing and routing schemes to permit implementing multiple networked file system applications in a single data processing system. In particular, a networked file server or data mover has associated with it a mass storage device such as one or more disk drives, as well as one or more Network Interface Cards (NICs). A network interface to the data mover is associated with VLAN identifiers (IDs) such that a VLAN ID can be assigned to each file system. At the physical layer of the data mover, VLAN information is encapsulated and passed up to various higher protocol layers, such as a network layer and/or a transport layer, eventually to a selected file system as dictated by the VLAN ID. The file system application in effect becomes an addressable element of the VLAN. A single data mover can thus be deployed to service multiple groups of end users, as long as the members of each group have different VLAN identifiers for the multiple file systems. The result provides security, access restrictions, and all the other benefits of VLAN protocols that would be obtained by deploying separate data movers for each VLAN, without incurring the acquisition expense and administrative overhead associated with having to purchase and maintain multiple data mover systems.
US08417787B1
Systems and methods are provided for building, maintaining, and scoring lists of electronic communication addresses of users by providing users with ongoing access to protected electronic content in exchange for the users engaging in ongoing electronic interactions with the sender that improve the deliverability of electronic communications from the sender to the users' electronic communication addresses. Electronic communications, such as emails, text messages and instant messages, are sent from an electronic communication sender to a user using an electronic communication receiver, through a network, such as the Internet. The network includes an electronic communication evaluator that rates the sender based on the ongoing electronic interactions. Additionally, the protected electronic content may be monetized by charging third-party advertisers for the electronic interactions.
US08417782B2
System and method for handling calendar events among a plurality of user devices in a communication network are disclosed. The system includes a device manager for interfacing with the plurality of user devices, where the plurality of user devices use different calendar applications and have calendar events in different data formats, and the plurality of user devices include at least a meeting organizer device and one or more attendee devices. The system further includes a calendar gateway for processing the calendar events to form a corresponding connected calendar-data-set for each connected user, where the connected calendar-data-set is stored in a calendar backend server and is shared among one or more devices of each connected user, and an email gateway for communicating the calendar events between the calendar gateway and the plurality of user devices.
US08417779B2
Improved techniques for interacting with one or more handheld carriers hosting media content are disclosed. The handheld carrier hosting media content may be sensed, and at least a portion of the media content may be integrated into operation of a media activity provided by a computing device, upon recognizing the media activity and the media content. The media activity provided by the computing device may involve creating or editing an electronic document. The integration of the media content into operation of the media activity may involve insertion or importation of the media content into the electronic document.
US08417775B2
Systems and methods that provide for joining a node to a federation. A link component facilitates joining such node thru three phases of join, introduce and advise. A plurality of messages and replies are exchanged between nodes in form of introduce, advise, and response messages. Such messages contain the sending node's full neighborhood.
US08417769B2
Conventionally, in a system where devices for handling multiple media data such as audio and video are present, there is a problem that the number of audio channels that can be processed at the gateway is limited. In light of this problem, this invention offers a gateway having distributed processing function for a telephone or a data processing system featuring the capability to request address conversion to another terminal within the system to replace the address of stream-type packet data such as audio and video meant for itself, and if the aforementioned terminal to which the request was sent responds that it can handle the requested processing, to notify the address of the terminal processing the address conversion to the terminal transmitting the stream-type packet data.
US08417762B2
A cooperative data stream processing system utilizing a plurality of independent, autonomous and heterogeneous sites in a cooperative arrangement process user-defined job requests over dynamic, continuous streams of data. A distributed plan is created that identifies the processing elements that constitute a job that is derived from user-defined inquiries. These processing elements are arranged into subjobs that are mapped to various sites within the system for execution. The jobs are executed across the plurality of distributed sites in accordance with the distributed plan. The distributed plan also includes requirements for monitoring and back-up of the execution sites in the event of a failure on one of those sites. Execution of the jobs in accordance with the distributed plan is facilitated by the identification of an owner site to which the distributed plan is communicated and which is responsible for driving the execution of the distributed plan.
US08417756B2
A method of a hardware based Montgomery reduction contemplates preparing a table comprising a plurality of sets of values of 2K+i (mod n), 2K+i+1 (mod n) and (2K+i+2K+i+1)(mod n), where i=0 to M−2, n is a modulo number, K is an integer, and M is a number of significant bits in a binary Y; selecting one of the values within one of the plurality of sets of the table in dependence upon a value of two neighboring bits Yi+1,i of the binary Y; adding two neighboring selected values and calculating the modulo value of the sum value with the modulo number n; repeatedly adding two neighboring calculated modulo values and calculating the modulo value of the intermediate sum of the two neighboring calculated modulo values until only a single calculated module value is obtained; and setting the single value as the Montgomery representation.
US08417753B2
A pipelined FFT circuit used for processing a sequential input data with a set of N samples comprises a data division unit, a data-preprocessing unit and M sets of data computation unit. The data division unit is used for dividing the sequential input data into a first input data stream and a second input data stream. The data-preprocessing unit receives the first and second input data streams and orders the first input data stream to an odd number-index data stream, the second input data stream to an even number-index data stream respectively. Each of the data computation units has a data switch and a butterfly computator connected with the data switch, where M=log2N, the data switch of the first data computation unit is connected with the data-preprocessing unit.
US08417752B1
An equalizer circuitry that includes an equalizer stage having a programmable current source is described. In one implementation, the programmable current source cancels voltage offset. Also, in one implementation, the programmable current source is programmable in user mode. Furthermore, in one implementation, the equalizer circuitry includes a plurality of equalizer stages including the equalizer stage having a programmable current source, where the equalizer stage having a programmable current source is a second equalizer stage in the plurality of equalizer stages. Also, in one implementation, the programmable current source includes a plurality of current sources coupled in parallel and a plurality of sets of control switches for controlling the plurality of current sources. Further, in one implementation, each current source of the plurality of current sources includes a transistor and each set of control switches of the plurality of sets of control switches is for controlling a respective current source and includes a pair of transistors for controlling the respective current source.
US08417751B1
Convolutions are frequently used in signal processing. A method for performing an ordinal convolution is disclosed. In an embodiment of the disclosed subject matter, an ordinal mask may be obtained. The ordinal mask may describe a property of a signal. A representation of a signal may be received. A processor may convert the representation of the signal to an ordinal representation of the signal. The ordinal mask may be applied to the ordinal representation of the signal. Based upon the application of the ordinal mask to the ordinal representation of the signal, it may be determined that the property is present in the signal. The ordinal convolution method described herein may be applied to any type of signal processing method that relies on a transform or convolution.
US08417743B2
In an apparatus for managing data processed in a vehicle, from outside the vehicle, acquired is a management rule including at least one of information indicating types of data to be acquired by an external device placed outside the vehicle and information indicating an acquisition cycle at which the data should be acquired. At least one of the type of data and the acquisition cycle is set by making reference to the management rule in response to acquisition of the management rule. Data is acquired, which is according to at least of one of the type of data and the acquisition cycle. The acquired data is stored in a data recorder.
US08417736B2
The present invention relates to a method for storing at least one non-XML document (10) in an XML database (1), the method comprising the steps of: a. transforming the at least one non-XML document (10) into at least one XML document (20) by one or more transformation functions, the at least one XML document (20) conforming to a schema comprising references to the one or more transformation functions; and b. storing the at least one XML document (20) in the XML database (1).
US08417734B2
A computing system generates a model object from source data, the model object based on an extracted data element of the source data and an attribute of the extracted data element and generates a management interface representing the model object. The computing system provides at least one of a communications status or a security status of the model object via the management interface. The management interface is used to control how the model objects and other resources can exchange outputs, share internal data, and otherwise operate.
US08417733B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide techniques, including systems, methods, and computer readable medium, for dynamic atomic bitsets. A dynamic atomic bitset is a data structure that provides a bitset that can grow or shrink in size as required. The dynamic atomic bitset is non-blocking, wait-free, and thread-safe.
US08417724B2
A file server for displaying, on a client, files to be retrieved, a method of providing a display on the client, and a computer program product with program instructions executable on the file server. The number of files to be displayed and start point information related to the start point of a file list to be extracted is acquired from a client, and a file list is extracted from files stored as a partitioned data set in a storage device based on the number of files and start point information acquired. The numbers of preceding and succeeding files stored before and behind the extracted file list are calculated, the calculated numbers of the preceding and succeeding files and the extracted file list are sent to the client. The client displays the file list and the received numbers of remaining files before and behind the received file list, respectively.
US08417723B1
In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for enabling access to a resource of a multi-tenant on-demand database service utilizing a token. These mechanisms and methods for enabling access to a resource of a multi-tenant on-demand database service utilizing a token can be utilized to prevent identification of a user attempting to access the resource, and thus unwanted use of the user's identity.
US08417722B2
The invention relates to a method and system for profiling recipients into recipient categories on the basis of responses to content items provided to users. The profiling is based on rankings that are assigned to the content items, recipient categories, links between the content items and links between the content items and recipient categories. In one embodiment the ranking of a given content item is calculated on the basis of rankings of other content items having a link to the given content item, together with the ranking of the link between the content items, while the ranking of a given respondent in respect of a given recipient category is calculated on the basis of rankings of content items and/or categories that have a link to that recipient category. The links between content items and to the recipient categories indicate a particular response, by the respondent, in respect of content items. The recipients are profiled with respect to the recipient categories on the basis of the rankings assigned to the recipient categories.
US08417720B2
An approach is provided for mapping content, such as audio files, to associated metadata about the content. The approach includes initiating a search for local metadata associated with particular content. It is determined whether the local metadata is insufficient. A request for metadata associated with the particular content is generated, if the local metadata is insufficient. The request is sent to a metadata service to obtain result data including metadata for the particular content. A search of the result data from the metadata service is initiated based on a description of the particular content to obtain most relevant metadata of the result data.
US08417718B1
A technology is described herein for identifying suggested query completions for a partial query based upon unique queries which have suffixes similar to the suffix of the partial query, but have prefixes which do not contain the prefix of the partial query. The technology described herein selects suggested query completions for the partial query based on terms occurring at the ends of the unique queries, in a manner which is not limited to past queries that include all of the terms in the partial query. As a result, meaningful suggested query completions that are likely to assist the user in completing a partial query can be provided in instances where terms in the prefix of the partial query are ambiguous or uncommon.
US08417711B2
A computer controlled method for automatically segmenting an ensemble of data. The method starts by acquiring an ensemble of data and data is segmented by identifying a first subset of sequences of Linking Data Elements based on a repository of Linking Data Elements. A second subset of sequences of Information Carrying Data Elements is identified, wherein the sequences are linked by the Linking Data Elements. The subsets are provided in a structured format.
US08417708B2
A computer performed method models a spatial index having n spatial regions defined in a multidimensional space using a tree-based model representing an infinite number of arrangements of n spatial regions in the multidimensional space allowable by the spatial index using a finite number of tree representations, computes an average retrieval complexity measure for content retrieval using the spatial index based on the tree based model, and provides a spatial index recommendation based on the average retrieval complexity measure. In some embodiments a spatial index selection module selects the spatial index based on average retrieval complexity measures for candidate spatial indices that are functionally dependent upon a number of spatial regions to be defined by the spatial index.
US08417706B2
A method is disclosed for acting on a plurality of electronic messages. The method includes the step of receiving the plurality of electronic messages. Each of the plurality of electronic messages is then portioned into a plurality of message components. Each of the plurality of message components is then grouped into common-themed sets. Once grouped, the method allows the viewing of one of the common-themed sets to determine an appropriate response to each of the plurality of messages having one of the plurality of message components grouped in the common-themed set.
US08417700B2
Systems and methods are provided for assisting a user in creating a process diagram according to a specific methodology. A template library includes a plurality of entities associated with the methodology. Each of the plurality of entities has an associated one of a plurality of entity categories. A user interface allows a user to insert entities from the library into the process diagram and insert connections between the entities to show logical relationships between the entities. A graphical engine generates an optimal arrangement of the entities within the process diagram according to at least one characteristic of a plurality of entities and at least one connector associated with the process diagram and at least one optimization criteria when a user inserts an entity or connection. The graphical engine is operative to animate a transition between an original arrangement and the optimal arrangement.
US08417696B2
Merger and duplicate resolution for contact information across platforms is managed employing contact objects and aggregating the contact objects into contact models. Contact data from internal and/or external data stores may be retrieved and contact objects created for each contact from each contact store. A contact model for each contact entity may be created by aggregating contact data from contact objects across the contact stores. The aggregation may include duplicate resolution through weighting of communication system types, ranking of contact information type, and similar approaches. The contact models may be dynamically updated based on changes to the contact objects.
US08417694B2
Embodiments of the invention provide a system and method for determining preferences from information mashups and, in particular, a system and method for constructing a ranked list from multiple sources. In an exemplary embodiment, the system and method tunably combines multiple ranked lists by computing a score for each item within the list, wherein the score is a function of the associated rank of the item within the list. In one exemplary embodiment, the function is equal to 1/(n^(1/p)), where p is a tuning parameter that enables selection between responsiveness in the combined ranking to one candidate ranked highly in one source versus responsiveness in the combined ranking to a candidate with lower but broader support among the various sources ranking the candidates.
US08417692B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining a generalized edit distance for queries. In one aspect, a method includes selecting query pairs of consecutive queries, each query pair being a first query and a second query consecutively submitted as separate queries, each first and second query including at least one term. For each query pair, the method includes selecting term pairs from the query pair, each term pair being a first term in the first query and a second term in the second query; and determining a co-occurrence value for each term pair. The method also includes determining transition costs based on the co-occurrence values for term pairs, each transition cost indicative of a cost of transitioning from a first term in a first query to a second term in a second query consecutive to the first query.
US08417690B2
Database queries for retrieving data from database tables, that do not impose any constraints on the data to be retrieved, result in Cartesian product joins. Such unconstrained database queries when executed impose a significant load on resources, take a long time to execute, and may produce inaccurate and misleading results. Functionality can be implemented to reduce the amount of data retrieved by constraining database queries resulting in Cartesian product joins before they are executed. This can be done by leveraging referential constraints that depict relationships between the tables to be joined to limit the results produced by executing the Cartesian product join. Automatically detecting and preventing execution of Cartesian product joins by leveraging the referential constraints can reduce the processing load on the machine, reduce the time spent in executing the database query, minimize the number of query results, and prevent inaccurate results from being displayed.
US08417689B1
Each of a plurality of subtasks is configured to explore and assess alternative solutions for a combinatorial optimization problem by a reentrant finite state machine is represented. Each of a plurality of threads is configured to perform operations comprising a subtask until either completion or a blocked state is reached and, in the event a blocked state is reached, to move on to performing another subtask that is not currently in a blocked state.
US08417684B2
In the field of communications, a method, a system, and a device for searching for information, and a method for registering a vertical search engine are provided. The method for searching for information includes the following steps. A first search request sent by a user is received. A logic node is determined according to attribute information in the first search request. A vertical search engine selected by the logic node for the user is received. A second search request is sent to the vertical search engine. The method for registering the vertical search engine includes the following steps. A mobile search server receives and saves first registration information sent by the vertical search engine. Location information of a logic node corresponding to the vertical search engine is determined according to the first registration information. Second registration information is sent to the logic node according to the location information.
US08417677B2
A communication management system includes a terminal which has a peer to peer connection to communicate with a node conducting peer to peer communication, a content detector which, when the terminal receives from the node a content of which distribution should be controlled, detects identification information of the content, and a communication control apparatus which refers to the detected identification information to control transmission of the content of which distribution should be controlled.
US08417675B2
A method of distributing contact and calendar records in a multi-user environment includes maintaining a plurality of records with a plurality of fields and directives corresponding to a plurality of users. At least one user has at least one authorization. For each record, a designation is made, based on the directives, to determine which of a plurality of component devices the record is distributed to. The records and fields are distributed to the component devices.
US08417657B2
This disclosure describes systems and methods for identifying and correcting anomalies in web graphs. A web graph is transformed into a sequence of tokens via a walk algorithm. The sequence is fingerprinted to form a set of shingles. The singles are compared to shingles for other web graphs in order to determine similarity between web graphs. Actions are then carried out to remove anomalous web graphs and modify parameters governing web mapping in order to decrease the likelihood of future anomalous web graphs being built.
US08417646B2
According to some embodiments, methods, apparatus, systems and/or computer readable mediums are provided. According to some embodiments, a method includes generating at least one shipment request data object based at least in part on at least one outbound delivery data object; generating at least one freight unit data object based at least in part on the at least one shipment request data object; generating at least one shipment data object based at least in part on the at least one freight unit data object; generating at least one invoice data object based at least in part on the at least one shipment data object; and generating at least one customs export document based at least in part on the at least one invoice.
US08417642B2
A system (1) for conducting commercial transactions comprises an application server (2) that hosts a software application that can be accessed by users to conduct commercial transactions thereon, an application user database (7) of authorized users capable of accessing the application server (2), each authorized user in the application user database (7) being uniquely identifiable by means of corresponding login name and password, and a proxy server (10) communicable with the application server (2) and accessible by a plurality of registered users from respective mobile phones (9). The proxy server provides each one of the plurality of registered users with access to the application server (2) from that user's respective mobile phone (9). A proxy database (11) is associated with the proxy server (10), the proxy server (10) containing details of authorized user database (7) who are also registered to access the application (2) server through the proxy server from their respective mobile phones (9).
US08417639B1
Systems and methods for automatically reordering checks for a plurality of accounts utilizing checks. For each of the plurality of accounts, a number of checks written may be determined from a most recent check order. The number of checks written may comprise a number of checks cleared and a number of stop payment orders made. Also, for each of the plurality of accounts, a check usage rate for the account may be determined. The check usage rate may be proportional to a number of checks written per unit time. Additionally, for each of the plurality of accounts a time-to-exhaustion for the account may be determined considering the number of checks written and the check usage rate for the account. Also, for each of the plurality of accounts, when the time-to-exhaustion drops below a threshold, an order of new checks directed to a customer associated with the account may be initiated.
US08417632B2
A system updates a billing unit. The system receives at least one modification to an Internet Protocol (IP) communications network account from a user and modifies a first record in a database based on the received at least one modification. The system transmits the at least one modification from the database to the billing unit and updates a second record, corresponding to the first record, in the billing unit based on the at least one modification so as to make the updated second record available in substantially real time.
US08417629B1
A system, method, and computer-usable medium are disclosed for the remote deposit of funds into a financial account from a point of purchase (POP) terminal. Funds are received from an account holder for remote deposit. Checks are scanned and a check image transaction is originated by the POP terminal to deposit the funds value of one or more checks into one or more financial accounts associated with the account holder. Cash funds are received and a debit transaction is originated to transfer the funds value of the cash from an account of a financial institution associated with the POP terminal into a financial account associated with the account holder. The POP terminal receives acknowledgment from the account holder's financial institution of the receipt of the deposits. The account holder is then provided the acknowledgement.
US08417627B2
The invention provides various systems and methods for actively optimizing a credit score and reducing debt. The method includes receiving a credit report including credit accounts, balances, interest rates, and rate types for the credit accounts. The method further receives bank account and payroll information, as well as fixed and variable expense information. The method then generates a financial report based on the received information. Based on the financial report, the method calculates a payment amount, and determines available unassigned income. An allocation of the available income for debt reduction and credit score optimization is received, and the method dynamically allocates the funds to pay the credit accounts, the fixed expenses, and variable expenses such that the customer's debt is reduced and the customer's credit score is improved.
US08417621B2
Hedge legs for synthetic spread trading strategies are managed as attached or detached from a synthetic spread order. A legged hedge order may be changed, adjusted, deleted, cancelled or otherwise managed according to changes, adjustments, deletions ad/or cancellations of the synthetic spread order upon which the legged spread order was submitted.
US08417588B2
A business object model, which reflects data that is used during a given business transaction, is utilized to generate interfaces. This business object model facilitates commercial transactions by providing consistent interfaces that are suitable for use across industries, across businesses, and across different departments within a business during a business transaction. In some operations, software creates, updates, or otherwise processes information related to a goods tag, a production bill of material hierarchy, and/or a release order template business object.
US08417582B1
An on-line price negotiation method includes submitting a bid from a buyer (buyer's bid) for a selected item/service offered for sale on a website via the internet to an on-line computing device that controls operations at the website. The computing device automatically responds to the buyer's bid, including creating an exclusive interaction for a maximum period of time between the buyer and website for the buyer to negotiate a price for the item/service, setting a minimum accept price for the item/service; and comparing the buyer's bid to the minimum accept price. Based on the comparing, the buyer is notified of accepting the buyer's bid (deal) or not accepting the buyer's bid (no-deal). A deal allows the buyer an option to purchase the item/service, or to update the buyer's bid and repeat submitting with an updated bid. no deal allows the buyer an option to update the buyer's bid and repeat submitting an updated bid.
US08417574B2
The present invention provides systems and methods for processing return transactions over a network. An embodiment of the invention discloses an online return application that generates an electronic return shipping label that can be delivered to a browser of a customer that wishes to make a return. Also, disclosed is the creation and transmission of label delivery links, which provide for dynamic generation and delivery of shipping labels.
US08417571B2
It is an object to increase advertising effectiveness by a synergetic effect between communication using a mobile phone or the like, and an electronic money system. The present embodiment is configured such that an advertisement is transmitted to a user's mobile phone via e-mail, and if the user purchases an article in values based on the advertisement, cashback is performed through the user's mobile phone in values. Thus, giving a feeling of value to the user makes it possible not only to increase advertising effectiveness but also to confirm the advertising effectiveness. If purchasing an article in values according to an advertising mail sent to a mobile phone 3, the user can receive the cashback from an electronic money server 2, thus allowing the user to obtain a feeling of value. Moreover, the electronic money server 2 can know whether or not the user has conducted purchasing activities in accordance with the advertising mail, allowing the advertising effectiveness to be measured and confirmed.
US08417569B2
A system and method searches, identifies, tests and/or evaluates websites and content related ads for suitability. The results can be used to identify and promote services to prospective advertising affiliates as part of an advertising campaign.
US08417564B2
A method of allocating advertising resources uses a database that includes a number of business unit characteristics, one being an average allocation of advertising costs over time. A regression coefficient is produced based on the characteristics, wherein a non-linear specification is used for the average allocation of advertising cost characteristic. An impact indicator is assigned based on the how positive the regression coefficient is so that the effect of each characteristic on sales/profits and quantity sold can be determined.
US08417561B2
Embodiments of the invention relate to systems, methods, and computer program products for providing a market-dynamics network that assesses social and economic market dynamics in specific geographic regions. For example, the market-dynamics network collects transaction data from a large number of business-merchants across a large number of geographic locations and appends geographic-location identifiers to the collected transaction data. The market-dynamics network then aggregates transaction data in specific geographic regions and, based on the aggregated transaction data, assesses social and economic market dynamics in those geographic regions.
US08417556B2
A mobile marketing campaign platform and method including: a planning module including: a definition module for setting budget and objectives; and a design module for designing the campaign utilizing a plurality of templates; an execution module including: design tools for designing an executable campaign from the campaign design made from the templates; and operating tools for causing the executable campaign to execute over multiple mobile services; and a reporting module including: tracking means for tracking at least one of a campaign activity, the campaign performance objectives; and the brand performance objectives.
US08417549B2
A system and method are described for intelligently sourcing demand forecasts within a supply chain management (“SCM”) system based on a constrained supply chain model, in light of material and resource constraints. For example, a computer implemented method according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: calculating a demand forecast identifying anticipated demand for a product over a specified time period; identifying current sales orders for the product with delivery dates scheduled during the specified time period; generating an open forecast for the product based on the current sales orders and the anticipated demand; and sourcing different percentages of the open forecast from different plants, the percentages selected based on supply chain material and/or resource constraints. In addition, after the demand forecast is sourced, one embodiment of the invention employs additional techniques for intelligently sourcing new sales orders entering the SCM system.
US08417542B2
A computer-implemented method of a mode server is disclosed. The method includes authenticating a medical instrument based on an identifier associated with the medical instrument using a processor. The method includes authenticating a user of the medical instrument based on a password using the processor. The method also includes generating a graphical representation of the medical instrument, and providing a set of rules associated with the medical instrument based on the identifier and the user. In addition, the method includes generating a custom mode of operation of the medical instrument based on a response of the user and creating a name associated with the custom mode of operation. The method further includes automatically programming the medical instrument based on the custom mode, and sharing the custom mode with other users and other medical instruments based on the set of rules.
US08417532B2
The transient problem may be sufficiently addressed, and for this purpose, a further delay on the side of the decoding may be reduced if a new SBR frame class is used wherein the frame boundaries are not shifted, i.e. the grid boundaries are still synchronized with the frame boundaries, but wherein a transient position indication is additionally used as a syntax element so as to be used, on the encoder and/or decoder sides, within the frames of these new frame class for determining the grid boundaries within these frames.
US08417531B2
An audio decoding method and apparatus and an audio encoding method and apparatus which can efficiently process object-based audio signals are provided. The audio decoding method includes receiving a downmix signal and object-based side information, the downmix signal comprising at least two downmix channel signals; extracting gain information from the object-based side information and generating modification information for modifying the downmix channel signals on a channel-by-channel basis based on the gain information; and modifying the downmix channel signals by applying the modification information to the downmix channel signals.
US08417516B2
Provided are a method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a high frequency signal by using a low frequency signal. The high frequency signal can be encoded by extracting a coefficient by linear predicting a high frequency signal, and encoding the coefficient, generating a signal by using the extracted coefficient and a low frequency signal, and encoding the high frequency signal by calculating a ratio between the high frequency signal and an energy value of the generated signal. Also, the high frequency signal can be decoded by decoding a coefficient, which is extracted by linear predicting a high frequency signal, and a low frequency signal, and generating a signal by using the decoded coefficient and the decoded low frequency signal, and adjusting the generated signal by decoding a ratio between the generated signal and an energy value of the high frequency signal.
US08417511B2
A system and method for authoring a voice application is provided. The voice recognition process uses a dynamic grammar which obtains data from a backend data source based upon an input in order to create expected results that a speech engine can recognize. The process can retrieve data from at least one of a plurality of back-end data sources and can build a grammar based on the data using at least in part a dynamic grammar builder. The grammar is loaded into the voice recognition application using at least in part the reusable dialog component. A data access service, XSLT processor, or other data accessing framework can be used to facilitate access and manipulation of data in heterogeneous environments.
US08417510B2
A vocabulary generating method and apparatus and a speech recognition system using the same are disclosed. In the vocabulary generating method, a new system vocabulary can be generated to increase the flexibility of the speech recognition system, so a user, when unsure of a system command, can use a specially defined “unknown code word” (UCW) for the undetermined part in the command.
US08417507B2
Formal verification of models using concurrent model-reduction and model-checking. For example, a system for formal verification of models includes: one or more model reducers to reduce a model; one or more model checkers to check the model, wherein at least one of the model reducers is to run concurrently with at least one of the model checkers; and a model synchronizer to synchronize information between at least one of the model reducers and at least one of the model checkers.
US08417504B2
A system and method are described for converting a circuit description into transaction-based description at a higher level of abstraction. Thus, a designer can readily view a series of transactions that occurred in the simulation of a circuit. In one aspect, the simulated signals are analyzed and converted into messages of a protocol used by the design. A combination of the messages represents a transaction. Thus, the simulated signals are then converted into a series of protocol transactions. In another aspect, a message recognition module performs the analysis of the simulated signals and converts the simulated signals into messages (e.g., request for bus, bus acknowledge, etc.). A transaction recognition module analyzes the messages and converts the messages into transactions (e.g., Read, Write, etc.). Using both the system and method the circuit description is converted into a higher level of abstraction that allows more comprehensive system-level analysis.
US08417497B2
To update a model of a subterranean structure, a partial decomposition is computed of an operator that is used to compute a parameterization representing the update of the model. The partial decomposition of the operator is selected from among a partial eigendecomposition of a Fisher information operator, and a singular value decomposition of the operator. A term based on additional information is combined with the partial decomposition of the operator to derive an update of the model.
US08417493B2
A system for generating an electronic model having a common coordinate system includes a scanning device; a first plate module; and a second plate module. Each of the plate modules is configured to separately couple to the scanning device. The plate modules also can be moveably coupled together using an articulation device. Each of the plate modules includes alignment structures (e.g., spheres) to facilitate determining a position and orientation of the plate modules within a coordinate system of the scanning device.
US08417487B2
A fairing can be attached to a prosthetic limb or over a brace to alter the appearance of the prosthetic limb or brace. The outer surface of the prosthetic limb can be a mirror image of an intact limb and the outer surface of the brace can have an outer surface that corresponds to an injured limb. Because the fairing fits closely around the prosthetic limb or brace, the interior surface of the fairing has a surface that corresponds to a mirror image of an intact limb or an outer surface of an injured limb.
US08417481B2
Several embodiments of systems and methods for adaptive smart environment automation are described herein. In one embodiment, a computer implemented method includes determining a plurality of sequence patterns of data points in a set of input data corresponding to a plurality of sensors in a space. The input data include a plurality of data points corresponding to each of the sensors, and the sequence patterns are at least partially discontinuous. The method also includes generating a plurality of statistical models based on the plurality of sequence patterns, and the individual statistical models corresponding to an activity of a user. The method further includes recognizing the activity of the user based on the statistical models and additional input data from the sensors.
US08417479B2
A system calculates axial deformation of a turbine rotor. The system includes an input part that sets measurement points of rotor disks that constitute the turbine rotor; a deflection amount detection part that derives radial displacement amounts of the turbine rotor for at least four or more measurement points along an outer surface in a circumferential direction of the turbine rotor based on measured values measured by a displacement gage; a storage part that stores the radial displacement amounts and measured angles at the measurement points; and a calculation part that calculates misalignment data of a most probable circle of the turbine rotor based on data stored. The calculated circle is calculated from the displacement amount and the measured angles. The most probable circle is determined from the calculated circle, and the misalignment data of the most probable circle is calculated from the most probable circle.
US08417478B2
There is disclosed a system and method for network test conflict checking. The method may be performed by a network testing system and may be implemented as software. The method may include receiving user selected test features and user selected hardware for a network test. When receiving user selected features, incompatible features are made unselectable by reference to a feature database. A compatibility check is performed by referring to a hardware database and a feature database. Suggestive corrective changes may be provided to a user or automatically made to the selected features and/or selected hardware. The network test is written to hardware when the compatibility test is successful.
US08417474B2
Method of product evaluation comprising the steps of applying at least one substance to a surface of an artificial substrate to form a substance-coated surface, wherein the substrate surface demonstrates at least one physical property selected from the group consisting of a total surface energy of from about 15 mJ/m2 to about 50 mJ/m2, a polar component of the total surface energy of from about 0 mJ/m2 to about 15 mJ/m2, a zeta-potential at a pH of about 5.0 of from about −30 mV to about 30 mV, and combinations thereof, and performing at least one analysis of the substance-coated surface.
US08417473B2
A method for estimating inter-channel delay and an apparatus for estimating inter-channel delay and an encoder are provided by the embodiments of the present invention. The method includes: obtaining signal sound field information from a cross-correlation function and a cumulative cross-correlation function of synthetic signals of left and right sound channels respectively; obtaining adjustment information of the cumulative cross-correlation function according to the sound field information that is respectively obtained; adjusting the cumulative cross-correlation function by using the adjustment information, so as to obtain the adjusted cumulative cross-correlation function; and determining a time corresponding to a maximum value in the adjusted cumulative cross-correlation function as an inter-channel delay. Therefore, the delay between the signals of the left and right sound channels can be estimated correctly, so as to improve the stability of the synthetic stereo sound field.
US08417470B2
A security pulse generator and methods thereof are applied in fuel dispensers. The fuel dispenser includes a flow measuring transducer and a control main board on which there is a measuring microprocessor on the control main board. The security pulse generator includes: a pulse signal generating component, which generates a corresponding pulse signal according to the rotation of the flow measuring transducer; an encoding microprocessor, which receives and transduces the pulse signal, transmits it to the control main board, and meanwhile encodes the output pulse signal; a measuring microprocessor, which receives and decodes output pulse number encoded data from the encoding microprocessor and transforms it to the output pulse number after decoding it, then compares it to the pulse number of the control main board to determine if there is suspecting frauds in the fueling process.
US08417459B2
Disclosed are a method for determining whether an individual has an enhanced, diminished, or average probability of exhibiting one or more phenotypic attributes and related methods of selecting a set of genetic markers; for providing relevant genetic information to an individual; of evaluating the probability that progeny of two individuals of the opposite sex will exhibit one or more phenotypic attributes; and for determining the genomic ethnicity of an individual.
US08417455B2
The present disclosure relates to a method to determine a formation property of a subsurface formation. A downhole logging tool having two or more antennas, at least one of the antennas being a non-co-located triaxial antenna, is provided. Azimuthally sensitive measurements are obtained using the antennas of the downhole logging tool. The measurements are fitted to a Fourier series having Fourier coefficients and the non-co-location of the triaxial antenna is compensated for by adjusting the Fourier coefficients. Compensated measurements are determined using the adjusted Fourier coefficients and the formation property of the subsurface formation is determined using the compensated measurements. The compensating may use one or more scale factors that depend on an amplitude, phase, and/or frequency of the received signal, and an alignment angle between the triaxial antenna and another of the antennas of the logging tool.
US08417452B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for a system that provides information to an operator of a vehicle. The system includes, but is not limited to a call center that configured to provide the operator with route guidance to a location. The system also includes a plurality of internet websites. Each internet website relates to a vehicle lifecycle event and is configured to permit the operator to electronically transmit a location associated with the vehicle lifecycle event to the call center.
US08417442B2
Traffic management reports are created by providing vehicle sensor devices at different location in a region. Each device captures data of vehicles that pass the device. The vehicle data is communicated to a central computer database. At the central computer database, a user interface selects one or more criteria from a plurality of criteria for filtering the vehicle data. Traffic management reports are then automatically created from the filtered vehicle data using the selected criteria.
US08417441B2
A roadway information system is disclosed with components generating and using vehicle signatures for vehicles passing near sensor pods located on or near lanes. These components in turn are part of and/or communicate with means and/or processors for generating an/or using Vehicle Movement Estimates based upon the vehicle signatures. The VME are used to create traffic feedback that may be presented to programmable field devices that may present at least some of the traffic feedback to drivers of the vehicles, thereby optimizing the fuel usage and travel time of the roadway.
US08417440B2
A hydraulic control device for an internal combustion engine having a pressure level switch mechanism that switches the pressure level of the oil supplied to components of the engine between a high pressure level and a low pressure level is provided. The hydraulic control device has a detecting section and a determining section. The determining section outputs a command signal instructing to switch the pressure level of the oil to the high pressure level to the pressure level switch mechanism and determines that the pressure level switch mechanism has a malfunction on condition that, after the command signal has been output, the pressure of the oil detected by the detecting section is smaller than a high-pressure-level switching malfunction determination value.
US08417428B2
An alternator controlling method includes: performing alternator braking/driving force control such that alternator braking/driving force generated by an alternator mounted in a vehicle and applied to the vehicle is controlled based on a running state of the vehicle; calculating an SOC value based on a charge status of a battery; calculating an SOC correction value based on the alternator braking/driving force Fo; determining an accelerating/decelerating state of the vehicle; setting a target voltage based on the accelerating/decelerating state and the SOC correction value; and performing battery charging control by causing the alternator to generate electrical power based on the target voltage. This enables efficient recovery of energy produced during electrical power generation by the alternator, taking account of the alternator braking/driving force control.
US08417425B2
An apparatus for improving the stability of a payload of granular material loaded onto the bed of a vehicle that will traverse at least one grade is disclosed. The bed of the vehicle may be coupled to a hoist mechanism which may be linked to a controller with a memory for entering a value for the grade the vehicle may traverse while carrying the payload on the bed. The controller may send a signal to the hoist mechanism to tilt the bed to a tilted position having an angle about the value of the grade. An optional tilt support mechanism may be used to engage and support the bed after the bed has been tilted by the hoist mechanism to support the bed in the tilted position while the bed is loaded with the granular material. The hoist mechanism can be used to move the bed back to the horizontal position after the payload has been deposited on the bed.
US08417424B2
A plurality of control units capable of communicating with each other via a data communication network (TU) are disposed in distribution. One of the plurality of control units is set as an information management control unit (H1) having writable nonvolatile storing means. Upon activation with power supply thereof, the information management control unit (H1) executes a control management information distributing process for transmitting control management information stored in a memory (50) to storage object control units (H2-H6) via the communication network (TU). Upon activation with power supply thereto, each of the storage object control units (H2-H6) executes a control management information obtaining process for obtaining the control management information transmitted from the control management information control unit (H1).
US08417407B2
A vehicular electric power source control device provided on a vehicle provided with an engine that may be stopped even in a vehicle drivable state which is established when a predetermined condition is satisfied and in which a vehicle drive force can be generated, and an electric-energy storage device which is charged by an operation of said engine, the vehicular electric power source control device permitting implementation of an automatic engine starting control to start said engine when an amount of an electric energy stored in said electric-energy storage device has been reduced to or below a predetermined charging start threshold value while the engine is held at rest in said vehicle drivable state, the vehicle electric power source control device includes an engine start permitting portion configured to permit the implementation of said automatic engine starting control under a condition that any passenger is present within the vehicle.
US08417385B2
There is provided a home appliance control device for obtaining various parameters of each active object according to a variation between a plurality of current images acquired by an image sensor or according to a relation of a current image acquired by the image sensor with respect to a reference image or a reference data thereby determining an operation state of a home appliance.
US08417376B1
A method and device utilizing touch screen transparent LED means is shown for viewing a number of products, selecting one or more for investigation by displaying information concerning the selected items, choosing one for removal from the display of items and delivering the chosen item to a user.
US08417363B2
A method for controlling a group of machines such as robots or pick and place machines to pick up an item from a first position and place the item in a second position. Information from a sensor about the location of the first position is provided to a control member, which sends a message from a master process to all machines. The message includes a list of all first positions. The machines dynamically and adaptively handle each of the first positions and inform the master process when each first position is handled. The master process in turn informs all machines that a given first position has been handled. A system, a computer program and a graphical user interface are also described.
US08417360B2
Systems and methodologies are provided for controlling a process having computer-controlled equipment, which provide for optimized process performance according to one or more performance criteria, such as efficiency, component life expectancy, safety, emissions, noise, vibration, operational cost, or the like. The systems and methods provide for employing machine diagnostic and/or prognostic information in connection with optimizing an overall business operation over a time horizon.
US08417356B2
A biomimetic electrode material including a fibrous matrix including a conductive polymer and an ion conducting polymeric material is described. The biomimetic electrode material may be used in a number of body-implantable applications including cardiac and neuro-stimulation applications. The biomimetic electrode material can be formed using electrospinning and other related processes. The biomimetic electrode may facilitate efficient charge transport from ionically conductive tissue to the electronically conductive electrode, and may induce surrounding tissue to attach or interface directly to the implanted device, increasing the biocompatibility of the device.
US08417353B2
A system for securing at least one electrode to an anatomy is provided. The system can include a first plate, which can include at least one first passage. The at least one first passage can be configured to receive a lead of the at least one electrode. The system can also include a second plate configured to move relative to the first plate. The movement of the second plate relative to the first plate can at least partially occlude the at least one passage of the first plate to secure the lead of the at least one electrode to the anatomy.
US08417352B2
An electrotherapy system for stimulating sensory nerves within skin tissue includes a electrode carrier, a pulse generator, an array of skin-penetrating electrodes and surface skin electrodes, a pulse conditioning circuit, and a power source. The system administers biphasic pulsed current at the surface skin electrodes and monophasic pulsed current at each skin-penetrating electrode. The skin-penetrating surfaces and skin contact surfaces of the electrotherapy system may be sterilized or may be replaceable for outpatient reusability.
US08417350B2
A device and method for programming an implantable pulse generator. In one embodiment, commands are entered designating implantable pulse generator programming variables into programmer memory. At least some of the commands are transformed into an executable macro. The macro is stored in the programmer memory. The macro is executed to transmit the programming variables to the implantable pulse generator.
US08417345B2
Neuromodulation assemblies with lead bodies having curvatures that mimic the curvatures of the splenium, trunk, genu, or rostrum of the corpus callosum. Methods of stimulating the corpus callosum and methods of securing an electrical lead in the brain are also provided.
US08417335B2
Methods and systems are described that involve synchronized ventricular pacing that promotes sensing of atrial events. The atrioventricular pacing delay is modified based on characteristics of previously sensed atrial events. The modified AV delay is implemented relative to a first atrial event. A second AV delay is implemented relative to a second atrial event if the second atrial event is sensed during the modified AV delay. A ventricular pacing pulse is delivered following the second AV delay.
US08417334B2
A method and apparatus are used to provide therapy to a patient experiencing ventricular dysfunction or heart failure. At least one electrode is located in a region associated with nervous tissue, such as nerve bundles T1-T4, in a patient's body. Electrical stimulation is applied to the at least one electrode to improve the cardiac efficiency of the patient's heart. One or more predetermined physiologic parameters of the patient are monitored, and the electrical stimulation is adjusted based on the one or more predetermined physiologic parameters.
US08417333B2
This document discusses, among other things, an apparatus comprising, a plurality of electrodes configured to deliver defibrillation countershock energy to a subject, an impedance measurement circuit communicatively coupled to the electrodes and configured to measure the impedance between any two of the electrodes using a non-stimulating excitation signal, and a controller communicatively coupled to the impedance measurement circuit and configured to calculate the impedance of a shock vector, wherein the shock vector includes a first electrode and a second electrode electrically connected together, and a third electrode, and wherein the controller calculates the impedance using measured impedances between the three electrodes when none of them are electrically connected.
US08417329B2
Apparatus (18, 18′) is provided, which includes one or more fundic sensors (74), configured to be applied to a fundus of a subject (10), and to generate a fundic signal. The apparatus further includes a control unit (90), which is configured to make a tentative determination of ingestion by the subject (10), determine fundic impedance responsively to the fundic signal, and calculate a duration of a period during which the fundic impedance rose during the tentatively-determined ingestion. Upon finding that the duration is less than a fundic rise duration threshold value, the control unit (90) determines that the tentative determination of ingestion is a false positive. Other embodiments are also described.
US08417326B2
Disclosed is an apparatus and method for ambulatory, real-time detection of Atrial Fibrillation (AF) providing an overall accuracy that refers to detection of AF, irrespective of the duration of AF and beat-to-beat classification.
US08417318B2
A method for removing position-dependent bias from tracking systems computes invertible transformations between a tracking system and a reference system, and applies an inverse of the transformation to measurements in the tracking system to estimate the locations of reference points in the reference system and to determine relative bias at the measured points.
US08417305B2
The invention relates to a method for non-invasive determination of oxygen saturation of blood within a deep vascular structure of a human patient comprising locating on skin of the patient in a vicinity of the deep vascular structure of interest emitter and receiver elements of a light oximeter device, wherein optimal location of said elements is achieved through matching of a plethysmography trace obtained from the oximeter device to known plethysmography characteristics of the deep vascular structure of interest, and wherein oxygen saturation is determined from a ratio of light absorbed at different wavelengths by haemoglobin in the blood within the vascular structure of interest. The invention also relates to modified oximetry devices capable of carrying out the method.
US08417289B2
A method, a system and a computer program product for determining one or more characteristics of a caller, utilizing the biometric characteristics of the caller. One or more biometric characteristics are detected when a request to place an outgoing call to one or more destinations is received at a first telecommunication device. When the request to place an outgoing call is a verbal request, one or more biometric voice samples are obtained. The biometric voice samples comprise the biometric characteristics of the caller. The biometric characteristics are extracted from the biometric voice samples, encoded into a datagram, and transmitted from the first telecommunication device to the outgoing call destination (i.e. a second telecommunication device). When the biometric characteristics are analyzed at the second telecommunication device, a display is generated depicting the mood, gender, age, urgency or other characteristics of the caller associated with the incoming call.
US08417288B1
The communication device which includes a voice communication implementer, a caller's information displaying implementer, an icon software implementer, and a multiple language mode implementer.
US08417287B2
In one embodiment, a virtual gateway mediates between a dual-mode subscriber device and an IP-based PBX. In particular, the virtual gateway includes a WLAN interface for communicating with the dual-mode subscriber device and a network interface (wired or wireless) for communicating with the IP-based PBX over the Internet. As such, the virtual gateway may relay voice and call control instructions between the dual-mode subscriber device and the IP-based PBX, and may provide the same call control functions to the dual-mode subscriber device provided by the call control processor in existing dual-mode phones. The embodiment further provides a dual-mode subscriber device suitable for operation with the virtual gateway. Because the dual-mode subscriber device does not require a call control processor, the battery life and cost of the device are significantly improved.
US08417277B2
To provide a radio base station and a control method thereof wherein a simple way is used to relax the load concentration of a power control and also relax the control delay. A radio base station and a control method thereof wherein a frame generating part inserts a dummy TPC command, and a power setting part sets a TPC command, whereby a process of deciding the TPC command to be inserted can be delayed by the time required for the processes done in the frame generating part, a modulating part and a spreading part and wherein the process of deciding the TPC command and a process of deciding a power value are separated from and done at different timings from a process of controlling a TPC command insertion status and a process of controlling a power setting status, with the result that even when the processes are concentrated, a load dispersion can be done.
US08417276B2
A wireless transmission system for multimedia information having plural layers includes a base station (BTS) and a mobile station (MS) that can select which layers to transmit based on reported channel conditions, mobile location, and/or forward error correction (FEC) used for a particular layer. A respective FEC rate and/or power level can be dynamically established for each layer by a mobile station dependent on available bandwidth and/or reception and decoding capability of the BTS.
US08417272B2
A communications system may include at least one mobile wireless communications device, and a wireless communications network for sending text messages thereto. More particularly, the at least one mobile wireless communications device may include a wireless transceiver and a controller for cooperating therewith for receiving text messages from the wireless communications network. It may further include a headset output connected to the controller. The controller may be for switching between a normal message mode and an audio message mode based upon a connection between the headset output and a headset. Moreover, when in the audio message mode, the controller may output at least one audio message including speech generated from at least one of the received text messages via the headset output.
US08417267B2
System and method for managing short message service communications for a radio station hosted event
A system and method for communicating with an audience. The system includes a radio transmitter that transmits a first communication to a plurality of audience members. A server receives a plurality of short message service communications, wherein each of the plurality of short message service communications is transmitted from a portable communication device in reply to the first communication. A display operably coupled to the server automatically displays each of the plurality of short message service communications.
US08417261B2
A system and method for observing a personal networking event which shares the position of a number of friendly participants with other participants within a group. In one form, the position of unknown participants meeting certain criteria is also displayed to a user or one or more friendly participants. The views are selectable by friendly participants on, for example, a GPS equipped cell phone, to include a view from the participant's position, zoom, pan, and tilt views, or views from another friendly location or from another geographic location, giving increased situational awareness and identification of participants. Other information can be shared among friendly participants, including social information, status and directions.
US08417256B2
An apparatus and a method for beamforming in a wireless communication using a Base Station (BS) cooperative scheme are provided. The beamforming method includes exchanging channel status information with at least one cooperative BS which provides a BS cooperative service, generating a beamforming weight based on the channel status information, determining channel variation caused by a time delay in the channel status information exchange with the cooperative BS, updating the generated beamforming weight based on the channel variation, and precoding a transmit signal based on the updated beamforming weight.
US08417255B2
Techniques for transmitting data with distributed and centralized scheduling in a multihop relay communication system are described. For distributed scheduling, a relay station may generate and send first channel quality information (CQI) to a base station and receive second CQI from a subscriber station. The relay station may receive data sent by the base station based on the first CQI and may resend the data to the subscriber station based on the second CQI. For centralized scheduling, the relay station may generate first CQI for the base station, receive second CQI from the subscriber station, and send both CQIs to the base station. The relay station may receive data sent by the base station based on the first CQI and may resend the data to the subscriber station based on a scheduling decision determined based on the second CQI. Techniques for distributed and centralized power control are also described.
US08417254B2
Various embodiments for data throttling are disclosed. One embodiment is a method performed by a mobile device for managing a voice call. The method comprises determining a voice call status. Based on the voice call status, a determination is made on whether at least one application executing on the mobile device is concurrently accessing data via the mobile device during an active call. In response to the occurrence of an active call and concurrent data access by the mobile device, the data access mode used by the mobile device for accessing the data is determined. Based on the determined data mode, data access by the at least one application is suppressed.
US08417252B2
Systems and methodologies are described herein that facilitate interference measurement and reporting in a network multiple-in-multiple-out (N-MIMO) communication system. As described herein, a network device can measure and report interference corresponding to network nodes outside a designated set of nodes that can cooperatively serve the device. Respective interference reports can additionally identify dominant interfering nodes, correlation between transmit antennas of respective nodes, or the like. Subsequently, respective interference reports can be combined with per-node channel information to manage coordination and scheduling across respective network nodes. As further described herein, interference from a network node can be measured by observing reference and/or synchronization signals from the network node. To aid such observation, respective non-interfering network nodes can define null pilot intervals in which transmission is silenced or otherwise reduced. As additionally described herein, loading information broadcasted by respective interfering network nodes can be identified and utilized in connection with interference calculation.
US08417251B2
A mobile station (UE) according to the present invention includes a CSG cell management unit (11) configured to manage one or a plurality of CSG cell IDs; and a control unit (14) configured to eliminate, during a predetermined period included in received broadcast information, a first CSG cell specified by a first CSG cell ID included in the received broadcast information, from target cells of a cell selection, a cell reselection, a PLMN selection or an automatic CSG cell search, when the first CSG cell ID is not managed by the CSG cell management unit.
US08417249B2
A mobile communication system includes an association requesting unit provided in a base station and configured to request a base station controller, which is an upper node, to associate the base station with a tracking area; and a state control unit provided in the base station controller and configured to monitor entry or appearance and exit or disappearance of mobile stations in and from the tracking area associated with the base station, to cause the base station to transition to a serving state if at least one of the mobile stations enters or appears in the tracking area, and to cause the base station to transition to a radio-unit-inactive state if all of the mobile stations exit or disappear from the tracking area.
US08417247B2
The present invention provides a method for assigning a mobile unit to a tracking area based upon a location update frequency. The method includes selecting one of a technology-specific tracking area and a shared tracking area based on a location update frequency associated with a mobile unit.
US08417246B2
The present disclosure relates to a method for providing information in a cellular wireless communication system including: detecting a radio link failure (RLF) for a mobile station while connected to a first cell; re-establishing the connection in a second cell; and providing information about the radio link failure (RLF) only to cells supporting the same radio access technology (RAT) as the first cell and/or a third cell, wherein the third cell is the cell to which the mobile station was connected before the first cell. Furthermore, the disclosure also relates to a method in a mobile station, a method in a base station, a computer program, a computer program product, a mobile station device and a base station device.
US08417243B2
The technology described in this application increases the reliability of mobile networks. A radio communications node broadcasts a primary radio network code that indicates that subscribed mobile user equipment terminals may obtain service from a primary PLMN operator. In certain circumstances, the node may receive an instruction to broadcast a standby radio network code during a standby mode of operation. During the standby mode of operation, second mobile user equipment terminals that are not subscribed may obtain radio communications service from the primary PLMN operator.
US08417233B2
Various aspects disclosed herein are directed to different types of automated personal assistant techniques for facilitating call event notation, tagging, calendaring, etc., particularly those implemented on mobile communication devices. Users of mobile devices are provided with a relatively easy way to record and organize personal notes relating to one or more selected telephone conversations conducted by the user. Users can also manage notes, tasks, and schedule items related to the user's contacts and social network(s). In at least one embodiment, a Mobile Application running on a user's mobile device may be configured or designed to automatically detect an end of phone call event at the mobile device, and to automatically display a “pop-up” dialog GUI prompting the user to record a personalized note or other content (if desired), to be associated with the phone call which just ended.
US08417226B2
Embodiments of the invention are concerned with a method and a system for scheduling the transmission of messages to a subscriber in a communications network on basis of communications events that are determined to have occurred from communications events generated by the communications network. The method includes identifying a communications event as one of a plurality of predetermined types of communications events on the basis of at least one said identified current or previous communications session, and, responsive to the identified communications event, triggering a scheduling process for scheduling transmission of a message to the subscriber, in which the scheduling process is dependent on the type of communications event.Thus in embodiments of the invention, the transmission of messages is determined on the basis of communications events associated with the subscriber; typical communications events include making calls, sending messages, switching off, switching on, roaming, cell to cell handover, answering calls, and trends relating thereto. The method can include reviewing call detail records so as to identify likely actions and availability of the subscriber, and using this information to ensure that messages are received by a subscriber at a time that is convenient to their actions and availability.
US08417224B1
The exemplary live voicemail functionality offers a user of a mobile station the ability to listen to a voicemail message in real-time, as the message is being recorded in a voicemail platform. The mobile communication network serving the user directs an incoming call intended for the mobile station to the voicemail platform, which records the audio for the incoming message. The network infrastructure also duplicates the audio and directs the duplicate audio to the mobile station for real time monitoring of the incoming message by the user, as the platform is recording the voicemail message.
US08417217B2
A mobile phone, when it is stolen or lost, autonomously detecting and protecting by itself the data held inside, wherein a security managing unit performs a predetermined security operation based on the above detection results wherein when it judges there is “no user presence reaction” by a user presence monitoring unit and it judges the power is on by a power monitoring unit or when it judges that the power is being turned off and the power is turned back on, it locks the access to data, evacuates the data outside, or deletes the data in accordance with the results of judgment whether the phone is in range or out of range by a radio status monitoring unit.
US08417204B2
Aspects of a method and system for on-demand signal notching in a receiver. In this regard, signal strength measurements of a received signal may enable detection of unwanted signal component(s) and one or more filters in an on-chip receiver may be configured in response to the measurements. The filter(s) may additionally be configured based on power consumption of the filter(s). Signal measurements and/or the corresponding configuration may be performed real-time. The filter(s) may be configured such that a notch in a frequency response of the filter(s) is centered at or near the unwanted component. In this manner, the unwanted component(s) may be filtered out. The filter(s) may be configured, for example, by switching one or more filter stages and/or components into and/or out of a signal path and/or by tuning one or more variable circuit elements within the filter(s).
US08417203B2
A receiver capable of performing optimum automatic gain control responsive to a peak factor of an input signal before subjected to A/D conversion is provided in a simple configuration. A peak detector 104 is placed at the later stage of a variable gain amplifier 102, two power determiners 107 and 108 different in threshold value are used, and the amplitude density is determined in three areas separated by two threshold values PDETL and PDETH, whereby it is made possible to identify the input signal having a peak factor different in modulation system and perform optimum gain control without A/D conversion of the input signal.
US08417200B1
Embodiments provide transmitter topologies that improve the power efficiency and bandwidth of RF transmitters for high transmission power applications. In an embodiment, the common-emitter/source PA of conventional topologies is replaced with a current-input common-base/gate PA, which is stacked on top on an open-collector/drain current-output transmitter. The common-base/gate PA protects the output of the transmitter from large output voltage swings. The low input impedance of the common-base/gate PA makes the PA less susceptible to frequency roll-off, even in the presence of large parasitic capacitance produced by the transmitter. At the same time, the low input impedance of the common-base/gate PA reduces the voltage swing at the transmitter output and prevents the transmitter output from being compressed or modulated. In an embodiment, the DC output current of the transmitter is reused to bias the PA, which results in power savings compared to conventional transmitter topologies.
US08417198B1
A method for power control, including determining a need in a transmitter to perform a first output power update and then a second output power update. The method includes selecting a control mode for the first output power update and a control mode for the second output power update prior to performing the first output power update. The control modes are selected from a closed loop mode and an open loop mode, and the selection is based on a function of a current output power, a power to be applied at the first output power update, and a power to be applied at the second output power update. The method includes performing the first output power update using the first control mode, and then performing the second output power update using the second control mode, without measuring a power level applied responsively to performing the first output power update.
US08417193B2
The present invention provides a transmitting device and a method for determining a target predistortion setting value. The transmitting device comprises: a setting value control unit, a predistortion unit, a transmitting circuit, a receiving circuit, and a determining unit. The present invention can predistort signals before a power amplifier in a transmitting device by a method of determining a target predistortion setting value (i.e. an optimal predistortion setting value) from a plurality of candidate predistortion setting values. In this way, signals outputted by the power amplifier in the transmitting device can be adjusted to an optimal state, so as to solve the distortion problem of the outputted signals of the power amplifier.
US08417182B2
Disclosed is an excessive-signal prevention apparatus which includes a connection state judgment section and a zero-level signal insertion section. The connection state judgment section detects whether connection between a first device and a second device is normal or abnormal on the basis of a pattern of signals that are other than a transmission signal transmitted from the first device to the second device at normal time and are required for transmission of the transmission signal. The zero-level signal insertion section outputs the transmission signal output from the first device to a destination during a period of time when the connection state judgment section judges that the connection between the first and the second device is normal, and which outputs a zero-level signal to the destination during a period of time when the connection state judgment section judges that the connection between the first and the second device is abnormal.
US08417178B2
A system and method for optimizing network delivery of streaming data is provided. Streaming delivery of data using point-to-point transmitters and broadcast transmitters can be dynamically controlled to maximize the usage of network resources. Current usage of respective systems can be analyzed, as can projected usage be analyzed. Network resources can be reallocated, and connecting devices can be redirected as needed to maintain high efficiency of allocated resources.
US08417170B2
A fixing device includes a fixing belt in an endless shape for fixing developer to a printing medium; a supporting member for contacting with and supporting the fixing belt; a heating member for contacting with and heating the fixing belt supported with the supporting member; and a heat regulating member disposed between the supporting member and the heating member.
US08417167B2
A fixing device includes: a fixing rotating member; a pressing rotating member pressed to the fixing surface of the fixing rotating member; a displacing mechanism that can displace the pressing rotating member at least at a first setting position that the pressing rotating member pressed to the fixing surface is located in a first position relative to the fixing rotating member and at a second setting position the pressing rotating member pressed to the fixing surface is in a second position shifted from the first position in the downstream or upstream side of a passing direction of the recording medium at the fixing process part; a guide member having a guide part that guides the recording medium to an introducing portion of the fixing process part; an adjusting mechanism that can adjust the position of the guide member in accordance with the displacement of the pressing rotating member to the first setting position or the second setting position.
US08417163B2
Described herein are resin materials used for a member for an image forming apparatus. These resin materials can include a polymer formed by polymerization of at least one acrylic resin having (i) a content ratio (molar ratio) of hydroxyl groups of side chains each containing 10 or more carbon atoms to hydroxyl groups of side chains each containing less than 10 carbon atoms that is less than 1/3; (ii) at least one polyol that contains plural hydroxyl groups in which all the hydroxyl groups are connected together through a chain containing 6 or more carbon atoms; and (iii) an isocyanate. The resin material can further include a polymerization ratio of about 0.1 or more and about 10 or less, the polymerization ratio being a ratio (B/A) of a total molar amount (B) of hydroxyl groups contained in all the polyols used for the polymerization to a total molar amount (A) of hydroxyl groups contained in all the acrylic resins used for the polymerization.
US08417147B2
An image forming apparatus includes a detaching and pressing mechanism for releasing developing rollers of developer cartridges mounted in a drum unit from photosensitive drums and pressing the developing rollers on the photosensitive drums. The detaching and pressing mechanism includes a pair of translation cam members, intermediate members provided on the translation cam members, cam holders for holding the translation cam members in such a manner as to be linearly movable in an anteroposterior direction, and a synchronous movement mechanism for allowing the pair of translation cam members to linearly move in synchronization.
US08417141B2
The present invention provides a configuration in which an electrically connected condition can further be stabilized in electrical-connection zones between a body of an image-forming apparatus, and an image-forming unit and a plurality of image-forming cartridges. Developing electrode members and wire power-feed electrodes are attached to a slide frame. Each of the developing electrode members has a first body-side contact. The developing electrode members are electrically connected with the developing-roller output terminals. The wire power-feed electrodes are electrically connected with wire output terminals through contact with the wire output terminals. The developing electrode members are elastically deformed as a result of their first body-side contacts being pressed in a direction, which is along a slide direction, by the developing-roller output terminals. The wire power-feed electrodes are pressed in a paper width direction by the wire output terminals.
US08417134B2
A color electrophotographic image forming apparatus, in which a plurality of cartridges each including an electrophotographic photosensitive drum are detachably mountable to a main assembly of the apparatus, includes an exposure device for forming an electrostatic latent image on the drum; a cartridge supporting member capable of demountably supporting the cartridges and movable between an inside position and an outside position; a driving device for driving the drum; an intermediary transfer belt onto which an image provided by developing the electrostatic latent image formed on the drum is transferred; and a controller for controlling execution of image formation in response to print jobs received by the apparatus. The controller causes the exposure device to expose the drum to light after completion of a last print job, and the controller stops drive of the drum by the driving device in a state that the exposed area is opposed to the intermediary transfer belt.
US08417133B2
Provided is an apparatus and method for supplying a charge voltage to an organic photoconductor (OPC) drum. The apparatus includes a storage unit for storing first service life information of the OPC drum according to a first supplying method, and second service life information of the OPC drum according to a second supplying method, a sensor unit for measuring information about conditions surrounding the apparatus, a control unit for selecting one of the first and second supplying methods according to the measured information and determining a charge voltage corresponding to the service life information according to the selected method, and a voltage supplying unit using the selected method to supply the determined charge voltage to the OPC drum.
US08417130B2
An image forming device includes a main body, a support unit, a driving unit, a developer cartridge, a moving member, a transmitting member, and a detection member. The support unit can be pulled out from the main body in a removing direction. The developer cartridge is detachably mounted in the support unit and has a driving member. The driving member is driven by the driving unit when the developer cartridge is mounted in the support unit. The moving member moves when the driving member is driven by the driving unit. The transmitting member is provided to the support unit and is rotatable about a rotational axis which extends perpendicular to the removing direction and a longitudinal direction of a photosensitive member. When the moving member contacts the transmitting member, the transmitting member rotates. The detection member detects a rotation of the transmitting member.
US08417128B2
A monitoring apparatus receives, according to an occurrence of an event (e.g., error or jam) at an image forming apparatus, a notification of information regarding the event that has occurred. The notification is sent with use of address information of the monitoring apparatus registered in the image forming apparatus. The monitoring apparatus stores the received information in a memory unit thereof. Then, the monitoring apparatus acquires the information regarding the event that has occurred at the image forming apparatus by periodically inquiring to the image forming apparatus, and determines whether the acquired information is stored in the memory unit. According to determination that the acquired information is not stored in the memory unit, the monitoring apparatus re-registers the address information of the monitoring apparatus into the image forming apparatus.
US08417124B2
Multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) communication systems and a method using multimode media are provided. A MIMO communication system includes an array of emitters that receives a data signal and outputs a plurality of signals (e.g., modulated light, or other signal types) representative of the data signal, a multimode medium (e.g., a multimode fiber, a fiber bundle, a bundle of cables) that receives the plurality of signals from the array of emitters and carries the plurality of signals in a plurality of modes, and an array of detectors that receives the plurality of signals carried by the multimode medium and outputs the data signal. The system can include a demultiplexer that demultiplexes a single high-speed data stream into the array of emitters as the data signal. The system can also include a multiplexer that multiplexes the data signal from the array of detectors back into the single high-speed data stream.
US08417119B2
An optical network unit according to the present invention is provided as comprising a configuration that component units built therein are grouped for at least two sheets of substrate modules and arranged thereat. There are provided individual embodiments: (a) arranging an L2 layer and a part of the component unit of an L1 layer at a first substrate module, meanwhile, arranging the left part of the component unit of the L1 layer at a second substrate module; (b) arranging the component units of the L1 layer and of the L2 layer at the first substrate module and the second substrate module individually by grouping therefor; and (c) arranging the component units of the L2 layer and of the L1 layer at the first substrate module and the second substrate module respectively.
US08417118B2
An apparatus comprising a plurality of laser transmitters each comprising a polarization rotator, a polarization rotator mirror coupled to the laser transmitters, and a multiplexer positioned between the laser transmitters and the polarization rotator mirror. Also included is an apparatus comprising a first rotator configured to rotate light polarization by about 45 or about −45 degrees, a second rotator configured to rotate light polarization by about 45 or about −45 degrees, a mirror coupled to one side of the second rotator and configured to reflect at least a portion of the light, and a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) filter positioned between the first rotator and the second rotator.
US08417108B2
A lens apparatus includes: an optical member; a driving unit; a position detector; a rotary operation portion; a projection portion to be rotated interlockingly with the operation portion; an operation portion rotation detector; a driving controller for controlling the driving unit based on an amount of an operation of the operation portion; rotatable first (second) pins; first (second) side locking units; and a lock controller for controlling both the locking units based on a position of the optical member and a rotating direction of the operation portion. The projection portion is provided between the first regulation pin and the second regulation pin. The first regulation pin and the second regulation pin are elastically connected to each other. The lock controller locks the first (second) side locking unit when the focus unit reaches a first (second) end while the operation portion is operated toward the first (second) end.
US08417105B2
An in-vivo information display device includes a communication unit that communicates with a receiving device that receives in-vivo information transmitted, at a predetermined time interval, from a body-insertable device that is introduced into a subject and acquires the in-vivo information regarding an inside of the subject; a transmission requesting unit that transmits a transmission request for the in-vivo information to the receiving device via the communication unit; and a display unit that displays the in-vivo information received via the communication unit from the receiving device in response to the transmission request. The transmission requesting unit transmits the transmission request to the receiving device at a first time interval smaller than the predetermined time interval, and the transmission requesting unit transmits the transmission request to the receiving device at a second time interval larger than the first time interval when one or more the in-vivo information is received.
US08417103B2
An image stabilization apparatus wherein a detection unit detects camera shake in first and second directions that are not parallel to each other and a calculation unit calculates first and second correction amounts for correcting the camera shake in the first and second directions, respectively, based on outputs from the detection unit. A control unit controls correction characteristics of the calculation unit so as to restrain correction of a movement corresponding to a panning operation in the first and second directions as the first and second correction amounts becomes larger, controls the correction characteristics of the second correction amount based on the first correction amount and controls the correction characteristics of the first correction amount based on the second correction amount and a correction unit corrects the camera shake based on the calculated correction amounts.
US08417101B2
Upon playback of stream data which is recorded while being appended with time stamp information in units of packets, time management is made using the time stamp information. A video playback time viewed from the user, which may be indicated by I-, B-, and P-picture display times, is different from the time of the time stamp information. For this reason, when time management for the stream data recorded on an information storage medium is made using only the time stamp information, display time control (video playback time control) for the user cannot be accurately done. In this invention, a time relationship table indicating the relationship between the time stamp information recorded in stream data at each I-picture start time position and display time information (PTS or field information) for the user is provided to a portion of management information.
US08417094B2
A recording apparatus of this invention detects the state of management information, which pertains to a recording address of an image signal, and which is reproduced from a disk-like recording medium having a first area for the image signal and a second area for the management information. On the basis of the detection result, management data is reproduced from the first area of the disk-like recording medium. On the basis of the management data reproduced from the first area, the management information reproduced from the second area is modified. A modify unit records the modified management information in the second area.
US08417091B2
An IPTV receiver and a method for performing a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) function in the IPTV receiver are disclosed. Herein, the method can include downloading a widget application from a server, receiving a first request for executing the downloaded widget application from a user, executing the downloaded widget application according to the first request at a browser, receiving a second request for performing a specific PVR function through the executed widget application from the user and performing the specific PVR function according to the second request.
US08417088B2
A recording apparatus, including: a camera which picks up a picture from an optical image; a first encoder which encodes the picture by a first encoding method; a second encoder which encodes the picture by a second encoding method which is different from the first encoding method; and a recorder which records a file of the picture encoded by the first encoding method together with a file of the picture encoded by the second encoding method on a recording medium when in photographing of a still picture, and which records a file of the pictures encoded by the first encoding method on the recording medium when in photographing of moving pictures.
US08417087B2
A system includes a reading unit reading first management information including a first item specifying video data and the video data from a storage medium, a storage unit recording second management information including the first item obtained from the first management information and the video data transferred from the reading unit, a memory storing third management information including the first item and a second item specifying a transfer or no transfer of the video data, and a controller transferring the first management information to the memory from the reading unit, updating the second item of the third management information in response to the transfer of the video data, and controlling the transfer of the video data in the video content which is designated by a read request from one of the reading unit and the storage unit to the outside based on the second item of the third management information.
US08417080B2
An optical communications link is described, comprising first and second fiber lines in substantial scaled translational symmetry by a common scaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile (oppositely signed) and with respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressive compensation along the second fiber line of at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber line. For other described embodiments, the first and second fiber lines are in substantial scaled translational symmetry by a common scaling factor with respect to a second-order dispersion coefficient profile and with respect to at least one of a loss/gain coefficient profile and a nonlinear coefficient-power product profile for facilitating progressive compensation along the second fiber line of at least one nonlinearity introduced along the first fiber line.
US08417079B2
In accordance with a method of producing a ferrule with an optical fiber, a reinforcing pipe is adhered to a single-core fiber to form an adhesive portion that protrudes and tapers from a pipe end surface portion of the reinforcing pipe toward a front end of the single-core fiber. The single-core fiber includes an optical fiber and a coating. The coating is stripped from the front end of the single-core fiber to provide an exposed optical fiber portion and a coated optical fiber portion. The coated optical fiber portion has a coating end surface portion. The single-core-fiber is inserted in a ferrule provided with a first tapered hole and a second tapered hole until the coating end surface portion abuts against the first tapered hole and until the pipe end surface portion abuts against the second tapered hole. Thereafter, the single-core fiber is secured in the ferrule.
US08417073B2
New circuit architecture for electro-optic modulator based on free-carrier dispersion effect is invented, in which the waveguide capacitor of the modulator is embed in the circuits and physically layout together with transistors, the switching of the modulator occurs in transistors, and as the result, the electro-optical modulation occurs in the waveguide capacitor. The invented modulator is not one physical device, it is actually a circuit. Several circuit design techniques are imported, leading to several new modulator circuits that have very high operation speed and very small power consumption. Several new waveguide capacitor structures are also invented that allow high efficient modulator circuits to be built.
US08417072B2
According to one embodiment, a light emitting device includes a substrate, a light emitting layer, a first conductivity type layer, a first and a second distributed Bragg reflector layer. The first conductivity type layer is provided between the substrate and the light emitting layer. The first reflector layer is provided between the first conductivity type layer and the substrate. First and second layers are alternately stacked therein. The second layers have refractive index different from that of the first layers. The first reflector layer has a center wavelength substantially same as emission wavelength of emission light. The second reflector layer is provided between the light emitting layer and the first reflector layer. Third and fourth layers are alternately stacked therein. The fourth layers have refractive index different from that of the third layers. The second reflector layer has a center wavelength longer than the center wavelength of the first reflector layer.
US08417070B2
A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) device couples light from an optical mode in a waveguide to a surface plasmon polarition (SPP) mode on an electrode surface of the MSM device. Once in an SPP mode, the absorption of light in the semiconductor can take place in a very small area. This may allow for a shrinking of the active detector area and allow for low capacitance, very short transit distance for the electrical carriers and allow for very low voltage devices and/or very high frequency.
US08417065B2
This invention relates to an image processing system and method, the image processing system comprising an image capturing unit; a resolution conversion unit; a detection unit; an image conversion processing unit; an image compression unit, and a memory unit, the processing method comprising the steps of: capturing a first image data; transferring the first image data to the resolution conversion unit and the image conversion processing unit; converting the first image data into a second image data; detecting a plurality of position data from the second image data according to at least one detection rule; generating a third image data by mapping the first image data according to a mapping table; and compressing the third image data. This invention has image encryption function.
US08417059B2
A motion vector calculation unit calculates inter-frame movement amounts. A masked region specification unit separates the entire edge image of frame feature data into (i) an edge image showing relatively large movement amounts and (ii) an edge image showing relatively small movement amounts. The masked region specification unit then specifies the edge image showing relatively large movement amounts as a region to be masked. This way, a correction parameter is detected from a region other than the masked region. When the correction parameter is a slang angle, a slant correction unit performs slant correction on a frame picture obtained by an image sensor.
US08417057B2
A method of compensating for distortion in text recognition is provided, which includes extracting a text region from an image; estimating the form of an upper end of the extracted text region; estimating the form of a lower end of the extracted text region; estimating the form of left and right sides of the extracted text region; estimating a diagram constituted in the form of the estimated upper end, lower end, left and right sides, and including a minimum area of the text region; and transforming the text region constituting the estimated diagram into a rectangular diagram using an affine transform.
US08417042B2
An image processing apparatus comprises: a resolution compression unit that performs resolution compression by thinning out pixels of a unit block image that has a second size that is larger than a first size; a registration unit that registers the block image generated by the resolution compression unit in a block management table; and an encoding compression unit that performs an encoding compression process on each block image registered by the registration unit; wherein the resolution compression unit determines a compression level for unit block images having the second size and compresses each unit block image having the second size with a compression rate according to the determined compression level, and the registration unit divides the block image compressed according to the determined compression level into block images having the first size and registers the divided block images in the block management table in units of the second size.
US08417041B2
The disclosure relates to an image processing system of encoding spectral coefficients of an image. According to the disclosure, the spectral coefficients of the image are received, the spectral coefficients being quantized, and a scaling factor to be applied to the image for rendering a bitmap of the image after decoding is received. The received spectral coefficients are partitioned into a plurality of groupings, wherein a number of coefficients in each of the groupings is determined based on the scaling factor for rendering the bitmap of the image. The spectral coefficients in each of the plurality of groupings are encoded, and the plurality of groupings of encoded spectral coefficients are transmitted to a decoder.
US08417036B2
Presented is a method for selecting a label from a multiplicity of labels stored in a memory element. The method includes inputting a handwritten character into a handwritten input apparatus, associating an alphanumeric character with the handwritten input character using a character recognition apparatus, adding the associated alphanumeric character to an already input character string to produce an extended character string, comparing the extended character string with the labels stored in the memory element, and selecting one or more of the stored labels using the comparison. The alphanumeric character is selected from a dynamically alterable character set which contains only characters which, in addition to the already input character string, produce an extended character string, which is an initial component of at least one of the stored labels. Also presented is a motor vehicle navigation system in which address database entries are selected by the above described method.
US08417034B2
Disclosed herein is an apparatus and method for separating a foreground and a background. The apparatus includes a background model creation unit for creating a code book including a plurality of code words in order to separate the foreground and the background, and a foreground/background separation unit for separating the foreground and the background using the created code book. The method includes the steps of creating a code book including a plurality of code words in order to separate the foreground and the background, rearranging the cord words of the created code book on the basis of the number of sample data that belong to each of the code words, and separating the foreground and the background using the code book.
US08417030B2
A method of image edge enhancement comprises: determining the edge trend for an image in accordance with the second order gradient value of a center pixel in different directions; performing interpolation operation with the center pixel; calculating absent color component of pixels; performing edge enhancement for the image in the interpolation module in accordance with original color component of the center pixel and the image edge trend based on the Bayer data. The image edge enhancement process takes into account the influence of the green component values of different pixels surrounding the center pixel, and adopts a noise-resistant, self-adaptive edge enhancement algorithm, to suppress noise on the image edge. Thus, the resulting image has a clear image edge. In addition, the fact that the process performs image edge enhancement in the interpolation module based on the Bayer data can significantly reduce the consumption of memory space.
US08417027B2
A color determining apparatus which determines whether an document is a color document or a monochrome document based on image data of the document including a plurality of pixel data, includes a pixel color determination part which performs color determination of pixels based on a luminance component value and a color component value of the pixel data; a pixel color re-determination part which set one of the pixels determined to be a color pixel by the pixel color determination part a target pixel in turn, and at a time when a plurality of filters having different outline shapes are applied to the target pixel, performs color re-determination of the target pixel according to whether all of the pixels included in the filter are determined to be color pixels or not by the pixel color determination part; and a first document color determination part that determines whether the document is color or monochrome by comparison of a number of the pixels determined to be color pixels by the pixel color re-determination part and a reference value set in advance.
US08417026B2
Gesture recognition methods and systems are provided. First, a plurality of gesture templates are provided, wherein each gesture template defines a first gesture characteristic and a corresponding specific gesture. Then, a plurality of images is obtained, and a multi-background model is generated accordingly. At least one object image is obtained according to the multi-background model, wherein the object image includes at least an object having a plurality of edges. The included angles of any two adjacent edges of the object image are gathered as statistics to obtain a second gesture characteristic corresponding to the object image. The second gesture characteristic of the object image is compared with the first gesture characteristic of each gesture template. The specific gesture corresponding to the first gesture characteristic is obtained, when the second gesture characteristic is similar to the first gesture characteristic.
US08417009B2
A lesion area detection unit detects an abnormal peripheral structure (lesion area), a pulmonary blood vessel extraction unit extracts a branch structure (pulmonary blood vessel) from the three-dimensional medical image, an associated blood vessel identification unit identifies an associated branch structure functionally associated with the abnormal peripheral structure based on position information of each point in the extracted branch structure, and an associated lung parenchymal area identification unit identifies an associated peripheral area (lung parenchyma) functionally associated with the identified associated branch structure based on the position information of each point in the extracted branch structure.
US08417000B1
To determine a location at which a photograph was captured using a camera, a time at which the photograph was captured is determined using an image depicted in the photograph. User location data indicative of respective locations of a user at a plurality of instances of time during a time period is received. The time period includes the determined time and a location of the user at the time the photograph was captured corresponds to the location of the camera at the time the photograph was captured. The location at which the photograph was captured is determined using the determined time and the user location data.
US08416996B2
An image-capturing apparatus for capturing an image by using a solid-state image-capturing device may include a face detector configured to detect a face of a human being on the basis of an image signal in a period until an image signal obtained by image capturing is recorded on a recording medium; an expression evaluation section configured to evaluate the expression of the detected face and to compute an expression evaluation value indicating the degree to which the detected face is close to a specific expression in relation to expressions other than the specific expression; and a notification section configured to notify notification information corresponding to the computed expression evaluation value to an image-captured person.
US08416995B2
Methods and apparatus for generating a searchable electronic record of a locate operation in which a locate technician, using one or more physical locate marks, identifies a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility within a dig area. A digital image of a geographic area comprising the dig area is electronically received, and at least a portion of the received digital image is displayed on a display device. Location information regarding an identified location of the at least one physical locate mark is also electronically received and, based at least in part on the received location information, one or more digital representations of the identified location of the physical locate mark(s) is/are included in the displayed digital image so as to generate a marked-up digital image. Information relating to the marked-up digital image is electronically stored and/or electronically transmitted so as to generate the searchable electronic record of the locate operation.
US08416988B2
Methods of analyzing a plurality of facial expressions are disclosed that include: identifying a subject person, utilizing the subject person to create an image of a known target, removing at least one distracter expression from the target image to form a revised target image, and reviewing the revised target image with at least one third party participant to form a final target image. Additional methods of analyzing a plurality of facial expressions include: identifying a subject person, utilizing the subject person to create an image of a known target, digitizing the target image, removing at least one distracter expression from the target image to transform the target image to a revised target image, and reviewing the revised target image with at least one third party participant to transform the revised target image to a final target image. Software for implementing contemplated methods include: a set speed function, a pre-test phase function, an instruction phase function, a practice phase function, and a post-test phase function.
US08416987B2
A subject tracking apparatus extracts a subject region which is similar to a reference image on the basis of a degree of correlation with the reference image for tracking a predetermined subject from images supplied in a time series manner. Further, the subject tracking apparatus detects the position of the predetermined subject in the subject region on the basis of the distribution of characteristic pixels representing the predetermined subject contained in the subject region, and corrects the subject region so as to reduce a shift in position of the predetermined subject in the subject region. Moreover, the corrected subject region is taken as the result of tracking the predetermined subject, and the reference image is updated with the corrected subject region as the reference image to be used for the next supplied image.
US08416979B2
An earphone 1, which adopts the drum air power system the invention, includes at least a drum 5 composed of a drum-shaped casing 2, a front head 3 located on the front part of the casing 2, a rear head 4 located on the rear part of the casing 2, an inner-drum space 5a defined by the casing 2, the front head 3, and the rear head 4. Earphone 1 also comprises a driver unit 6 installed inside the drum 5 and equipped with an external sound conducting part 6a and an internal sound conducting hole 6b. The front head 3 and the rear head 4 resonate in response to driving by the driver unit 6 so that the low pitch sounds B and C are output in addition to the full range sound formed from the external sound conducting part 6a. This structure lowers the minimum resonance frequency and increases the sound pressure.
US08416969B2
An amplifier circuit comprises differential amplification circuitry comprising an input stage having first and second differential inputs, and an output stage, having respective first and second amplifier components with first and second differential outputs. The first amplifier component of the output stage comprises a first power transistor operably coupled to the first differential output and driven by a first differential output of the input stage, and a third power transistor operably coupled to the first differential output of the amplifier circuit and driven by a second output of the input stage. The second amplifier component comprises a second power transistor operably coupled to the second differential output and driven by a second output of the input stage, and a fourth power transistor operably coupled to the second differential output and driven by the first output of the input stage. Each of the first and second power transistors of the first and second amplifier components is driven in a current mirror arrangement by the respective first and second output of the input stage.
US08416961B2
A system detects the repositioning of an earphone that is worn by a user, and changes an operation mode of a host coupled to the earphone. Within the earphone is a pressure transducer that detects a pressure change caused by the repositioning of the earphone. A signaling mechanism sends a repositioning detection signal to the host in response to a signal from the pressure transducer indicating the detection of the pressure change.
US08416959B2
A circuit includes a microphone circuit, an audio processing module, a digital audio processing module, and an active noise reduction (ANR) circuit. The microphone circuit receives acoustic vibrations and generates an audio signal therefrom. The audio processing module generates a representation of the audio signal. The digital audio processing module compensates the representation of the audio signal based on hearing compensation data to produce a hearing compensated audio signal. The ANR circuit receives the hearing compensated audio signal and an ANR signal. The ANR circuit further functions to adjust the hearing compensated audio signal based on the ANR signal to produce an output audio signal, wherein the ANR signal is generated based on the output audio signal.
US08416958B2
A signal processing apparatus is configured to change volume level or frequency characteristics of an input signal with a limited bandwidth in a first frequency range. The apparatus includes: an information extracting unit configured to extract second frequency characteristic information from a collection signal with a limited bandwidth in a second frequency range different from the first frequency range; a frequency characteristic information extending unit configured to estimate first frequency characteristic information from the second frequency characteristic information extracted by the information extracting unit, the first frequency characteristic information including the first frequency range; and a signal correcting unit configured to change volume level or frequency characteristics of the input signal according to the first frequency characteristic information obtained by the frequency characteristic information extending unit.
US08416953B2
A data protection system includes terminals, and an encryption device that encrypts distribution data distributed to each terminal. Each terminal corresponds with one node on a lowest level of a tree structure having hierarchies. A data protection system excludes nodes on the lowest level, determines a plurality of combination patterns that include combinations of two or more of all four nodes that are reached one level below the node, decides an individual decryption key for each determined combination pattern, and decides an individual decryption key for each node on the lowest level. The data protection system prescribes nodes that are reached from the node on the lowest level and a terminal to the node on the highest level that is an invalid node. For invalid nodes, the data protection system designates an encryption key that corresponds to the decryption key determined in correspondence with the combination pattern that combines all nodes, excluding invalid nodes, and encrypts distribution data that uses each of the designated encryption keys.
US08416943B2
Disclosed is a method for distributing customer contacts to a transaction processing entity of a transaction processing system. The method includes determining a media type for a customer contact in the transaction processing system and finding a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type. In addition, the method includes routing the customer contact to a transaction processing entity that is capable of handling the media type. In one embodiment, a transaction routing table is used to perform the distribution of customer contacts. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. 37 CFR 1.72(b).
US08416939B1
A method of using a computer to provide music on hold, including receiving a telephone call from a caller; determining that the telephone call is to be put on hold at a computer at a first location; using the computer to retrieve from a memory coupled to the computer a music genre corresponding to a telephone number for the telephone call, wherein the telephone number corresponds to a second location; sending a request to a media server for a music file containing music fitting the music genre corresponding to the second location, wherein the media server has stored therein music files for a plurality of genres for a plurality of locations; and streaming via the media server the music file containing music fitting the music genre corresponding to the second location to the caller.
US08416938B2
Methods and systems are disclosed for providing Programmable Caller ID Screening services. One method monitors a telephone call for a call screening request for commercial, residential, and other identifiers of incoming calls. An action is taken in response to the call screening request. The action could be playing an announcement, terminating the connection, forwarding to voice mail, storing the ICLID information in a database, adding the ICLID information to a Do Not Call list, updating a subscriber's profile with the ICLID information, and/or storing the ICLID information in a subscriber's blocked communications list. The call screening request may comprise a Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency, a softkey entry, and/or a data message. Subsequent incoming calls from the calling telephone number are characterized as undesirable and are screened from alerting or otherwise establishing a communications connection to the called telephone number.
US08416931B2
A method and a system for the management of telecommunication services provided by an operator to users and of telecommunication services, the method comprising: assigning a subscriber network identifier (IS) to each subscribed user; monitoring inbound communications toward the subscriber network identifiers (IS) assigned to subscribed users; creating, by virtue of means for creating and managing virtual accounts, a virtual account (CV) registered to each network identifier originating communications (IC); informing, by virtue of information means, at least the user or of telecommunication services who originates the communication toward the subscriber network identifier (IS) and/or the registrant of the network identifier originating communications (IC) of the existence and/or balance of the virtual account (CV). The telecommunication service management system comprises means for implementing the method.
US08416929B2
A universal linking gateway interfaces between a local network of one or more local phones, such as analog phones or PBX phones, a plurality of cell phones and multiple service lines, including a public switched telephone network. Implementation of industry standard protocols such as hook flash signals enable a simplistic local phone to access enhanced calling features including answering calls on multiple service lines, to select and make calls on any desired service line as well as handle simultaneous calls on either an active service line or multiple service lines. Further, the gateway manages security and data transfer features between the gateway and the telephonic devices connected thereto. The gateway interfaces between a variety of other telephonic devices including PSTN, VoIP, and telephonic intercoms. Wireless communications are controlled by the gateway for proper pairing management.
US08416919B2
One facilitates capturing samples as pertain to an object to be imaged by providing N pulsed sampling chains (where N is an integer greater than 1) where these sampling chains are in planes substantially parallel to one another and are substantially equidistant from adjacent others by a given distance. By one approach, the ratio of this given distance to a desired sample interval is approximately an integer that is relatively prime to N. So configured, a complete set of samples of the object can be captured by the sampling chains in a single pass notwithstanding that the object and the sampling chains are moving quickly with respect to one another.
US08416912B2
The nuclear fuel assembly means a group of nuclear fuel rods disposed in a substantially regular array together with a support skeleton (5), the assembly having: two nozzles; guide tubes interconnecting the nozzles; and spacer grids secured to the guide tubes for holding the rods. The assembly includes at least one support skeleton reinforcing device disposed between two successive spacer grids and secured to guide tubes. The reinforcing device is disposed inside the group of rods and presents a transverse extent that is smaller than the transverse extent of the array of nuclear fuel rods.
US08416910B2
Method for packing nuclear fuel in a cooling pond in a canister (12) located inside a container (10), comprising the steps of the immersion of the canister (12) and the container (10), filling the canister (12), fitting a sealing device (D) comprising caps and means of attaching a cap onto said canister (12) and of checking this attachment.
US08416909B2
A method of repairing a nuclear fuel cell wall and tools useful for performing that repair are described. A repair tool may be used to align a jack near a region of a bent or distorted structural component of nuclear fuel cell and that jack may be used to apply a force to that structural component. Application of such a force may serve to bend the structural component of a nuclear fuel cell in a way to restore the structural component to its position before damage occurred. The repair tool includes a way of mounting that tool to a fuel cell, positioning elements to align the tool near a structural deformation or bent element and a jack that may be use to apply a force to at least one structural component in a fuel cell.
US08416905B2
Digital NRZI signal for serial interconnect communications between the link layer and physical layer
Systems and methods of operating a serial interconnect interface provide for generating a pulse in response to a state change in a data signal of the serial interface interconnect, and transmitting the pulse from a physical layer of the serial interconnect interface to a link layer of the serial interconnect interface. The duration of the pulse can be selected based on whether the state change corresponds to an end of packet (EOP) condition. In addition, the data signal may include a non return to zero invert (NRZI) encoded signal, wherein the pulse is part of a digital NRZI signal.
US08416900B2
A method and circuit for dynamically changing the frequency of clock signals. The method including: detecting an edge of a first clock signal operating at a first frequency using a second clock signal operating at a second frequency; detecting an edge of the second clock signal using the first clock signal; detecting coincident edges of the first and the second clock signals; and changing the second frequency to a third frequency different from the second frequency upon detection of the coincident edges.
US08416884B2
The digital RF transmitter includes a decoder for receiving the in phase (I) and quadrature (Q) digital baseband signals, a phase generator for generating eight waveforms at a carrier frequency where each phase is a multiple of 45 degrees, a first set of main amplifiers of fixed output power, a second set of auxiliary amplifiers of fixed output power such that the ratio of the voltage amplitudes at the outputs of the second set of auxiliary amplifiers to the voltage amplitudes at the outputs of the first set of main amplifiers is fixed at sqrt(2)−1, and a set of multiplexers for selecting one of the eight carrier waveforms, or an off signal, to transmit to each of the first set of main amplifiers and the second set of auxiliary amplifiers based on both the in phase (I) digital baseband signal and the quadrature (Q) digital baseband signal.
US08416872B2
The radio communication apparatus includes two or more antennas, a receiving unit for receiving a notice signal from a communication partner, two or more units for changing the number of data sequences and for coupling to the antennas according to two or more transmitting methods out of a MIMO multiplexing method, a MIMO diversity method, and an adaptive array antenna method, a selecting unit for selecting at least one out of the two or more units based on the notice signal, and a transmitting unit for notifying the communication partner of the transmission method corresponding to the selected unit.
US08416870B2
An automatic gain control method and system for use in signal processing of OFDM symbols at a receiver. Two stages of coarse and fine automatic gain control are implemented that adjust different gains in an analog RF processing stage of the receiver. Gain of a low noise amplifier and a mixer are adjusted during a first and coarse automatic gain control stage based on feedback from a digital baseband stage. During a subsequent fine gain control period, the gain of a programmable gain amplifier is adjusted separately for each frequency band used by the OFDM symbols based on a histogram bin that counts the number of output samples of an analog to digital converter whose magnitude falls within certain ranges. Coarse and fine gains are updated after each OFDM symbol.
US08416868B2
A mobile device in an OFDM system receives an OFDM signal comprising RS tones and data OFDM symbols. The received RS tones are extracted for channel estimation using a masking operation. Masking parameters are determined by matching channel time variance using corresponding time domain samples of the extracted RS tones. As approximated channel impulse responses of transmission channels, the time samples are masked to perform the channel estimation. The channel time variance comprising inter-carrier interference and delay spread are measured, respectively. A mean of differences in power between neighbor adjacent subcarriers of the extracted RS tones is used for the inter-carrier interference measurement. The delay spread measurement such as root-mean-squared (RMS) delay spread is calculated using the approximated channel impulse responses. Masking parameters are determined based on the inter-carrier measurement and the RMS-DS measurement for generating channel estimates by masking the approximated channel impulse responses.
US08416857B2
A video processing system. In a specific embodiment, the system implements a system for processing macroblocks that includes a first module for processing a macroblock. A controller provides a first macroblock to the first module and provides a second macroblock to the first module, without waiting for the first module to complete processing of the first macroblock, when information is available to the first module to process the second macroblock. The first module may implement a pipelined processor that is adapted to process macroblocks simultaneously. Alternatively, the first module includes a first engine and a second engine, which may run in parallel as parallel engines. In a more specific embodiment, an entire image frame is treated as a single slice and processed by the system via a pipelined engines or parallel engines.
US08416855B2
A coding mode selection method for selecting a coding mode for motion vector estimation is disclosed. The method includes the following steps. First, a first coding mode is selected to perform motion vector estimation for a macroblock having M sub-blocks. M motion vectors corresponding to the M sub-blocks are separately calculated. It is determined whether correlations for the M motion vectors match to a predetermined condition. If not, the first coding mode is selected and the M motion vectors are utilized to perform a motion vector estimation; and if so, a second coding mode is selected and the N motion vectors corresponding to the second coding mode are utilized to perform the motion vector estimation, wherein the N motion vectors are generated by using the M motion vectors and 1≦N
US08416854B2
In one embodiment, the method includes selecting a list 0 motion vector of the co-located block in a first reference picture as the motion vector if the co-located block has the list 0 motion vector and a list 1 motion vector. The first reference picture is a type of reference picture permitted to be located temporally before or after the current picture. The method further includes selecting the list 1 motion vector of the co-located block in the first reference picture if the co-located block only has the list 1 motion vector, and deriving at least one motion vector of the bi-predictive block by applying a bit operation to the selected motion vector.
US08416851B2
Various embodiments for performing motion detection for video processing are described. In one or more embodiments, motion detection may be performed by computing a temporal difference measurement, a local spatial complexity measurement, and a content dependent motion detection value based on the temporal difference measurement and the local spatial complexity measurement. In some implementations, the content dependent motion detection value may comprise a division of the temporal difference measurement by the local spatial complexity measurement. In other implementations, an approximated content dependent motion detection value may be computed without division to reduce computational complexity. The content dependent motion detection value may be used to perform various adaptive post-processing operations such as for de-interlacing, noise reduction, frame rate conversion, and so forth. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08416850B2
When entropy-encoding a converted quantized amount obtained by converting an image into a frequency region and quantizing it, if the output code bit quantity of the entropy encoding exceeds a predetermined amount, an image obtained by rebuilding the converted quantized value is outputted from an image encoding device. This guarantees an encoding delay caused by re-encoding to be a constant time without increasing the circuit size of the encoding device and provides an image encoding device of a subjectively high quality.
US08416849B2
A self-adapting code rate distribution method of video image macro-block level is provided. The method carries out analysis processing in units of macro blocks, a bit distribution model which combines bits number of a macro block level with the macro block energy is used, so that the bit distribution of each macro block is combined with the macro block energy, in which the macro block energy is obtained through extracting and abstracting the macro block characters. The above model can primely combine the code rate control arithmetic with the nature character of the image, then the accuracy of the code rate control can be improved, the code quality can be controlled at the same time, and the quality change in space of the image can be smoothed, the image subjective quality can be improved.
US08416841B1
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) receiver circuitry is described. In one circuit, input circuitry provides a matrix of unresolved symbols received from a plurality of receive antennas. Channel estimation circuitry constructs a plurality of channel matrices including at least two channel matrices corresponding first and second subcarriers, respectively. A preprocessing circuit receives input from the plurality of channel matrices and interleaves retrieved input into an input matrix. A first systolic array includes boundary cells and internal cells. The boundary cells and internal cells are configured to perform triangulation and back-substitution on the input matrix to produce an output matrix. A second systolic array performs right and left multiplication operations and cross-diagonal transpose on the output matrix to produce a weighted matrix. An output circuit multiplies the weighted matrix by the matrix of unresolved symbols from the input circuitry to produce an estimate of isolated symbols corresponding to the unresolved symbols.
US08416834B2
A technique for wirelessly transmitting management data without cables in a data center is provided. Management data is obtained at a device in the data center. A wireless management data signal is generated from the management data. The wireless management data signal is configured to be transmitted at frequencies matching an ambient electromagnetic noise emitted by the data center, such that the wireless management data signal is masked in the ambient electromagnetic noise emitted by the data center. The wireless management data signal is wirelessly transmitted to another device.
US08416831B2
The invention relates to a laser light source for generating narrow-band laser radiation with high coherence, comprising a laser diode (1), which forms an internal resonator (4), and an external resonator (7) coupled to the internal resonator (4). The object of the invention is to improve a laser source of the kind such that it generates narrow-band and coherent laser radiation with high output power and at the same time with high long-term stability. Furthermore, the laser light source is to be produced in a cost-effective manner. The object is achieved by the invention in that the laser diode (1) runs in an operating mode in which multimode laser radiation is generated, comprising a plurality of spectrally neighboring resonance modes (9) of the external resonator (7). The resonance modes are selected by adapting the spectral characteristics of the external (7) and internal (4) resonators.
US08416830B2
A gain module, operative to output a laser light coupled into a laser system, is structured with at least one gain element radiating the laser light and a spectrally-selective element. The spectrally-selective element includes a slab of photosensitive material and two parallel feedback and isolating Bragg mirrors recorded in the slab. The feedback Bragg mirror is operative to provide a wavelength-dependent feedback so as to cause the laser chip to generate the laser light at the resonance wavelength of the feedback Bragg mirror. The isolating Bragg mirror is automatically adjusted to retroreflect a backreflected signal light, which is generated by the laser system at a signal wavelength different from the resonance wavelength, upon positioning the feedback mirror orthogonally to the laser light.
US08416827B2
An oscillator housing includes a main body unit that is shaped into a frame and formed of a metallic material and a cover unit that is formed of a metallic material to cover openings of the main body unit, and has an outer wall that has an arc cross section perpendicular to the optical axis and extends in the optical axis direction and side walls that are connected to the both ends of the outer wall in the optical axis direction. When the cover unit is fixed to the main body unit with a fixing member, the outer wall having an arc shape is configured such that force is generated in the height direction towards the outside of the oscillator housing on the connecting portion of the cover unit with the main body unit.
US08416823B2
The invention provides a quantum well active region for an optoelectronic device. The quantum well active region includes barrier layers of high bandgap material. A quantum well of low bandgap material is between the barrier layers. Three-dimensional high bandgap barriers are in the quantum well. A preferred semiconductor laser of the invention includes a quantum well active region of the invention. Cladding layers are around the quantum well active region, as well as a waveguide structure.
US08416822B2
A manufacturing method for manufacturing a surface-emitting laser device includes the steps of forming a laminated body in which a lower reflecting mirror, a resonator structure including an active layer, and an upper reflecting layer having a selective oxidized layer are laminated on a substrate; etching the laminated body to form a mesa structure having the selective oxidized layer exposed at side surfaces thereof; selectively oxidizing the selective oxidized layer from the side surfaces of the mesa structure to form a constriction structure in which a current passing region is surrounded by an oxide; forming a separating groove at a position away from the mesa structure; passivating an outermost front surface of at least a part of the laminated body exposed when the separating groove is formed; and coating a passivated part with a dielectric body.
US08416813B1
An apparatus and method for managing clock domain(s) crossing several communication networks are disclosed. In one embodiment, a process capable of managing clock domains receives a data stream over a circuit emulation service (“CES”). Upon storing the data stream in a traffic buffer, the process selects a first clock domain for processing the data stream in the traffic buffer. For example, the process is capable of using the first clock domain to process and/or empty a jitter buffer, which stores CES data packets. The traffic buffer is monitored and the first clock domain can be replaced with a second clock domain if the storage capacity of the traffic buffer indicates that a different clock domain is needed.
US08416810B2
Provided is a base station capable of giving a pilot appropriate for both of multicast data and unicast data which are frequency-multiplexed. In a pilot generation unit (105) of the base station, an insertion unit (1051) inserts a pilot (common pilot) common to a plurality of cells to generate an orthogonal pilot sequence (2). In accordance with the insertion process in the insertion unit (1051), an insertion unit (1052) inserts a sequence (common sequence) common to a plurality of cells to a unique scrambling sequence to generate a scrambling sequence. A scrambling unit (1053) performs a scrambling process for multiplying the orthogonal pilot sequence (2) by the scrambling sequence. This scrambling process generates, in a part of pilot sequences different for respective cells, a pilot sequence containing a pilot common to the cells.
US08416807B2
In a wireless communication base station device, a modulation unit carries out modulation processing for Dch data after coding to generate a Dch data symbol. A modulation unit carries out modulation processing for Lch data after coding to generate an Lch data symbol. An allocation unit allocates the Dch data symbol and Lch data symbol to each sub-carrier composing an OFDM symbol and outputs the allocated sub-carrier to a multiplex unit. In this case, the allocation unit allocates the Dch data symbol to a plurality of resource blocks where one Dch is arranged at an interval equal to integral multiples of the number of resource blocks composing a resource block group.
US08416802B2
Techniques are provided herein to segment subcarriers for broadcast transmission to one or more mobile stations. A broadcast message to be transmitted from a first device is generated. The broadcast message comprises a plurality of symbols and each symbol is to be transmitted at a different one of a plurality of frequency subcarriers. The plurality of subcarriers is divided into groups and each group of subcarriers is assigned to a corresponding one of a plurality of antennas of the first device. The groups of subcarriers are transmitted from corresponding ones of the plurality of antennas.
US08416796B2
Network switches that are controlled by a controller server may contain ports through which network packets are received and forwarded. An architect may configure the controller server to create virtual switches. Each virtual switch may be formed from a subset of the ports of the network switches. The architect may assign administrators to the virtual switches. The administrators may configure the virtual switches. An administrator may use a command line interface to configure a virtual switch. The administrator may use commands such as a show port command, an access list command, a show access list command, and a membership rule command to manage the virtual switch. The controller server may prevent the administrator from logging on to virtual switches that have been assigned to other administrators.
US08416791B2
A home agent is configured to be placed in a visited connectivity service network and configured to provide a possibility of a local break out of data. The home agent is configured to separate a first data traffic path and a second data traffic path. The first data traffic path is directly routed between the visited connectivity service network and the internet, and the second data traffic path is routed between the visited connectivity service network and a home connectivity service network, in order to minimize a number of hops and delay times. The home agent is configured to receive a routing policy from a home authentication, authorization and accounting server. The home agent is configured to route data traffic based on the received routing policy.
US08416789B1
Packet switch operating methods and packet switches receive an Ethernet packet including a customer destination address and select one of a plurality of packet tunnel identifiers based on the customer destination address. The packet switch then modifies the received Ethernet packet by adding the selected packet tunnel identifier and forwards the modified packet to a packet tunnel associated with the selected packet tunnel identifier. Other methods and packet switches receive Ethernet packets including a same service virtual local area network identifier value from a first Ethernet network and forward one of the received Ethernet packets to a second Ethernet network via a first packet tunnel and forward another of the received Ethernet packets to a third Ethernet network via a second packet tunnel. Packet tunnel networks including Ethernet provider networks and edge bridges fully connected by packet tunnels having two endpoints.
US08416786B2
The present invention relates to a data transport container for transferring a number n of different types of data in an Internet Protocol network. The number n is superior or equal to 2, and data is generated as Ethernet Jumbo packets, wherein the data transport container is an Internet Protocol packet. The invention also relates to a source device and to a destination device respectively for transferring and receiving such a data transport containers. At least, the invention relates to a method for transferring n different types of data being generated as Gigabit Ethernet RTP-UDP-IP jumbo packets. Both devices are to be used in a method as mentioned above.
US08416775B2
A provider edge (PE) device, associated with a virtual private local area network service (VPLS) system, receives a first data frame from a source customer edge (CE) device associated with the VPLS system. The PE device further incorporates the first data frame into a first VPLS packet and determines whether the source CE device is a single-homed CE device or a multi-homed CE device. The PE device incorporates, into the first VPLS packet, a first pseudowire label when the source CE device is the single-homed CE device. The PE device incorporates, into the first VPLS packet, a second pseudowire label, when the source CE device is the multi-homed CE device. The second pseudowire label is different from the first pseudowire label.
US08416772B1
A link control card for disk drives. The link control card includes: a first connector for carrying relatively high frequency user data and low frequency signals; a diplexer connected to the connector, such diplexer having a first port for the high frequency user data and a second port for the low frequency signals; an optical connector for carrying the relatively high frequency user data; and a high frequency user data communication channel disposed between the diplexer and the disk drives for selectively connected either the first port of the diplexer or the optical connector to the disk drives.
US08416755B2
The disclosed method for processing a digital broadcast signal in a transmitter comprises encoding signaling data including transmission parameter channel data, wherein the transmission parameter channel data includes transmission parameter for mobile service data, forming data groups including the mobile service data, the encoded signaling data and known data sequences, formatting mobile service data packets including data in the data groups, and transmitting the digital broadcast signal including the formatted mobile service data packets during slots, the slots including first type slot and second type slot.
US08416749B2
The invention provides for a method of identifying a cyclic prefix to UEs in an OFDM communication system. The cyclic prefix has a dynamically variable length. The method includes, within an OFDM cell, transmitting MCCH scheduling information in a system information block in an OFDM broadcast channel, and using the MCCH scheduling information to receive the MCCH, wherein the MCCH contains MTCH scheduling information to indicate to the UE which sub-frame carries MTCH.
US08416748B2
A wireless communication system capable of removing a transmission signal to a different terminal space division multiplexed, an interference signal, in a terminal when wireless communications are conducted using space division multiple access is provided. A base station apparatus sends a notification of dedicated data transmission to a space division multiplexed terminal MSm and also sends a notification of information concerning a transmission beam used in a different terminal space division multiplexed and information concerning signal power used in the different terminal normalized in the terminal MSm. Based on the sent information, each terminal MSm calculates interference cancel weight according to MMSE criterion as the weight to maximize SINR and a reception signal is multiplied by the obtained interference cancel weight for decreasing the interference component and then the signal is detected by maximum likelihood estimation based on information of signal constellation transmitted for receiving spatially multiple-transmitted signal.
US08416744B2
The invention relates to a method and network control node for detecting the point of attachment of mobile terminals moving within a mobile communication network in idle mode, wherein the mobile communication system can be logically divided into plural tracking areas to which the mobile terminals register. Further, the invention relates to a method for enabling management of mobile terminals in idle mode receiving a service within such mobile communication system. Moreover, the invention relates to a method and mobile terminal for updating the mobile terminal's tracking area registration in a mobile communication system being logically divided into plural tracking areas, wherein mobile terminal is in idle mode and is registered to plural tracking areas simultaneously. The invention suggests different mechanism how to detect terminals registering to plural tracking area, how to verify their current location in the network and how to use these information, for example for resource management.
US08416734B2
A method for multiplexing voice and data communication using a communications network is presented. In the method, at least one voice bit from a voice bit stream is retrieved, and at least one data bit from at least one data bit stream is retrieved. When the voice bit stream is not in a discontinuous transmission (DTX) period, the at least one voice bit and the at least one data bit are used to generate a modulated symbol. The method includes transmitting the modulated symbol using the communications network.
US08416720B2
A method (200, 300) for supporting telecommunications over a wide area network. The method can include receiving a first message from a first communications site (110), the first message communicated through a logical port (174) at the communications site and maintaining the logical port open for at least a minimum period. A second message can be received from a second communications site (112), the second message requesting an identifier associated with the first communications site. Further, a third message can be communicated to the first communications site through the logical port. The third message can identify the second communications site as a candidate for establishing a peer-to-peer communications link over which telecommunications content may be communicated to a first remote unit (104).
US08416708B2
A PT (e.g., Push-To-Talk, Push-To-View or Push-To-Data) service, and more particularly, to a method and device for controlling a floor (talk burst authority, permission to send media burst, etc.) in a PT service, are discussed. According to an embodiment, the method for controlling a state of a Push-To (PT) server, includes starting, by a PT server, a stop talking (T2) timer which is a type of media burst control timer that operates with respect to a terminal having permission to send a media burst; checking, by the PT server on expiry of the T2 timer, whether a media burst release message was already received while the T2 timer was running; and entering, by the PT server, a media burst idle state if the media burst release message was already received as a result of the checking step.
US08416700B2
A method of diagnosing a transmission loop in an Internet protocol television (IPTV) network includes configuring the loop as an open loop and performing a single-ended loop test (SELT), configuring the loop as a terminated-loop and performing another SELT, subtracting a trace of the first SELT from a trace of the second SELT, and determining the length of the loop from the result. A service assurance system in an IPTV network includes a test module and a DSLAM coupled to a residential gateway by a transmission loop. The test module operates to determine that a fault condition on the IPTV network is caused by a fault in the loop, direct the DSLAM to perform an open loop SELT and a terminated-loop SELT on the loop, receive the results of the SELTs, and determine a location of a tap on the loop based upon the results.
US08416695B2
A method, a device, and a system for network interception are provided. The method for network interception includes the following steps. A matching rule obtained by parsing an interception policy. Received data are selected by adopting a deep packet inspection (DPI) according to the matching rule so as to obtain an interception result, in which the received data are obtained by adopting data preprocessing to filter packet data according to a service customizing rule obtained by parsing the interception policy. The system for network interception includes a service probe server (SPS) and a service analyze server (SAS). Thus, various packet data services transmitted over an Internet protocol (IP) network can be intercepted.
US08416694B2
A network feedback method and appropriate devices are described, in which a node connected to a link can perform a remote flow control adjustment procedure for adjusting the flow control of a sender of data units being forwarded by node over the link.
US08416685B2
Systems and methods for scheduling network communications in a managed network can include receiving in a Network Coordinator a submission from each of a plurality of network nodes requesting, for their respective flows, reservation of communication slots in a communication window, the submission including scheduling information such as latency tolerance maximum aggregation amount; the Network Coordinator checking available bandwidth in the communication window; and the Network Coordinator allocating the available bandwidth to a first flow from a first requesting node based on the first flow's scheduling information and the bandwidth availability, and deferring allocation of bandwidth to a second flow from a second requesting node until a later window based on the second flow's scheduling information and the bandwidth availability, thereby reallocating peak demand among the plurality of requesting nodes across a plurality of communication windows.
US08416678B2
A method of re-establishing a radio bearer in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method of re-establishing a radio bearer of a user equipment in a wireless communication system comprises establishing a radio bearer; identifying whether an error has occurred in the radio bearer; and selectively re-establishing the radio bearer or all radio bearers of the user equipment in accordance with a type of the radio bearer if the error has occurred in the radio bearer.
US08416675B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure describe closed loop scheduled peak-to-average power (PAPR) reduction systems and methods to facilitate desired PAPR reduction. Other embodiments describe weighted tone reservation (WTR) methods and systems for PAPR reduction. Still other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US08416672B2
An optical pickup, photodetector, and optical drive adopting the optical pickup are provided. The optical pickup may include a light emitting system having a plurality of light sources corresponding to a plurality of mediums a light receiving system including a photodetector for converting light reflected from a medium into an electrical signal. The photodetector may include first and second light receiving sensors corresponding to the plurality of mediums, each of the first and second light receiving sensors comprising a plurality of regions, each region comprising a plurality of sectors. The plurality of regions of the first and second light receiving sensors may include shared sectors that are shared by the first and second light receiving sensors and exclusive sectors that are exclusively used in the first light receiving sensor or the second light receiving sensor.
US08416669B2
A method for generating a complex amplitude in-line hologram and an image recording device using said method makes it possible to realize high-speed processing and high-speed recording from a single off-axis hologram without limiting the spatial frequency band and without creating errors from interpolation. The complex amplitude in-line hologram is generated by performing the following in order: the acquisition of data for one off-axis hologram obtained by way of off-axis holography, and for an off-axis reference light used for obtaining the hologram; the setting of a reconstruction in-line reference light; a modulation process for performing spatial heterodyne modulation on the hologram on the basis of the phases of the reference lights; and a filtering process for performing spatial frequency filtering on the hologram modulated by the modulation process. Because spatial sampling is not performed, the limits on the viewing angle are relaxed.
US08416668B2
An apparatus for recording information in an optical-information recording media by holography includes a signal-light irradiation unit, a reference-light irradiation unit, a reference light angle adjustment unit, and a positioning unit for positioning irradiation positions of the signal light and the reference light. The optical-information recording media is divided into N (N≧2) recording regions, M multiplexed information can be recorded in the respective recording regions by the reference light angle adjustment unit which changes the angle of the reference light at M angles (θ1, θ2, . . . , and θM) corresponding to a multiplexing number (M≧2), management information for the M multiplexed information is multiplexed and recorded in the same recording region as a-th information (1≦a≦M) with a reference light angle θa, and the management information on all the N recording regions are recorded at a common reference light angle.
US08416660B2
There is provided a method of calculating the degradation over time of the quality of data recorded on an optical disk in a short time. In the method, when user data is recorded on a data area, a test signal including a component in which the signal level is smaller than a reference value, is recorded on a test area. Then, the test signal is reproduced from the test area when a predetermined time has passed, to calculate the quality degradation of the user data from the evaluation result. Alternatively, every time when the user data is recorded/reproduced on/from the data area, the test signal is recorded/reproduced repeatedly on/from the test area. Then, the test signal is reproduced from the test area at a predetermined timing, to calculate the quality degradation of the user data from the evaluation result.
US08416648B2
Producing a servo pattern on a media involves rotating a master, and during a first revolution of the master, forming a first transition at a first radial position on the master, and forming a first transition at a second radial position. During a second revolution of the master, a second transition at the first radial position is formed, and a second transition at the second radial position is formed. By exposing individual servo burst transitions located at the first and second radial positions, in separate disk revolutions, only one of the magnetic transitions will inherit a particular deflection from a nominal radial position. If there are any mechanical disturbances, each magnetic transition will be randomly displaced from its nominal position, reducing the written-in run-out by √n, where n is the number of magnetic transitions in a particular servo burst.
US08416637B2
A faulty address control circuit comprises a variable resistance fuse unit configured to be driven in response to an address signal, a resistance value of the variable resistance fuse unit being determined based on an amount of an applied current; a driving unit configured to output a driving signal based on the resistance value of the variable resistance fuse unit in response to a faulty address control signal; and an address storage and determination unit configured to receive the address signal, be driven by the driving signal to output the address signal or an inverted signal of the address signal.
US08416632B2
A bitline precharge voltage generator comprises a leakage trimming unit and a bitline precharge voltage providing unit. The leakage trimming unit applies a leakage current to an output node to place a bitline precharge voltage at an edge of a dead zone. The bitline precharge voltage providing unit provides the bitline precharge voltage to the output node, and sets the bitline precharge voltage to a target level. The bitline precharge voltage generator generates the bitline precharge voltage having a distribution including the dead zone.
US08416630B2
A nonvolatile memory cell is constructed using a floating-gate pFET readout transistor having its source tied to a power source (Vdd) and its drain providing a current, which can be sensed to determine the state of the cell. The gate of the pFET readout transistor provides for charge storage, which can be used to represent information such as binary bits. A control capacitor coupled between a first voltage source and the floating gate and a tunneling capacitor between a second voltage source and the floating gate are fabricated so that the control capacitor has much more capacitance than the tunneling capacitor. Manipulation of the voltages applied to the first voltage source and second voltage source controls an electric field across the capacitor structure and pFET dielectrics and thus Fowler-Nordheim tunneling of electrons on and off the floating gate, controlling the charge on the floating gate and the information stored thereon.
US08416629B2
A memory cell array has a number of memory cells which are connected to word lines and bit lines and are arranged in a matrix form, each of the memory cells storing one of n levels (n is a natural number of 2 or more). A control circuit controls the potentials on the word lines and the bit lines in accordance with input data to write data to the memory cells. The control circuit is adapted to, at the write time, first apply a first potential to a well region or substrate in which the memory cells are formed, then set the well region or substrate to a second potential lower than the first potential, and next apply a predetermined voltage to the word lines to thereby perform a write operation.
US08416622B2
A period (inverted period) in which a high negative potential is applied to a gate of the transistor is provided between a writing period and a retention period. In the inverted period, supply of positive electric charge from the drain of the transistor to the oxide semiconductor layer is promoted. Thus, accumulation of positive electric charge in the oxide semiconductor layer or at the interface between the oxide semiconductor layer and a gate insulating film can converge in a short time. Therefore, it is possible to suppress a decrease in the positive electric charge in the node electrically connected to the drain of the transistor in the retention period after the inverted period. That is, the temporal change of data stored in the semiconductor device can be suppressed.
US08416612B2
A memory includes: memory devices that each store data of one bit; and a read unit that, by using one predetermined memory device of the memory devices that are included in a memory block having a predetermined unit number of the memory devices as an inversion flag device, reads out data of (the predetermined unit number −1) bits that is written in the other memory devices with the bits being inverted in a case where the data of one bit written in the inversion flag device is a first value representing any one of “0” and “1” and directly reads out the data of (the predetermined unit number −1) bits that is written in the other memory devices in a case where the data of one bit written in the inversion flag device is a second value other than the first value.
US08416603B2
According to one embodiment, a nonvolatile memory device includes a first conductive member and a second conductive member. The first conductive member extends in a first direction. The second conductive member extends in a second direction intersecting the first direction. A portion of the first conductive member connected to the second conductive member protrudes toward the second conductive member. A resistivity of the first conductive member in the first direction is lower than a resistivity of the first conductive member in a third direction of the protrusion of the first conductive member. A resistance value of the first conductive member in the third direction changes. A resistivity of the second conductive member in the second direction is lower than a resistivity of the second conductive member in the third direction. A resistance value of the second conductive member in the third direction changes.
US08416602B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes: a memory element in which a rate of charge discharge between two electrodes of the memory element differs according to a logical value of stored information; cell wiring connected to one electrode of the memory element; a sense amplifier having a sense node connected to the cell wiring, the sense amplifier reading the logical value of the information by comparing a potential of the sense node with a reference potential; and a readout control circuit capable of switching between a dynamic sense operation performing readout by precharging the cell wiring and discharging or charging the cell wiring via the memory element and a static sense operation performing readout in a state of a current load being connected to the sense node.
US08416598B2
Non-volatile latch circuits, such as in memory cells and flip-flops, that are constructed for reliability screening. The non-volatile latch circuits each include ferroelectric capacitors coupled to storage nodes, for example at the outputs of cross-coupled inverters. Separate plate lines are connected to the ferroelectric capacitors of the complementary storage nodes. A time-zero test of the latch stability margin is performed by setting a logic state at the storage nodes, then programming the state into the ferroelectric capacitors by polarization. After power-down, the plate lines are biased with a differential voltage relative to one another, and the latch is then powered up to attempt recall of the programmed state. The differential voltage disturbs the recall, and provides a measure of the cell margin and its later-life reliability.
US08416594B2
A control method implemented in a power converter, such as a variable speed drive, is disclosed. This control method is designed to make the power converter operate when the latter is connected to the network in single-phase mode. The power converter includes a controlled current source connected in series to its DC power supply bus. This controlled current source includes an electronic converter provided with two controlled switching arms. The switching arms are controlled by alternating a modulation phase with a saturation phase, the saturation phase being applied for a determined duration β in order to make the power converter operate in discontinuous mode.
US08416592B2
The present invention relates to a control method for a soft switch circuit in a switch power supply, which controls first and second main power switch devices to be turned on and turned off constantly to generate an alternating main power filter current, and controls forward and backward auxiliary switch devices to be turned on and turned off to generate an intermittent alternating resonant current across a resonant branch in the same direction as the main power filter current to thereby achieve zero-voltage turn-on of the first and second main power switch devices; and further controls the forward and backward auxiliary switch devices to be turned on and turned off to generate compensation currents across the resonant branch in the opposite direction to the alternating main power filter current in at least a period of time during resting of the resonant current to thereby accomplish a charging and discharging process of resonant capacitors in a dead time. Thus, a freewheeling diode can be turned on normally, so that it is possible to avoid a damage to the devices due to an impact current and a spark voltage resulting at zero crossing of the current in the soft switch circuit.
US08416589B2
A method of operating a DC-DC converter according to the current mode control is provided. A current measuring signal for determining a turn-off time of a converter switching element is supplied to a PWM controller and a voltage that is proportional to the current measuring signal is compared by a comparator to a reference voltage. When the reference voltage is exceeded, the converter switching element is turned off.
US08416588B2
Constant on-time control circuit includes a comparing circuit including a comparator including a positive input end for receiving a control voltage; a negative input end for receiving a feedback voltage from the output voltage of the DC/DC converter; and an output end for outputting a comparing signal; and a voltage adjusting circuit coupled to the output end of the comparator for adjusting the control voltage; and a pulse generator coupled to the output end of the comparator for generating a pulse signal to control a switch set of the DC/DC converter according to the comparing signal.
US08416586B2
A power supply includes a first power converter having a first transformer coupled to an input of the power supply and to a first output of the power supply. A clamp reset circuit is coupled to the first transformer. The clamp reset circuit includes a capacitor coupled to the first power converter and a Zener diode coupled to the capacitor. A second power converter is coupled to the clamp reset circuit. The second power converter includes a second transformer coupled to the clamp circuit and to a second output of the power supply. The capacitor is coupled to store energy received from the first power converter and the second power converter. The Zener diode is coupled to prevent the energy received from the first power converter and the second power converter from exceeding a threshold. The Zener diode limits voltage on the capacitor.
US08416574B2
An electric power conversion apparatus includes: a channel case in which a cooling water channel is formed; a double side cooling semiconductor module that comprises an upper and lower arms series circuit of an inverter circuit; a capacitor module; a direct current connector; and an alternate current connector. The semiconductor module comprises a first and a second heat dissipation metals whose outer surfaces are heat dissipation surfaces, the upper and lower arms series circuit is disposed tightly between the first heat dissipation metal and the second heat dissipation metal, and the semiconductor module further comprises a direct current positive terminal, a direct current negative terminal, and an alternate current terminal which protrude to outside. The channel case is provided with the cooling water channel which extends from a cooling water inlet to a cooling water outlet, and a first opening which opens into the cooling water channel.
US08416561B2
According to one embodiment, a battery-mounting structure includes a first housing, a second housing including a display device including a display screen, a hinge configured to attach the second housing to the first housing rotatably between a first position in which the display screen is covered with the first housing and a second position in which the display screen is exposed, and a battery configured to be attached to the first housing and including a recess configured to accommodate a part of the second housing in the second position.
US08416558B2
A solid electrolytic capacitor according to the present invention comprises a capacitor element including an anode lead-out part and a cathode lead-out part, an anode lead frame connected to the anode lead-out part via a conductive member, and a cathode lead frame connected to the cathode lead-out part, and the anode lead frame is connected to the anode lead-out part via an anode side assistance frame in addition to said conductive member.
US08416557B2
A solid electrolytic capacitor includes an anode foil, a solid electrolyte provided on the anode foil and made of conductive polymer, and a cathode foil provided on the solid electrolyte and facing the anode foil across the solid electrolyte. The anode foil includes an anode base made of aluminum, a rough surface layer made of aluminum and provided on a surface of the anode base, and a dielectric oxide layer provided on the rough surface layer and contacting the solid electrolyte. The cathode foil includes a cathode base made of aluminum, and a nickel layer provided on a surface of the cathode base and contacting the solid electrolyte. The nickel layer faces the dielectric oxide layer of the anode foil across the solid electrolyte. The nickel layer is made of nickel and nickel oxide. This solid electrolytic capacitor has a large capacitance and a low equivalent series resistance while being inexpensive and highly reliable.
US08416551B2
A starter including a double contact electromagnetic contactor (10) having an electrically controllable micro-actuator of the micro-solenoid type and an associated electronic control device (ECC). The electronic control device includes a first transistor commutation (T1, T2, CZ2, RC1, RC3, SL) to control the excitation of a pull-in winding (La) of the contactor and a second transistor commutation (T3, CZ2, RC2) to control the excitation of the micro-actuator. The second transistor commutation controls the excitation of the micro-actuator (MS) for a predetermined duration after activation of the electronic control device.
US08416538B2
A magnetic shield that is capable of enhancing magnetic reading, such as in use as a data transducing head. A magnetic stack can have a read element with an air bearing surface (ABS). The read element may be positioned adjacent a shield layer with a continuously curvilinear sidewall and a shield feature may be positioned within the areal extent of the continuously curvilinear sidewall.
US08416506B2
A zoom lens ZL installed in an electronic still camera 1 includes a first lens group G1 having positive refractive power disposed to the most object side, a second lens group G2 disposed to an image side of the first lens group G1, and a Gn lens group having positive refractive power disposed to the most image side. Upon zooming, the first lens group G1 and the Gn lens group are fixed. Upon focusing, at least one lens group disposed between the second lens group G2 and the Gn lens group are moved as a focusing lens group Gf. With this lens configuration, it becomes possible to provide a zoom lens having an optical property capable of coping with a vibration reduction, and an optical apparatus equipped therewith, and a method for manufacturing the zoom lens.
US08416503B2
An electrowetting device includes: a substrate having a non-hydrophobic insulating layer; a surrounding wall formed on an upper surface of the insulating layer; a microchamber surrounded by an inner surface of the surrounding wall and formed over the upper surface of the insulating layer; a hydrophobic coating layer that is applied to the inner surface of the surrounding wall and the upper surface of the insulating layer and that covers a seam between the inner surface and the upper surface; and a liquid disposed in the microchamber and on the hydrophobic coating layer.
US08416502B2
A zoom lens includes, in order from an enlargement side to a reduction side, a first lens unit having a positive refractive power, which is stationary for variation of magnification, a second lens unit having a negative refractive power, which moves for variation of magnification, a third lens unit having a negative refractive power, which moves for variation of magnification, a fourth lens unit having a positive refractive power, which includes a stop and which moves for variation of magnification, and at least one lens unit. In the zoom lens, for variation of magnification from a wide-angle end to a telephoto end, the second lens unit and the third lens unit move towards the reduction side and the fourth lens unit move towards the enlargement side. The zoom lens satisfies an appropriate condition.
US08416499B2
Exemplary embodiments provide materials and methods for lenticular printing devices, wherein both a lenticular lens sheet and an interlaced composite image can be formed using an imaging device to provide a precise registration translated from a color-to-color registration.
US08416498B2
A master model of a lens array and a method of manufacturing the same are provided, which can make it possible to manufacture the master model in a relatively short time with a simple construction of an apparatus. In a master model of a lens array on which a plurality of lens portions is arranged, a plurality of members corresponding to lenses having curved surfaces formed in the same shape as lens surfaces of the lens portions is arranged in the same lines as those of the plurality of lens portions in the lens array and is connected in a body.
US08416495B2
To provide a display apparatus which can use a general purpose projector, has a simple structure, including a hemispherical rear projection screen, a projector for projecting an image to be displayed on the rear projection screen, and a computer system for creating an image projected from the projector and characterized in that the computer system includes a recording medium for storing image data of a plane image, creation device that corrects the image data stored in the recording medium and creating image data of a curved image, and a transmission device to transmit the image data of the curved image created by the creation device to the projector.
US08416492B2
A balancing apparatus for a surgical microscope is suggested for balancing an optics carrier that is held via a pivot support at a stand. The apparatus comprises a Y displacement unit comprising a first slide for displacement of the optics carrier in a Y direction and a Z displacement unit comprising a second slide for displacement of the optics carrier in a Z direction. Both slides are driven by motors. A selector switch enables an operator to select powering either the first motor or the second motor; and a forward-reverse switch enables the operator to select either the forward or the reverse driving mode for the motor powered by the selector switch and consequently establish the forward or the reverse driving mode for the first or second slide, respectively.
US08416489B2
The present invention relates to a white light source, and particularly to a white light source with crystal fiber and a method for color temperature tuning thereof. The white light source of the present invention comprises a pumping source for providing a first-color light, and a gradient index lens for coupling the first-color light into a crystal fiber. The crystal fiber absorbs a portion of the first-color light and generates a second-color light and a third-color light, and a white light with high color rendering index can be obtained. The crystal fiber is made of a first rare earth element oxide and a second rare earth element oxide co-doped yttrium aluminum garnet. The color temperature of the white light can be tuned by adjusting the position of the focus of the pumping light on the end section of the crystal fiber.
US08416486B2
A light weight electrochromic dimmable mirror stack (300, 600) is presented that is composed only of solid-state layers (315, 615) with a total thickness of less than 50 micron and a reflector (310, 610). Normally such a kind of layered device suffers from iridescence due to interference of light waves reflecting at the interfaces between the layers of the electrochromic device. The solution provided by the invention is to pattern at least one of the layers (315, 615) in the device such that the interference effects are smeared out and a more neutral color is obtained. Various possible configurations are described and also the method to produce such a device.
US08416476B2
A first reading guide includes a first guide member, which can turn around a first shaft and is so positioned as to face a first side of a document. The second reading guide includes a second guide member, which can turn around a second shaft and is so positioned as to face a second side of a document. The distance between a first reading position and a reference position is equal to that between a second reading position and the reference position. The first shaft is positioned on the side of the reference position where the first reading position is set. The second shaft is positioned on the side of the reference position where the second reading position is set.
US08416475B2
In a state where a second power transmission path of transmitting power from the second planetary gear to the cam driving gear through the intermediate gear is selected, when the intermediate gear is opposed to the non-tooth portion for the release position of the cam driving gear, the rotation direction of the driving motor is changed to select a first power transmission path of directly transmitting power from the first planetary gear to the cam driving gear, the non-tooth portion for the release position deviates from the opposed position of the intermediate gear, and the rotation direction of the driving motor is changed again to select the second power transmission path.
US08416472B2
Various embodiments provide illuminators and related scanner illuminating systems, wherein the illuminators can include one or more light guides with each including an IR filter and/or an IR-absorbing coating for removing an IR component from the light introduced in the light guide.
US08416466B2
An image reading apparatus includes an image reader, a storage unit, and a control unit, wherein the storage unit includes a command storage unit, and the control unit includes a mark detecting unit that detects at least one mark matching the characteristic information of the mark from the margin of the manuscript read by the image reader to acquire the characteristic information of the detected mark, a positional information determining unit that detects coordinates of the mark in the manuscript to determine the positional information corresponding to the detected coordinates, a command searching unit that searches the command storage unit for the command associated with the characteristic information and the positional information using the characteristic information and the positional information as search keys, and a command executing unit that executes the processing specified for the command searched for on the manuscript.
US08416462B2
An information processing apparatus includes a first information acquisition unit, a second information acquisition unit, a third information acquisition unit, and an information embedder. The first information acquisition unit obtains target information. The second information acquisition unit obtains given information to be embedded in the target information. The third information acquisition unit obtains control information for accessing the given information. The information embedder generates embed information from the given information and the control information and embeds the embed information in the target information.
US08416461B2
The spread spectrum clock generator (SSCG) includes a phase comparator detecting phase difference between input clock and feedback clock; a charge pump supplying current depending on the phase difference; a loop filter converting the current to smoothed voltage; a voltage controlled oscillator generating a spread spectrum clock signal depending on the smoothed voltage; and a modulation signal generator generating modulation signal having amplitude depending on a modulation width set value. The SSCG further includes a modulation width detector detecting modulation width of the spread spectrum clock signal while comparing the modulation width with a modulation width target value to update the modulation width set value to narrow difference between the detected modulation width and the modulation width target value, followed by feeding back the updated modulation width set value to the modulation signal generator.
US08416454B2
A computer implemented method of producing personalized documents comprising the steps of inputting handwritten alphanumeric characters which are then mapped into at least one set of text characters. A textural document is entered into the computer and is transcribed into a set of text characters corresponding to the input handwritten alphanumeric characters. The document can be printed and will contain text in the handwriting of the person whose alphanumeric characters were used as input.
US08416451B2
A method and system for controlling color output includes receiving a document containing a color image, producing a first output copy of the document using a first color processing path, receiving at least one natural language request to adjust the color output of the device, adjusting the color output of the device, and producing a second output copy of the document. The method and system further includes presenting natural language descriptions of the effects of color processing paths with or without sample palettes to the user either to solicit a suggestion from the user or present the user with choices based upon the natural language request received.
US08416448B2
A printing apparatus is disclosed, which includes: a printing unit including print sheets having different sizes, the printing unit being able to print selectively on any of the print sheets; an original document size determining unit to determine the size of an original document; a scanning unit to scan the original document; a region recognizing unit to recognize a region to be printed in the original document; a deciding unit to decide a print sheet size being larger than the region to be printed and smaller than the size of the original document by comparing the sizes of the print sheets with the size of the original document and the size of the region to be printed; and a controlling unit to cause printing of the image of the region to be printed at 100% magnification on the print sheet of the decided size.
US08416447B2
A method of setting print options of an image forming apparatus using a driver user interface in a terminal, such as a PC, connected to the image forming apparatus. The apparatus may include a user input unit to receive the print options, a name generating unit to automatically-generate setting names using the input print options a storage unit to store the input print options to correspond to the automatically-generated setting names, and a control unit to control the storage of the input print options and the generated setting names in the storage unit.
US08416444B2
The system provides for controlling color reproduction of input color image data in a network having nodes (or sites). The system distributes the input color image data from one of the nodes to other nodes, and provides data structures in the network. The system has means for providing color calibration data at each node characterizing output colors (colorants) of the rendering device of the node, and means for producing at each node, responsive to the color calibration data of the rendering device of the node, information for transforming the input color image data into output color image data at the rendering device of the node. The rendering device of each node renders a color reproduction responsive to the output color image data, wherein colors displayed in the reproduction at the rendering device of each node appear substantially the same within the output colors attainable by the rendering devices.
US08416443B2
A plurality of sets of a printed document for distribution to a plurality of destinations is generated. For each one of the plurality of destinations, whether to perform conceal processing to document data is determined, and destination-specific print data is generated by performing conceal processing to the document data when it is determined that conceal processing is to be performed and by adding each one of the destination identification information identifying each one of the plurality of destinations to the document data.
US08416441B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for scan workflow processing to correctly and reliably generate a final output for a user. A workflow control service identifies capabilities of one or more devices for performing post processing steps defined in a scan workflow. An image scanner is utilized to scan a document to generate scanned document data. The workflow control service provides the post processing steps to the one or more of the devices based on the identified capabilities for each respective device. The devices then perform the post processing steps on the scanned document data to generate a final output. The workflow control service then transmits the output data to a device identified by the workflow to generate the final output.
US08416437B2
It is analyzed whether print data includes first image data common between pages and second image data different between pages. When a specific discharge device is designated as a discharge device for discharging a printing medium printed based on the print data, and it is analyzed that the print data includes the second image data different between pages, print processing is controlled not to print the second image data.
US08416423B2
A position detecting apparatus includes a light source which supplies a detecting light; a light-collecting optical system which collects the detecting light onto a diffracted light generating portion provided on the object; a light guiding optical system which guides, to a predetermined position, a diffracted measuring light generated from the diffracted light generating portion by receiving the detecting light and a reference light generated from a reference surface by receiving the detecting light; and a photodetector which is arranged at the predetermined position and which detects interference fringes generated by the diffracted measuring light and the reference light. Three-dimensional positional information of, for example, a mask pattern surface or an exposure surface of a photosensitive substrate can be highly accurately detected by a relatively simple construction.
US08416421B2
A system, method, and device for imaging a sample. In embodiments, a light from a low-coherence source or a wavelength-swept source is used to illuminate the sample. Pathlength-resolved intensity profiles of the light reemitted from the sample are recorded and measurements are taken. A reconstruction algorithm is used to invert the pathlength-resolved measurements to form an image.
US08416411B2
Pulley alignment apparatus for aligning pulleys when the operating position of a variable sheave pulley of a pulley system has changed is provided. The pulley alignment apparatus has an adjustable laser light unit that can be adjusted to compensate for the resulting displacement of the centerline of the variable sheave pulley when the operating position is changed. The pulley alignment apparatus also has a set of gauges for determining the operating position of a variable sheave pulley and determining if a belt is adequate for the variable sheave pulley at the operating position.
US08416403B2
Method and system for high-speed, high-resolution 3-D imaging of manufactured parts of various sizes
A method and system for high-speed, high-resolution 3-D imaging of manufactured parts of various sizes at an imaging station having a measurement axis are provided. The part has a 3-D end surface and a length, a width and a part axis defined as being central to the part and parallel to its length. The system includes apparatus having a central axis substantially parallel to the measurement axis and a plurality of members having open and closed positions. The members have holding faces which are substantially equidistant from the central axis during movement between the positions to align a part disposed between the holding faces at the station so that the part axis is substantially parallel to the measurement and central axes. The holding faces releasably hold the aligned part in a holding position between the positions. The system further includes an actuator for moving the apparatus so that the end surface moves in a plane substantially perpendicular to the measurement axis. The system still further includes a controller for controlling the actuator to move the end surface along a 2-D trajectory within the plane. The system further includes at least one sensor for emitting a beam of energy along the measurement axis onto the end surface during movement of the end surface along the 2-D trajectory to obtain reflected energy and for sensing at least a portion of the reflected energy to obtain an output. The system still further includes a processor for processing the output to obtain information related to the end surface of the part.
US08416398B2
Glucose measured in blood samples is distinguished from glucose measured in the control solutions used to test the optical instruments which make such measurements. The control solutions contain a labeling substance recognized by the optical instrument to distinguish glucose measurements made of control solutions from those made of blood samples.
US08416387B2
A wavelength shift measuring apparatus of the present invention is a wavelength shift detection sensor (WLCD1) which measures a shift of a wavelength of a light beam emitted from a light source, and includes a beam splitter (BS2) splitting the light beam emitted from the light source into a plurality of light beams and to synthesize two light beams among the plurality of light beams to generate an interference light, a spacer member (SP) provided so that an optical path length difference of the two light beams split by the beam splitter (PBS2) is constant, and a plurality of photoelectric sensors (PD) detecting the interference light generated by the beam splitter (BS2). The plurality of photoelectric sensors (PD) output a plurality of interference signals having phases shifted from one another based on the interference light to calculate a wavelength shift using the plurality of interference signals.
US08416385B2
A lithographic apparatus and device manufacturing method is provided in which exposure is carried out by projecting through a liquid having a pH of less than 7, the liquid being in contact with a substrate to be exposed. The liquid advantageously comprises an anti-reflective topcoat.
US08416382B2
A processing apparatus including a processing unit configured to process an object includes a conveying unit configured to convey an object between a transfer portion provided between an external apparatus and the processing unit, and the processing unit, a controller configured to output a request signal requesting the external apparatus to convey the object to the transfer portion, and an output unit configured to output a signal indicating a start of maintenance of the processing apparatus. The controller is configured to output to the external apparatus a signal for stopping the conveyance of the object to the transfer portion, based on the signal indicating the start of maintenance output from the output unit, after outputting the request signal.
US08416376B2
An in-plane switching type liquid crystal display comprising (a) first and second polarizing plates facing each other and spaced from each other; (b) a liquid crystal cell situated between said first and second polarizing plates; and (c) a compensation structure located between the liquid crystal cell and the first polarizing plate; wherein the director orientation of the liquid crystal layer being controlled by an electric field parallel to the polarizing plates; one said compensation structure is positioned between the liquid crystal cell and the first polarizing plate; the polarizing plates have transmission axes perpendicular to each other, and the compensation structure comprises at least one retardation layer of supramolecules involving at least one polycyclic organic compound with a conjugated π-system and functional groups which are capable of forming non-covalent bonds between said supramolecules.
US08416373B2
A display device and a method for manufacturing the display device are provided. The display device includes a substrate and a color filter layer. A plurality of sub-pixel electrodes are formed on the substrate. The color filter layer is configured on the substrate. The color filter layer defines a plurality of color areas corresponding to the sub-pixel electrodes. Here, each of the color areas is partially overlapped with two of the sub-pixel electrodes adjacent to each other.
US08416368B2
One or more embodiments of the invention provide an apparatus and method for producing an image on a display screen that extends to the pixels or image elements disposed at the edge of the display screen. The display screen has an optical element with a thickness and an index of refraction that are selected to direct light to pixels or image elements disposed at the edge of the display screen without passing through the portion of the optical element that is blocked by a support frame or other structural member disposed on the rear surface of the display screen. Positioning such display screens together into a single screen assembly produces a tiled display having a much less noticeable grid pattern visible to the viewer.
US08416364B2
The present invention relates to a technique which makes a backlight used in a liquid crystal display device thin and light-weight. The present invention provides a liquid crystal display device which includes a display panel and a backlight arranged behind the display panel, wherein the backlight includes a film-like light guide member, a film-like light semi-transmissive member adhered to a first surface of the light guide member which faces the display panel in an opposed manner, a film-like reflective member adhered to a back surface of the light guide member opposite to the first surface, and a spot light source arranged at a position of the light guide member at which light is incident on the light guide member from the first surface or the back surface. A refractive index of the light semi-transmissive member is set smaller than a refractive index of the light guide member.
US08416360B2
The invention relate to a liquid crystal display that can improve heat radiation properties as well as may comply with a slim trend of displays. The liquid crystal display including: a liquid crystal panel; a PCB for light source that mounts a plurality of light sources which generate light illuminating the liquid crystal panel, and supplies operation power to the light sources; a bottom cover that includes a receiving unit of which bottom surface is opened and a seating space of which bottom surface is not opened, receives the PCB for light source, and externally exposes a part of a rear surface of the PCB for light source through the receiving unit; a main PCB that supplies a driving signal to the liquid crystal panel and the PCB for light source; and a panel guide that includes a lamination unit receiving the liquid crystal panel and an insertion space receiving the main PCB in a direction perpendicular to the liquid crystal panel, wherein the main PCB is inserted into the insertion space to be positioned within the seating space of the bottom cover.
US08416342B1
An imaging device for in vivo medical applications that enables minimally invasive surgical procedures. The imaging device includes an elongated frame having a base, a module housing, and a helical member interposed between the base and module housing. The imaging device further includes an actuation unit positioned within the frame that engages the module housing causing the frame to bend at the helical member. The module housing includes an imaging module and may include other modules including tools used for laparoscopic surgery.
US08416340B2
A camera body includes a body mount, a first imaging sensor, an information acquisition section, and an imaging sensor selector. The information acquisition section is configured to acquire imaging sensor information from the interchangeable lens unit. The imaging sensor selector selects a first imaging sensor as the selected imaging sensor on the basis of the imaging sensor information when an interchangeable lens unit that guides an optical image to the first imaging sensor is mounted to the body mount, and selects a second imaging sensor as the selected imaging sensor on the basis of the imaging sensor information when an interchangeable lens unit having this second imaging sensor is mounted to the body mount.
US08416334B2
An extended depth of field (EDOF) imaging system (10) is disclosed that has an optical system (20) consisting of a single lens element (22) having a focal length (F), a thickness (TH) between 0.25F and 1.2F, and an objectwise aperture stop (AS). The optical system has a select amount of spherical aberration (SA) that allows for correcting coma by positioning the aperture stop. The optical system has an amount of field curvature (FC) such that 20 microns≦FC≦300 microns, which is made possible by the thickness of the single lens element. The imaging system has an image sensor (30) and an image processing unit (54) adapted to process raw images to form contrast-enhanced images.
US08416321B2
An image processing apparatus captures an image in a shooting operation and records an image file in a folder of a recording medium. A user interface enables a user to set the units of date/time for automatically creating a new folder that can store image files. A first storage unit stores the units of date/time being set by the user through the user interface. A folder creation unit creates a new folder in the recording medium by the units of date/time stored in the first storage unit. And, a recording unit records the image file obtained by the shooting operation in the new folder created by the folder creation unit.
US08416318B2
A video camera includes an imager. An imager outputs an object scene image produced on an imaging surface. A detector detects a plurality of luminance change amounts respectively corresponding to a plurality of timings based on the object scene image outputted from the imager. A determiner determines generation/non-generation of a flicker by referring to a difference between a sine wave depicted along a time axis and the plurality of luminance change amounts detected by the detector. A first adjuster adjusts an angular frequency of the sine wave to a frequency corresponding to a drive system of the imager. A second adjuster adjusts an initial phase and an amplitude of the sine wave based on the plurality of luminance change amounts detected by the detector.
US08416315B2
In image shooting using a self timer on an apparatus, the apparatus allows a user to control continuous shooting of a plurality of frames of images according to the user's desire. In image shooting using a self timer on the apparatus, the apparatus changes a timing of starting image shooting by self timer for a second image and beyond to be continuously shot according to detected faces of persons. The apparatus notifies the user that the timing for starting the image shooting by self timer is currently calculated. With this configuration, the user can control the timing of shooting images by continuous shooting. Accordingly, the user convenience in using the apparatus in shooting a plurality of frames of images of variable attitudes and objects is improved.
US08416313B2
When a still picture is picked up by a digital camera, the still picture is divided into a plurality of areas and is processed for each area. After the process of one divided area is completed, then the process of a motion picture obtained from an imaging device. After the process of the motion picture is completed, another divided area of the still picture is processed again. Such switching between a motion picture process and a still picture process is performed until the process of the entire still picture is completed. Thus, after a still picture is picked up by a digital camera, a motion picture can be promptly displayed and a live image picked up by the camera can be displayed on a back LCD screen.
US08416312B2
An image selection device including: a reception unit that receives a plurality of captured images obtained by rapid shooting one or more people as subjects; a face detection unit that detects human faces included in the captured images received by the reception unit; an eye detection unit that detects eyes in the human faces detected by the face detection unit; a blink detection unit that detects blink degrees of each of the eyes detected by the eye detection unit; an estimation unit that estimates statuses of the human faces based on the blink degrees detected by the blink detection unit; and a selecting unit that selects at least one of the captured images to be recorded on a recording medium from among the captured images received by the reception unit, based on the statuses of the human faces estimated by the estimation unit.
US08416310B2
Imaging device and imaging processing apparatus capable of recording and generating movie image data
Provided are: an imaging sensor that captures light from a subject; a first instruction unit that instructs to capture a still image by using the imaging sensor; a recording control unit that records a single movie image file containing a first movie image produced based upon an imaging signal output from the imaging sensor during a period from when the still image is captured by the capturing instruction by the first instruction unit until before a first predetermined time and a second movie image produced by using the still image during a period from when the still image is captured until after a second predetermined time, or recording a single movie image file containing the second movie image and a third movie image produced based upon the imaging signal output from the imaging sensor during a period from when the still image is captured until after a third predetermined time, in a recording unit; and a detection unit that detects movement information of the subject, and the recording control unit sets at least one length of the first predetermined time, the second predetermined time, and the third predetermined time, based upon the movement information detected by the detection unit.
US08416306B2
The present invention provides an image capturing method in a mobile terminal equipped with a touch screen, and a mobile terminal for implementing the same. When a camera function is initiated, a preview image of an image to be captured is displayed on the touch screen. If a touch input is received on a specific position of the preview image on the touch screen, focusing of the image is performed on the specific position where the touch input has been received. When a photographing command is received, the image on which the focusing has been performed is captured.
US08416273B2
A communication system including a communication network, an entertainment device connected to the communication network, and an application server connected to the communication network. The entertainment device has a software client adapted to provide real time two-way communication between the entertainment device and a telephony device connected to the communication network. The application server is adapted to communicate with the software client and facilitate the real time two-way communication between the entertainment device and the telephony device.
US08416268B2
In an image display device, an image controller controls a floating image and a direct view image so as to be linked to each other. The image controller displays a given object as the floating image, and displays the floating image such that the given object displayed as the floating image is shifted in a specified first direction from a displayed position of the floating image to a second image screen. The image controller executes a process associated with the given object during or after the shift of the given object, and displays, on the second image screen, a two-dimensional image on which the executed process is reflected.
US08416259B2
An image display apparatus that displays an image on the basis of input image signals corresponding to sub-pixels forming one pixel includes a shift-amount storing unit that stores shift amounts of display positions of the sub-pixels relative to given reference positions in a display image, an image-signal correcting unit that corrects the input image signals according to the shift amounts, and an image display unit that displays an image on the basis of the image signals corrected by the image-signal correcting unit.
US08416255B1
Systems and methods are disclosed for using colors and color themes. One embodiment uses color(s) already included in a design to select and suggest other color(s) or color themes. For example, a design application may provide a listing of suggested color themes based on the colors used in a design area or in selected item(s) of a design area. Such a listing can be ordered based on assessments of how well the color themes match. The listing can also be updated in real time. For example, a designer adding a color to a design may trigger an update to the color theme listing.
US08416252B2
A memory access method for processing images includes reading an image data from a main memory. The image data has display rows. Inner memories are configured to be memory blocks arranged in an order of data storage. First pixel data in an ith display row are written into the memory blocks in the order of data storage, and N dummy data are written into the memory blocks in the order of data storage to form an isolated block. M dummy data are written into the memory blocks after the isolated block in the order of data storage to form a first shifted block. Second pixel data in an (i+1)th display row are written into the memory blocks after the first shifted block in the order of data storage, and O dummy data are written into the memory blocks in the order of data storage to form a second shifted block.
US08416247B2
Increasing a number of advertising impressions in a system configured to facilitate user interaction with an interactive environment containing one or more advertising targets is described. A scene of a portion of the simulated environment is displayed from a camera point of view (camera POV) on a video display. The scene may change as the camera POV changes in response to movement of the camera POV along a camera path during the user's interaction with the simulated environment. By adding movement to the camera path that directs the camera POV toward one or more advertising targets encountered along the camera path advertising targets may be placed within the scene displayed on the video display to increase a likelihood a number of advertising impressions associated with the advertising targets.
US08416245B2
Motion blur is created in images by utilizing a motion vector. Vertices are developed with each vertex including a motion vector. The motion vector is indicative of how far vertices have moved since a previous frame in a sequence of images. The vertices are converted to an image and motion blur is added to the image as a function of the motion vector for each vertex.
US08416244B2
A graphics or image rendering system, such as a map image rendering system, receives image data from an image database in the form of vector data that defines various image objects, such as roads, geographical boundaries, etc., and textures defining text strings to be displayed on the image to provide, for example, labels for the image objects. The imaging rendering system renders the images such that the individual characters of the text strings are placed on the image following a multi-segmented or curved line.
US08416233B2
A display driver generates a respective charge pumping signal and respective driving signals synchronized to a respective same clock signal for each of the CPU and video interface modes. Because such respective signals are synchronized to a respective same clock signal, the noise superimposed on the driving signals applied on a display panel is regular and uniform across the whole display panel, for each of the CPU and video interface modes. Accordingly, affects of such regular noise are advantageously not noticeable to the human eye, for both the video and CPU interface modes of operation.
US08416232B2
A liquid crystal display is provided. The liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal display panel, a data driving circuit for converting digital video data into positive/negative data voltages to be supplied to the data lines and adjusting the horizontal polarity inversion cycle of the positive/negative data voltages, and a timing controller for generating the vertical polarity control signal and the horizontal polarity control signal, adding a FRC correction value to input digital video data to supply the input digital video data to the data driving circuit, detecting a predetermined weak pattern from the input digital video data and, when data having the weak pattern is detected, changing either the logic inversion cycle of the vertical polarity control signal or the logic of the horizontal polarity control signal and changing the position of the data to which the FRC correction value is added.
US08416229B2
A liquid crystal display device includes: first and second substrates positioned so as to face each other; and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the first and second substrates, and containing a polymerizable component that is polymerized by light or heat. The polymerizable component of the liquid crystal layer is polymerized with a predetermined voltage being applied to a region corresponding to those pixels whose transmittance-drive voltage characteristics are shifted toward higher voltages in a normal drive operation, where the predetermined voltage is applied so that the transmittance-drive voltage characteristics are shifted toward lower voltages by an amount equal to or larger than an amount of the shift toward higher voltages.
US08416228B2
In a plasma display panel apparatus, luminance when a display state of a panel is all-black is reduced. In a first period, in which a first ramp waveform dropping from a first potential to a second potential is applied to a plurality of scan electrodes, within a setup period, a second ramp waveform dropping from a third potential to a fourth potential is applied to a plurality of sustain electrodes in a second period in the case of not all-black, and a third ramp waveform dropping from the third potential to a fifth potential is applied to the plurality of sustain electrodes in a third period which is longer than the second period in the case of all-black. In addition, a scan pulse is not applied to the plurality of scan electrodes in a write period in the case of all-black.
US08416226B2
A system and method for measuring a color parameter values of a display for calibration purposes. An initial measurement of the color parameter value from the display is performed. Next, a number of additional measurements is determined in response to the value of the initial color parameter value. The color parameter value of the display is measured by the number of additional measurements in order to determine an average color parameter value of the display which will be used for calibration purposes.
US08416196B2
One or more touch input signals can be obtained from a touch sensitive device. A touch event model can be used to determine touch and/or gesture events based on the touch input signals. The touch and gesture events can be associated with touch input signals generated from different regions of a web page displayed on the touch sensitive device. Access can be provided to at least one touch or gesture event through a programming interface.
US08416191B2
Disclosed are various embodiments of a navigation input device, and methods, systems and components corresponding thereto. According to some embodiments, the navigation input device has a large depth of field associated therewith and employs time- and/or frequency-domain processing algorithms and techniques. The device is capable of providing accurate and reliable information regarding the (X,Y) position of the device on a navigation surface as it is moved laterally thereatop and thereacross, notwithstanding changes in a vertical position of the device that occur during navigation and that do not exceed the depth of field of an imaging lens incorporated therein. According to one embodiment, the navigation input device is a writing instrument that does not require the use of an underlying touch screen, touch pad or active backplane to accurately and reliably record successive (X,Y) positions of the writing device as it is moved across and atop an underlying writing medium.
US08416183B2
There is provided a surface light source device capable of making appearance of a boundary between partial lighting areas more natural than related art. In each of unit light-source sections 10 capable of mutually independent lighting, uneven light-emission intensity distributions that are mutually independent are to be formed within a light emission surface. Thus, in the light emission surface of each of the unit light-source sections 10, an arbitrary light-emission intensity distribution is able to be formed. Therefore, by adjusting a light-emission intensity distribution of each of the unit light-source sections 10, the appearance in the boundary between the partial lighting areas becomes more natural than related art.
US08416181B2
A back light apparatus includes an external light quantity detecting unit having a first and second light quantity detecting sections, both of which are provided at a predetermined position of the housing, a first polarizing plate provided on a light receiving surface of the first light quantity detecting section, which first polarizing plate has a polarizing axis perpendicular to that of a polarizing plate provided on the rear surface side of the liquid crystal panel, a second polarizing plate provided on the light receiving surface of the second light quantity detecting section, which second polarizing plate has the same polarizing axis as that of the polarizing plate provided on the rear surface side of the liquid crystal panel, and an external light quantity calculating section to calculate the external light quantity based on the difference value between light quantities detected by the first and second light quantity detecting sections.
US08416175B2
The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal panel including a common voltage correction unit that obtains predominant-polarity data based on polarities of image data to be supplied to pixel cells arranged in an nth one of pixel rows, obtains predominant-polarity data based on polarities of image data to be supplied to pixel cells arranged in an (n+1)th one of the pixel rows adjacent to the nth pixel row, obtains a sum of the two predominant-polarity data, and selects and outputting any one of a plurality of predetermined correction values based on the sum, and a common voltage output unit that corrects a common voltage based on the correction value from the common voltage correction unit and supplies the corrected common voltage to a common electrode.
US08416171B2
In one embodiment of the present invention, a liquid crystal driving semiconductor IC for driving a display panel includes an output terminal connected to the display panel, an output circuit block including a DAC circuit, and a spare output block including a DAC circuit, the DAC circuits and being connectable to the output terminal. The IC includes an op amp for comparing output signal from the DAC circuit with that of the DAC circuit, and judging circuit for judging, based on the comparison result of the op amp, whether the DAC circuit is defective, and switches and for, if the DAC circuit is defective, connecting the spare DAC circuit to the output terminal in replacement of the defective DAC circuit. This provides an IC for driving a display device, which IC has concrete measures to easily detect a defect in an output circuit, and can perform self-healing for the defect in the output circuit.
US08416157B2
A driving circuit including a plurality of light emitting control drivers includes an input terminal coupled to an initial driving line or a light emitting negative control line of a previous light emitting control driver, a first clock terminal and a second clock terminal that are electrically coupled to a first clock line and a first negative clock line that are phase-inverted, or a second clock line and a second negative clock line, respectively, and an output terminal and a negative output terminal adapted to generate an output signal and a negative output signal when receiving an input signal, a clock signal and a negative clock signal via the input terminal, the first clock terminal and the second clock terminal, respectively.
US08416155B2
Provided is a technique of a PDP device capable of preventing error display arising from changes in discharge characteristics in a reset period particularly due to a long-period operation. In the PDP device, a slope of a slope waveform in the reset period is changed corresponding to operation time of the PDP device. And, the slope waveform is made to have a configuration having a stepwise plurality of slopes in a predetermined reset period. For example, when the operation time becomes long, rising and falling slope waveforms of a reset waveform are configured by two steps, and a first slope thereof is made steeper than a slope before the change, and a second slope is made gentle than the slope before the change. When the operation become longer, the first slope is made further steeper and the subsequent second slope is made further gentler.
US08416152B2
Methods and systems for operating a vehicular near-to-eye (NTE) display screen operable within an operational range limit are provided. An image is rendering on the NTE display screen within a predefined visibility range. The predefined visibility range is within the operational range limit. A luminance of at least a portion of the image is reduced in response to the NTE display screen being moved outside of the predefined visibility range and within the operational range limit.
US08416151B2
A set of equipment items for an aircraft including a video transducer and at least two head-up display devices, wherein the video transducer and/or each HUD device is/are capable of defining the image to be projected by the HUD device on the basis of the display field of the HUD device and of one or more HUD/transducer errors, each HUD/transducer error being defined as being the difference between the HUD error of the corresponding HUD support around a direction and the transducer error around this same direction, the HUD error of an HUD support around a direction being the angular difference around this direction between the line of sight of the HUD support and a measuring reference line, and the transducer error around a direction being the angular difference around this direction between the line of sight of the transducer support and a measuring reference line.
US08416143B2
An antenna feeding network, including at least one antenna feeding line, each antenna feeding line comprising a coaxial line having a central inner conductor and a surrounding outer conductor. The outer conductor (4) is made of an elongated tubular compartment (5) having an elongated opening (6) along one side of the compartment (5), and that the inner conductor (3) is suspended within the tubular compartment (5) by means of dielectric support means (7).
US08416135B2
A wireless internet with a plane antenna, the plane antenna comprises a plane, an import and an export antenna and plural radiators. The import antenna has a first and a second import line which connect with each other and an included angle is formed between the second and the first import line, the export antenna has a first and a second export line which connect with each other and the included angle is formed between the second and the first export line. The radiators are disposed between the import and the export antenna, each radiator having a first and a second conducting wire, a sharp part, a first and a second protruding fringe and a fillister. The radiators are divided into two symmetrically arranged teams. The connected angles between two neighboring radiators in the one of the teams are different.
US08416128B2
The method of generating an image in the form of a disc portion on a display, the disc portion comprising a center and a maximum radius defining a limit of the image generated, the disc portion comprising a plurality of angular sectors, each angular sector comprising a plurality of disjoint areas, each disjoint area of an angular sector being delimited by two circular arcs defined between two radii, and each disjoint area being called a “ring”, is characterized in that it comprises: a first step of selecting a ring, a second step of comparing the area of the ring with at least one predefined value, dubbed the grain, a third step of generating the image of the ring as a function of the result of the comparison, a fourth step of incrementing the next ring to be selected.
US08416120B2
Disclosed herein is a method of sensor network localization through reconstruction of a radiation pattern with a characteristic value of an antenna depending on orientation thereof. The method can minimize errors using an antenna characteristic value and a signal strength depending on the orientation. In addition, the method can minimize errors using an artificial neural network to characterize a distorted radiation pattern of an antenna and using it for the localization of a triangulation method. Furthermore, the method can increases the localization rate even in a passive localization method by characterizing an asymmetric antenna radiation pattern and constructing the antenna characteristic through an artificial neural network.
US08416117B2
In one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a first capacitor system and a second capacitor system. Each capacitor system is removably coupled to the same portion of an analog to digital converter (ADC) and the same sensing circuit. Each capacitor system stores charge received through the sensing circuit when coupled to the sensing circuit and provides the charge received through the sensing circuit to the ADC for conversion into a digital value when coupled to the ADC. When the control signals are in a first state, the first capacitor system receives charge through the sensing circuit and the second capacitor system is coupled to the portion of the ADC. When the one or more control signals are in a second state, the second capacitor system is coupled to the sensing circuit to receive charge through the sensing circuit and the first capacitor system is coupled to the portion of the ADC.
US08416115B2
An SAR-ADC includes input and reference terminals, first and second capacitor sets, a dummy capacitor, a comparator, a switch, and a logic. The first and second capacitor sets include first and second capacitors, respectively. The first capacitor has a first capacitance. The second capacitor has a second capacitance. The dummy capacitor has a third capacitance. The comparator compares an output voltage with a ground voltage and outputs a digital output code in accordance with a difference between the output and ground voltages. The switch is connected among the first capacitors of the first and second capacitor sets, and the reference terminal. The logic turns the switch based on the digital output code. The input terminal is located between the first and second capacitors of the first capacitor set. The second capacitor of the first capacitor set is located between the first and second capacitors of the second capacitor set.
US08416112B2
Circuitry and method for digital-to-analog current signal conversion with phase interpolation. For an n-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the number 2n control bits normally required can be reduced to 2(n-1) by jointly controlling pairs of the current sources with one of the 2(n-1) current control bits and inverses of two other ones of the 2(n-1) current control bits.
US08416107B1
A calibrating Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) has an X-side array with binary-weighted capacitors that connect to an X-side line and a Y-side array connected to a Y-side line. Each array has binary-weighted capacitors from a most-significant-bit (MSB) to a least-significant-bit (LSB), but the LSB capacitor is duplicated as a termination capacitor and a middle capacitor between upper and lower groups is also duplicated as a surrogate capacitor. During calibration, lower array capacitors are switched low while the upper capacitors are driven by a thermometer-code value on both X and Y arrays. The thermometer value is inverted to the X-array but remains uninverted on the Y array. The lower array bits are tested to final a calibration value that has X and Y side voltages balanced.
US08416104B2
An entropy decoder and method for decoding code words with an indication of associated probability for each code word. The decoder may include an input buffer in communication with a branch node block, the branch node block in communication with a leaf node block. The input buffer operable to receive code words and the indication of associated probability. The branch node block comprising one or more branch node lookup tables and branch node control logic. The branch node control logic operable to process a code word in the input buffer using a selected table from the one or more branch node lookup tables to obtain leaf node information and a bit count of a code word size, the branch control logic further operable to refresh the input buffer to replace the bit count of the code word size and to make the leaf node information and the table selection available to the leaf node block. The leaf node block may include one or more leaf node lookup tables and leaf node control logic. The leaf node control logic operable to process the leaf node information and the table selection made available by the branch node block to obtain leaf node contents.
US08416097B2
A charge indicator circuit for indicating an electronic device charged by an inputted charge electric potential includes an interface unit, a switch unit connected to the interface unit; a processor unit connected to the switch unit, and an indicator unit connected to the switch unit. The charge electric potential is inputted into the charge indicator circuit from the interface unit and powers the indicator unit to emit light when the processor unit is switched off, and the processor unit detects the charge status of the electronic device and controls the switch unit according to the detect results when the processor unit is switched on.
US08416091B2
An illumination device is provided at the handle-piece of a sniffing probe, in which the illumination device illuminates the region to be inspected. This incorporation considerably facilitates handling of the sniffing probe in difficult-to-access and poorly illuminated regions, for sniffing probes used for detecting gases, for example, for detecting a gas leakage in a cooling device of a motor vehicle.
US08416090B2
A vehicle fuel tank is provided. The vehicle fuel tank includes a housing defining an interior region, a fuel level sensor coupled to the interior region, the fuel level sensor responsive to a fuel pressure, and a radio frequency identification (RFID) device electronically coupled to the fuel level sensor configured to wirelessly transmit a signal indicative of a fuel level in the fuel tank.
US08416082B2
A housing comprised of substantially arced configured first and second pieces pivotally coupled with one another to form an enclosure that defines a substantially circular-cylindrical hole for encompassing and securing an article therein. The housing includes a magnetic switch for resetting an internal alarm system of the EAS alarm tag to OFF, an interlocking sensor switch and an auxiliary sensor switch for arming the EAS alarm tag. When both the interlock sensor switch and the auxiliary sensor switch are closed, the internal alarm system of the EAS alarm tag is armed and set to ON, and if any one of the interlocking sensor switch and the auxiliary sensor switch is tampered, an alarm (external the EAS alarm tag and or) of the EAS alarm tag is triggered.
US08416062B2
An apparatus and method for improving RFID tag reading. The apparatus includes a substrate element having a predetermined active area, and a plurality of resonant elements each having a resonant frequency, a quality factor, and a response band. The resonant elements are distributed within the predetermined active area of the substrate element for scattering interrogation electromagnetic waves radiated thereupon from the RFID reader. At least one resonant element has a null-direction thereof orientated in a direction that is substantially orthogonal to a line extending from a center of the resonant element to a center of an antenna of the RFID reader.
US08416057B2
A method and system for identifying an authentication status of a first item. An RFID reader transmits zero and a random number to a first RFID tag associated with the first item. The first RFID tag uses a hashing function to compute a hash (H1) of a concatenation of an identifier (Id1) of the first RFID tag, the random number, and a first secret key and sends the hash H1 to the RFID reader which then transmits the identifier Id1 and the random number to a second RFID tag. The second RFID tag uses the hashing function to compute a hash (H2) of a concatenation of the identifier Id1, the random number, and a second secret key and sends the hash H2 to the RFID reader. The authentication status of authentic or counterfeit is determined for the first item based on whether or not H1 is equal to H2.
US08416045B2
A rare earth magnet is observed to function as a constant flux generator until coerced. To exploit this law, a Magnetic Power Converter is configured as a figure eight shaped balanced reluctance bridge where a rare earth magnet provides a source of constant flux employed as a working fluid. One side of the bridge drives an output coil and the other side is moderated by a toroid shaped control core acting as a variable reluctance shunt with respect to the magnet. Current in the control coil determines the rate and degree of flux variation across the bridge and therefore the resultant output voltage. Due to a mitigation of Lenz effect, full output loading is not reflected in the input; this property supports real power conversion efficiencies that may have wide applications in alternative energy and green energy generation.
US08416044B2
A reactor is composed of a coil and a core placed in the inside area and outer peripheral area of the coil in a container. The core is composed of magnetic powder, non-magnetic powder, and resin. The non-magnetic powder is composed of main component powder and low elastic modulus powder. The main component powder as a main component of the non-magnetic powder is made of one or more kinds of powder of a heat conductivity which is larger than that of the resin. The low elastic modulus powder is made of one or more kinds of powder of an elastic modulus which is smaller than that of the powder forming the main component powder.
US08416043B2
A multi-phase coupled inductor includes a powder core material magnetic core and first, second, third, and fourth terminals. The coupled inductor further includes a first winding at least partially embedded in the core and a second winding at least partially embedded in the core. The first winding is electrically coupled between the first and second terminals, and the second winding electrically is coupled between the third and fourth terminals. The second winding is at least partially physically separated from the first winding within the magnetic core. The multi-phase coupled inductor is, for example, used in a power supply.
US08416039B2
A solenoid arrangement for a starter motor includes a plunger configured to move in an axial direction and a coil positioned radially outward from the plunger. The coil is wound on a spool that includes a first end and a second end with a hub extending between the first end and the second end. A projection is positioned on the hub of the spool. The coil engages the projection in such a manner that a winding direction of the coil is reversed at the projection.
US08416023B2
System and method for compensating for changes in an output impedance of a power amplifier uses an impedance compensating circuit with an impedance inverter coupled to the power amplifier. The impedance inverter of the impedance compensating circuit is configured such that an output impedance of the impedance inverter is proportional to the inverse of the output impedance of the power amplifier to compensate for changes in the output impedance of the power amplifier.
US08416022B2
A power amplifier device that satisfies both delivering a high output and reducing the chip area occupied by the power amplifier device. Over a substrate, are primary inductors arranged in a generally circular geometry, a ground pattern, transistor pairs, and a secondary inductor. The ground pattern extends from a portion of a region inside the circular primary inductor into regions outside the primary inductor, and grounded at a plurality of points in the regions outside the primary inductor. The primary inductors are coupled to the ground pattern through transistors.
US08416020B1
A switching amplifying method or a switching amplifier for obtaining one or more than one linearly amplified replicas of an input signal, is highly efficient, and does not have the disadvantage of “dead time” problem related to the class D amplifiers. Said switching amplifying method comprises the steps of: receiving and pulse modulating the input signal for getting a pulse modulated signal; switching at least one switch to get a pulsed voltage from a direct current voltage according to the pulse modulated signal; keeping the energy transmission to the output signal during the switching off period of said switching via using at least one free-wheeling diode means; conducting said pulsed voltage positively or negatively to a filter according to the polarity of the input signal via a switching power transmitting unit; filtering said pulsed voltage conducted from the switching power transmitting unit for outputting the output signal by the filter.
US08416019B2
A digitally-controlled analog gain circuit supports a plurality of gain settings in which gain changes are made from a first setting to a new setting in response to a clocking signal. Large changes in gain are interpolated in small gain steps or increments. The clocking signal can be generated by an oscillator, or as a sequence of pulses output by a zero crossing detector. The gain circuit can apply positive gain to the signal. Alternatively, the gain circuit can apply a negative gain (attenuation) to the signal. The clocking signal can be provided in a pseudo-randomized manner to minimize unwanted signal effects such as discernable sound transients.
US08416018B2
A variable frequency amplifier includes a main amplifier system 4 for amplifying one of signals into which an input signal is split by a directional coupler 3 to output the amplified signal, and an injection amplifier system 9 for adjusting at least one of the amplitude and phase of the other one of the signals into which the input signal is split by the directional coupler 3 according to a setting provided thereto from outside the variable frequency amplifier, and for amplifying the other signal and injecting this amplified signal into an output side of the main amplifier system 4.
US08416015B2
A semiconductor apparatus includes: a first transistor; a second transistor having a higher withstand voltage than the first transistor, a source of the second transistor coupled to a drain of the first transistor, a gate of the second transistor coupled to a source of the first transistor; a third transistor having a higher withstand voltage than the first transistor and a drain of the third transistor coupled to a drain of the second transistor; and a comparator that compares a source voltage of the first transistor with a source voltage of the third transistor, and controls a gate voltage of the first transistor.
US08416011B2
A circuit includes a PMOS body bias circuit including a PMOS charge pump for generating a positive supply voltage, a PMOS reference voltage generator for providing a PMOS reference voltage, and a PMOS linear voltage regulator circuit for generating a PMOS body bias voltage upon receiving the positive supply voltage and the PMOS reference voltage. The circuit also includes a NMOS body bias circuit including a NMOS charge pump for generating a negative supply voltage, a NMOS reference voltage generator for providing a NMOS reference voltage, and a NMOS linear voltage regulator circuit for generating a NMOS body bias voltage upon receiving the negative supply voltage and the NMOS reference voltage. The PMOS body bias voltage and the NMOS body bias voltage drive bulk of PMOS and NMOS devices in the integrated circuit.
US08416002B2
A flip-flop circuit includes a precharge circuit that outputs a charge signal high when a received clock signal is LOW. A delay clock input circuit generates a delayed clock input controlled signal with the same value as an input signal when the clock signal is HIGH. A charge keeper circuit, upon receiving the charge signal and the delayed clock input controlled signal, generates a charge keeping signal, which equals the charged signal when the clock signal is LOW and equals the delayed clock input controlled signal when the clock signal is HIGH. A separator circuit can receive the charge keeping signal and clock signal and generate an inverted charge keeping signal. A storage circuit is configured to receive the inverted charge keeping signal, a present state signal, and inverted present state signal, and to generate a present state signal and an inverted present state signal.
US08415999B2
A method includes phase-shifting an output signal of a phase lock loop (PLL) circuit by applying an injection current to an output of a charge pump of a the PLL circuit. A circuit includes: a first phase lock loop (PLL) circuit and a second PLL circuit referenced to a same clock; a phase detector circuit that detects a phase difference between an output signal of the first PLL circuit and an output signal of the second PLL circuit; and an adjustable current source that applies an injection current to at least one of the first PLL circuit and the second PLL circuit based on an output of the phase detector circuit.
US08415992B2
An a.c. signal generator is provided with a first circuit (B1) capable of generating alternations of a first a.c. signal (S1) between a first potential (V+) formed by a first voltage source and a second potential (V−).A second circuit (B2) is capable of generating alternations of a second a.c. signal (S2), phase-shifted relative to the first signal (S1), between the first potential (V+) formed by the first voltage source and the second potential (V−).Such a generator can be used, for example, in a flight control calculator of an aircraft.
US08415986B2
A voltage-mode driver circuit supporting pre-emphasis includes multiple resistors, and multiple transistors operated as switches. Control signals operating the transistors represent a logic level of an input signal to the driver circuit. To generate a pre-emphasized output, the transistors are operated to connect a parallel arrangement of the resistors between output terminals of the driver and corresponding constant reference potentials. To generate an output in the steady-state, the transistors are operated to connect some of the resistors across the output terminals of the driver, thereby reducing the output voltage. A desired output impedance of the driver, and a desired level of pre-emphasis are obtained by appropriate selection of the resistance values of the resistors. The current consumption of the driver is less in the steady-state than in the pre-emphasis mode.
US08415983B2
A digital phase comparator is provided in which first phase difference signals and second phase difference signals are used as digital phase difference information. The first phase difference signals are generated by sampling a second clock signal with a first group of clock signals having regular intervals. The second phase difference signals are generated, using a second group of clock signals and a first group of signals which are obtained by delaying a second clock signal and a first signal generated by performing a logic operation on the first phase difference signal respectively at different regular intervals, by sampling the second group of clock signals with the first group of signals.
US08415981B2
An integrated circuit device includes at least a functional module arranged to receive a reference clock signal; a gating component configurable to perform gating of the reference clock signal; and a synchronization module. The synchronization module includes a trigger component arranged to receive a request for the functional module, the request being asynchronous with the reference clock signal, and to set an enable signal for the functional module in response to receiving the request therefor; and a synchronization component arranged to receive the enable signal, and in response to the enable signal being set to: configure the gating component to un-gate the reference clock signal; and synchronize an initial clock cycle of the reference clock signal received by the functional module following the reference clock signal being un-gated.
US08415979B2
A calibration circuit for calibrating a differential driver with a differential output port including a first output node and a second output node includes: a comparing circuit arranged to receive a first output voltage corresponding to the first output node and a second output voltage corresponding to the second output node, and generate a comparison result according to the first output voltage, the second output voltage, and a predetermined voltage; and a controlling circuit coupled to the comparing circuit, a first resistive element and a second resistive element. The controlling circuit is arranged to adjust the first resistive element and the second resistive element according to the comparison result, wherein the first resistive element is coupled between the first output node and a reference voltage, and the second resistive element is coupled between the second output node and the reference voltage.
US08415971B2
A transceiving circuit resistance calibrating method, which is applied to a transceiving circuit. The method includes: inputting a first current to a transmitter to generate a first output voltage, wherein the first current is generated according to a ratio between a predetermined voltage and an inner resistor of a chip; inputting a second current to a transmitter to generate a second output voltage, wherein the first current is generated according to a ratio between the predetermined voltage and a predetermined resistor; and adjusting a first adjustable resistance module according to a difference between the first output voltage and the second output voltage.
US08415969B1
A screening method and circuit for implementing a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF), and a design structure on which the subject circuit resides are provided. A plurality of field effect transistors (FETs) is coupled to a low-offset dynamic comparator and is respectively selected to provide a plurality of FET pairs. For each FET pair, a voltage offset to obtain a comparator output transition is identified and recorded. The recorded voltage offset for each FET pair is compared with a margin threshold value. Each FET pair having an identified voltage offset less than the margin threshold value is discarded or disabled for PUF response generation use.
US08415966B2
The embodiment is to provide a liquid crystal display device capable of detecting malfunctions. The liquid crystal display device includes pixels configured to be connected to scan lines and data lines, data pads electrically connected to the data lines, a data integrated circuit supplying data signals to the data lines through the data pads, first data transistors coupled to the data pads, and second data transistors coupled to the data lines. The first data transistors are disposed on the data integrated circuit and the second data transistors are separated from the data integrated circuit.
US08415964B2
A probe card according to the present invention includes a support plate for supporting probes that contact an object to be inspected, a circuit board, a holding member for holding a lower surface of an outer peripheral portion of the support plate, and an abutting member disposed between the lower surface of the outer peripheral portion of the support plate and the holding member and protruding upward to abut to the lower surface of the outer peripheral portion of the support plate. Accordingly, horizontal expansion of the support plate itself is allowed, and at the time of inspecting electrical characteristics of the object to be inspected, even though the temperature of the support plate is increased and the support plate expands, the support plate can expand in a horizontal direction, thereby suppressing vertical deformation of the support plate.
US08415963B2
A vertically folded probe is provided that can provide improved scrub performance in cases where the probe height is limited. More specifically, such a probe includes a base and a tip, and an arm extending from the base to the tip as a single continuous member. The probe arm is vertically folded, such that it includes three or more vertical arm portions. The vertical arm portions have substantial vertical overlap, and are laterally displaced from each other. When such a probe is vertically brought down onto a device under test, the probe deforms. During probe deformation, at least two of the vertical arm portions come into contact with each other. Such contact between the arm portions can advantageously increase the lateral scrub motion at the probe tip, and can also advantageously reduce the probe inductance.
US08415960B2
A capacitance sensing apparatus for use in a position sensing apparatus, comprising a first set of electrodes and a second set of electrodes and a capacitance sensing circuit arranged to determine, in use in a normal operating mode, the capacitance between each pairing of electrodes comprising one from the first set and one from the second set, in which the apparatus is further provided with at least one group switch arranged to selectively electrically connect together groups of the electrodes within the sets of electrodes, in which, in use in a low resolution mode of the apparatus the or each group switch connects together the groups of electrodes and the capacitance sensing circuit is arranged to determine the capacitance between the each pairing of groups of electrodes in one set and the electrodes or groups of electrodes of the other set. Typically, the apparatus is used in conjunction with a display to form a touch-sensitive display. It may be used in a position sensing apparatus for determining the proximity and position of an object to the apparatus, and is particularly applicable to use in a console of a motor vehicle of the type having the console centrally between two passenger seats.
US08415954B2
There is provided an apparatus that calculates a polarization voltage of a secondary battery. A temperature sensor detects a temperature of the secondary battery; a voltage sensor detects a voltage of the secondary battery; and a current sensor detects an electric current of the secondary battery. A battery ECU calculates a polarization voltage based on the electric current and adaptively sets an upper limit value and a lower limit value of the polarization voltage according to a temperature characteristic of the secondary battery. The calculated polarization voltage is compared with an upper limit value and a lower limit value, whereby the polarization voltage is corrected. An SOC is estimated based on the corrected polarization voltage.
US08415949B2
In a device and a method to determine the position of at least one local coil for a magnetic resonance tomography apparatus, the field strength of a magnetic field is measured at multiple locations with at least one magnetic field strength sensor, and the position of the local coil (6) is determined based on the field strength measured at multiple locations.
US08415947B2
An apparatus for the nondestructive measurement of materials that includes at least two layers of electrical conductors. Within each layer, a meandering primary winding is used to create a magnetic field for interrogating a test material while sense elements or conducting loops within each meander provide a directional measurement of the test material condition. In successive layers extended portions of the meanders are rotated so that the sense elements provide material condition in different orientations without requiring movement of the test circuit or apparatus. Multidirectional permeability measurements are used to assess the stress or torque on a component. These measurements are combined in a manner that removes temperature effects and hysteresis on the property measurements. This can be accomplished through a correction factor that accounts for the temperature dependence.
US08415945B2
A sheet coil type resolver includes: a stator section in which a stator transformer coil composed of first and second stator transformer coil layers is disposed to axially overlap with a resolver stator coil composed of first and second resolver stator coil layers; and a rotor section in which a rotor transformer coil composed of first and second rotor transformer coil layers is disposed to axially overlap with a resolver rotor coil composed of first and second resolver rotor coil layers, whereby the axial dimension is reduced, lead wires can be easily led out from the coils, and high reliability is achieved.
US08415938B2
The invention provides a technique to widely spread the frequency spectrum of switching noise generated by a switching action and to reduce the noise level at a particular frequency. A switching regulator (6A) includes a computing unit with computing function. First, in the computing unit, a pulse-width-modulation processing unit (PWM) (2a) performs pulse-width-modulation processing of receiving a feedback signal corresponding to the output of a detector 1 to determine an on-duty cycle of a pulse signal. Subsequently, for the signal and data obtained by the PWM (2a) to be subjected to further modulation processing for spectrum spreading, a branching processing is performed by making changing-over unit (2d) randomly select asynchronous-modulation processing unit (ASM) (2e) or pulse-position-modulation processing unit (PPM). When the PPM is selected, another branching processing is performed by making the changing-over unit (2d) select a first PPM (2f) or a second PPM (2g) depending on the on-duty cycle.
US08415937B2
Traditionally, buck-boost switching regulators with bridge topologies have been avoided due to their inability to seamlessly transition between buck mode and boost mode. Here, however, a buck-boost switching regulator with a bridge topology has been provided, which has an improved controller. Namely, a processor (such as a digital signals processor or DSP) provides digital control for the bridge to enable it so substantially seamlessly transition between buck mode and boost mode.
US08415934B2
The present invention relates to an automatic voltage regulator, and more specifically, to an automatic voltage regulator capable of precisely controlling the output voltage level by using a toroidal autotransformer. The present invention has precise voltage control to enable the output of the voltage level desired by the user, and precisely carries out a variety of applications of power saving and voltage booster. In particular, the present invention can boost/reduce the input voltage to provide a desired target voltage within an error range of 1 volt or less. The present invention also comprises a simple relay switching circuit and excludes semiconductor switching devices, thereby being capable of operating adaptively in different system environments without an additional modification.
US08415932B2
A switching control circuit includes an N-channel MOSFET having an input electrode applied with an input voltage and an output electrode connected to one end of an inductor and one end of a rectifying element. The other end of the inductor is connected to a first capacitor. A bootstrap circuit is configured to generate a bootstrap voltage on a second capacitor having one end connected to the output electrode of the N-channel MOSFET. The bootstrap voltage is required when the N-channel MOSFET is turned on. A driving circuit is configured to be applied with a driving voltage corresponding to the bootstrap voltage and turn on/off the N-channel MOSFET to generate an output voltage of a target level on the first capacitor. A clamping circuit is configured to clamp the driving voltage to be at a predetermined level or lower.
US08415906B2
When the output of motor reaches or exceeds a predetermined value during acceleration of the motor, the control target value of the DC link voltage which is the voltage of a power storage device is gradually lowered in corresponding relationship to the motor output. When the motor enters a constant speed control mode, the DC link control target value is maintained at a constant level. When the motor enters a deceleration control mode, the DC link control target value is gradually raised in corresponding relationship to the motor output, and regenerative power is recovered by the power storage device and reused in the next control cycle.
US08415902B2
A door closer with an automated calibration mode is disclosed. The door closer that can be self powered and includes a control unit to intelligently control a valve within the door closer to vary the operating characteristics of the door closer as needed. The control unit includes a calibration mode that can be invoked to match the control unit to the mechanical door closer assembly. A plurality of positional values being output encoders coupled to an arm of the door closer and the motor for the valve can be determined. The positional values from the encoders and the positions that they indicate can then be stored in a memory within the controller for use during normal operation of the door closer.
US08415895B2
A lamp with a base (1) and at least one light emitting semiconductor component (2) is disclosed. The base has at least two external electrical connections (11, 12) and at least two electrical connection parts (13, 14). The electrical connection parts are provided for electrically connecting the light emitting semiconductor component and are respectively connected to one of the external electrical connections in an electrically conducting manner. The light emitting semiconductor component is mounted on a carrier (3) and is electrically connected to at least two electrical contacting elements (31, 32), which are arranged and/or fixed on the carrier. Each of the electrical contacting elements is directly adjacent to one of the electrical connection parts and connected to it in an electrically conducting manner.
US08415891B2
The present invention relates to a lamp ballast circuit and a driving method. The lamp ballast circuit includes a voltage detector for detecting the level of a first voltage corresponding to an input voltage, a controller including an oscillator for changing the oscillation frequency according to the level of the first voltage, and an output unit for changing the frequency of the output voltage in correspondence to the oscillation frequency. Therefore, a lamp ballast circuit having less power consumption and that is operable by a lesser input current with less THD and a driving method thereof are realized.
US08415884B2
A surface wave plasma (SWP) source is described. The SWP source comprises an electromagnetic (EM) wave launcher configured to couple EM energy in a desired EM wave mode to a plasma by generating a surface wave on a plasma surface of the EM wave launcher adjacent the plasma. The EM wave launcher comprises a slot antenna having a plurality of slots. The SWP source further comprises a first recess configuration formed in the plasma surface, wherein the first recess configuration is substantially aligned with a first arrangement of slots in the plurality of slots, and a second recess configuration formed in the plasma surface, wherein the second recess configuration is either partly aligned with a second arrangement of slots in the plurality of slots or not aligned with the second arrangement of slots in the plurality of slots. A power coupling system is coupled to the EM wave launcher and configured to provide the EM energy to the EM wave launcher for forming the plasma.
US08415882B2
An organic light emitting diode (OLED) display is disclosed. In one embodiment, the display includes i) a substrate, ii) a driving circuit formed on the substrate, iii) an organic light emitting diode formed on the substrate and electrically connected to the driving circuit, iv) an encapsulation thin film formed on the driving circuit and organic light emitting diode and v) a spacer formed on the substrate and surrounding the encapsulation thin film.
US08415878B2
It is an object to provide a light-emitting element which can reduce power consumption. A light-emitting element is provided, which includes a pair of electrodes and a light-emitting layer interposed between the pair of electrodes. The light-emitting layer includes at least a first layer and a second layer, each of the first layer and the second layer includes an emission center and a host material, the emission center is dispersed in the host material, a thickness of each of the first layer and the second layer is 1 nm or more and 10 nm or less, and the first layer is not in contact with the second layer.
US08415870B2
The semiconductor light emitting device of the present invention emits a blue light component, a green light component, and a red light component. The blue light component is a light component emitted by a first solid light emitting element that emits light having an emission peak in a wavelength range of 430 nm to less than 490 nm, the green light component is light emitted by a second solid light emitting element that emits light having an emission peak in a wavelength range of 360 nm to less than 420 nm that is converted into wavelength-converted light by a green phosphor, and the red light component is light emitted by at least one solid light emitting element selected from the first solid light emitting element and the second solid light emitting element that is converted into wavelength-converted light by a red phosphor. The green phosphor emits green light on the basis of an electronic energy transition of Mn2+.
US08415869B1
A fluorescent lamp includes a glass envelope that is light transmitting. There is means for providing a discharge inside the envelope. A discharge-sustaining fill of mercury and an inert gas is sealed inside the envelope. An underlying phosphor-containing layer is disposed inside the envelope. The underlying layer includes yttrium vanadate phosphor. A protective phosphor-containing layer is disposed over the underlying layer at a location that is more distal from the glass than the underlying layer.
US08415861B2
A wave power generator comprises a transmitting module and a piezoelectric generator, the transmitting module comprises a raft, a transmission member and a coupling member, the raft has a surface, and the transmission member is disposed at the first surface. The piezoelectric generator has a case and at least one piezoelectric module. The transmitting member has a vibrating portion. The coupling member comprises a rotating wheel and a crank rod, the rotating wheel is driven by the vibrating portion, and the crank rod is driven by the rotating wheel. The case comprises a second surface and at least one accommodating slot recessed into the second surface. The piezoelectric module is disposed into the accommodating slot and comprises at least one frame body, a moving member and a plurality of piezoelectric portions. The moving member is penetrated into the frame body and moved back and forth in the frame body.
US08415857B2
An insert member is placed on one end surface of an armature on one axial side. A rotatable shaft member is integrally molded into one piece from a resin material and includes a shaft portion, a flange portion and a boss portion. The shaft portion axially extends through the armature and the insert member. The flange portion supports the other end surface of the armature on the other axial side. The armature and the insert member are fitted to the boss portion. The urging member is axially placed between a bottom portion of a motor housing and the insert member and axially urges the armature against the flange portion.
US08415854B2
A stator core for a stator of an electrical machine includes an elongate stator yoke having an interior surface that defines an axial central opening through the stator yoke. The interior surface further defines a plurality of axial channels about a perimeter of the central opening. A plurality of stator teeth are retained in the plurality of axial channels and spaced apart from one another to define to define axial channels to receive windings of the stator.
US08415839B2
Apparatus, methods, and other embodiments associated with mitigation of magnetic fields are described herein. In an embodiment, a method for mitigating an electromagnetic field includes positioning a mitigating coil around a linear alternator of linear motor so that the mitigating coil is coaxially located with an alternator coil; arranging the mitigating coil to generate a field to mitigate an electromagnetic field generated by the alternator coil; and passing an induced current from the alternator coil through the mitigating coil.
US08415837B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide cross-coupled rectifiers that use near zero-threshold transistors in a switching topology, but provide a topology that avoids reverse conduction problems. Importantly, preferred embodiment rectifiers of the invention only provide a slightly increased on-resistance in each branch, while providing both very high operating efficiency and very low turn-on voltage. An embodiment of the invention is a voltage rectifier for the conversion of RF energy into DC voltage with a turn-on threshold voltages approaching 0V.
US08415833B2
Embodiments of the invention disclose a method and a system configured to exchange energy wirelessly, comprising a structure configured to exchange the energy wirelessly via a coupling of evanescent waves, wherein the structure is electromagnetic (EM) and non-radiative, and wherein the structure generates an EM near-field in response to receiving the energy; and a controller configured to tune up the structure such that the near-field is generated according a particular energy distribution pattern.
US08415826B2
A power outlet apparatus with multiple sockets detection, and the detection method and module thereof are disclosed. The apparatus includes a plurality of socket groups, a plurality of current detection unit, a voltage detection unit, a processing unit, and an output unit. In which the current detection units are installed at the socket groups respectively, for detecting a current data corresponding to each socket group. And the voltage detection unit is for measuring a voltage data of the socket groups. The voltage data and the current data are processed by a processing unit for obtaining an electricity information of each socket group.
US08415820B2
The present invention is a wind dam and vertical turbine system set on a ground surface that captures and directs wind to generate electricity. The system has a wind dam portion with a front opening, an airfoil above the front opening and a vertical turbine portion with a housing disposed on the dam portion's back side with a turbine slide door and actuator. There are also front outriggers with front wheels that are horizontally aligned to the front opening and back outriggers with drive wheels that are horizontally and movably aligned to each end of the back side of the dam portion. There is also a power drive assembly for the vertical turbine and exhaust doors and actuators to expel excessive wind.
US08415819B2
An energy-harvesting buoy is provided comprising an air-pressure generator, such as a piezo-electric generator, or any other generator that can harvest energy from an air pressure. The energy harvesting buoy consists of a first float and a second float. An air pressure is created when relative vertical motion occurs between the first float and the second float which drives an air pressurization means such as a piston driven air pump using a linkage member pivotably mounted between the respective floats. The generator uses the air pressure from the air pressurization means to drive the generator to generate electrical power.
US08415817B2
A wind turbine including a rotor mechanically coupled with a wind turbine generator for transforming mechanical power into electrical power, the generator including a generator output for putting out the electrical power, a wind farm output node being adapted to be electrically coupled with a utility grid, a converter including at least one electric motor with a stator and a rotor and a converter generator with a stator and a rotor the stator of the motor being electrically coupled with the generator output and the stator of the converter generator being electrically coupled with the wind farm output node and the rotor of the motor and the rotor of the converter generator being mechanically coupled with each other.
US08415816B2
Provided is a vehicle AC generator for improving working efficiency in assembly, allowing a reduction in the number of components, and the like. The vehicle AC generator includes: a rectifier for rectifying an AC generated by a stator coil into a DC; and a regulator for regulating an AC voltage generated by the stator coil, in which: the regulator includes: a regulator holder; a regulator main body provided inside the regulator holder, the regulator main body being for regulating the AC voltage; a capacitor provided inside the regulator holder, the capacitor being for absorbing a noise generated when the AC is rectified into the DC by the rectifier; and an insulating resin material filling the regulator holder so as to fix the regulator main body and the capacitor.
US08415815B2
A system for utilizing waste heat from a vehicle has a Rankine circuit, and the Rankine circuit includes a fluid machine. A generating unit of the fluid machine has a third rotating body that is disposed coaxially with a first rotating body of a pump unit and a second rotating body of an expansion unit. The fluid machine has a drive shaft that is integrally connected at least to the first rotating body, among the first, second and third rotating bodies, and a power transmission unit that is connected to the drive shaft and transmits external power to the drive shaft.
US08415812B2
The present invention provides polyimide polymer materials for passivating semiconductor wafers and methods for fabricating thereof. The present invention further provides a device that includes a semiconductor wafer and a passivating layer disposed on the surface of the wafer, wherein the passivating layer comprises such polyimide polymers.
US08415807B2
The present invention relates to a semiconductor structure and a method for making the same. The method includes the following steps: (a) providing a first wafer and a second wafer; (b) disposing the first wafer on the second wafer; (c) removing part of the first wafer, so as to form a groove; (d) forming a through via in the groove; and (e) forming at least one electrical connecting element on the first wafer. Therefore, the wafers are penetrated and electrically connected by forming only one conductive via, which leads to a simplified process and a low manufacturing cost.
US08415799B2
A semiconductor device. A diffusion barrier layer overlies a substrate. An adhesion promoting layer overlies the diffusion barrier layer. A first dielectric layer between the diffusion barrier layer and the adhesion promoting layer comprises at least one via opening through the diffusion barrier layer and the adhesion promoting layer. A second dielectric layer overlies the adhesion promoting layer, comprising a trench opening above the via opening. A metal interconnect fills the via and trench openings.
US08415794B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor element having a plurality of element electrodes formed thereon, a circuit board having board electrodes respectively corresponding to the element electrodes formed thereon and having the semiconductor element mounted thereon, and bumps each of which is provided on at least one of the element electrode and the board electrode, and connects together the element electrode and the board electrode corresponding to each other when the semiconductor element is mounted on the circuit board. Furthermore, at least one of a dielectric layer and a resistive layer is provided between at least one of the bumps and the element or board electrode on which the at least one of the bumps is provided, so that the element or board electrode, the dielectric layer or the resistive layer, and the bump form a parallel-plate capacitor or electrical resistance.
US08415791B2
A semiconductor device includes a support plate having a hole formed therein and a conductor formed on a wall surface of the hole, a semiconductor element; and a conductive post formed by a conductor having a first end portion at one end, and a second end portion at an other end. The second end portion of the conductive post is connected to the semiconductor element, and a side surface of the conductive post is fixed to the conductor on the wall surface of the hole deformed by pressing force of the conductive post on a side closer to the first end portion than the second end portion.
US08415782B2
The present invention relates to a chip card and a method for the production of a chip card having a chip (21) which is arranged in a card body, and having a plurality of components (18, 19, 22) being electrically conductively connected to the chip by means of a conductor arrangement (20), wherein the card body is composed of a plurality of substrate layers (11, 12, 13) which are arranged in a layer structure, wherein the components and the conductor arrangement are arranged in different substrate layers, specifically a component layer arrangement and a connecting layer arrangement, and have contact surfaces (23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34), which are disposed so as to overlap one another, for producing an electrically conductive contacting.
US08415781B2
An electronic component including a wiring board having a power-source pattern and a signal pattern, a semiconductor element mounted on the wiring board and having a power-source electrode pad and a signal electrode pad, a first connection portion being made of a conductive material and connecting the signal pattern of the wiring board and the signal electrode pad of the semiconductor element, and a second connection portion being made of a conductive material and connecting the power-source pattern of the wiring board and the power-source electrode pad of the semiconductor element. The conductive material of the first connection portion and the conductive material of the second connection portion are selected such that the conductive material of the second connection portion has an electrical resistance which is lower than an electrical resistance of the conductive material of the first connection portion.
