US08434719B2
A leading edge element, a method for manufacturing one, and an aircraft wing and stabilizer furnished with the leading edge element. The leading edge element is an elongate piece that comprises a skin plate and at least one longitudinal stiffener. The shape of the front edge of the skin plate is closed and the tail edge is open. The stiffener is fastened between the inner surfaces of the skin plate. Between the inner surface of the skin plate of the outermost longitudinal stiffener, there is a longitudinal space free of transverse stiffeners.
US08434704B2
A method and apparatus of producing inorganic semiconducting nanoparticles having a stable surface includes providing an inorganic bulk semiconductor material milled in the presence of a selected reducing agent. The reducing agent acts to chemically reduce oxides of the semiconductor material, or prevent the formation of such oxides to provide semiconducting nanoparticles having a stable surface, allowing electrical contact between the nanoparticles. The milling media and/or one or more components of the mill include the selected reducing agent. The milling media or mill are typically composed of a metal selected from the group comprising iron, chromium, cobalt, nickel, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, and aluminum, or an alloy containing one or more of these metals. Alternatively, the selected reducing agent includes a liquid contained in the mill during milling, which is typically an acidic solution containing any of hydrochloric, sulphuric, nitric, acetic, formic, or carbonic acid, or a mixture thereof.
US08434702B2
An electrostatic coating system includes a coating robot (1) and an electrostatic atomizer (6) attached to a polyarticular wrist portion (5) of the robot (1). The atomizer (6) includes an end plate (45), metallic connector (50) fixed to the end plate (45) in electric conduction, high voltage generator (20) and bell head (18). Electric power is supplied to the high voltage generator (20) through the connector (50). Wires (53) are connected to the connector (50) to take out high voltage leak caused by contamination like a deposition of paint on outer surfaces of the atomizer (6) through the wires 53 to control the high voltage generator (20) to lower the value of the high voltage applied to the bell head (18) of high voltage leak detected through the wires (53) is larger than a predetermined threshold value.
US08434695B2
A rotary sprinkler including a body member (A) having a water inlet nozzle (4) with a top end and a bottom end, a pressurized water connector (8) communicating with the bottom end of the water inlet nozzle, a ring (14) attached in spaced-apart relationship from the top end of the nozzle, and a rotor member (B) having at one end an opening (30) for receiving water from the inlet nozzle and directing it to a water distributing groove, and at its opposite end, an axle (36). The rotary sprinkler also includes a rotor axle seat member (c) engageable and disengageable with the rotor's axle and with the ring facilitating, upon disengagement of the seat member from the ring, axial retrieval of the rotor member through the ring.
US08434691B2
A thermostatic valve control structure mainly has an axial movement element movable axially to control opening size of a hot water inlet and a cold water inlet. The axial movement element has a ceramic layer which has a smooth surface to reduce friction with a sealing ring. The ceramic layer provides advantages of resisting acid and alkali, less likely to accumulate water dregs, simpler structure and longer life span. Thus the total life span and durability of the thermostatic valve control structure can be enhanced.
US08434683B2
Embodiments related to methods and systems for determining support for a memory card, where the memory card is accessible to a card reader and the card reader is in communication with an accessing device. One embodiment comprises transmitting a first test command to the memory card, receiving a response to the first test command, and determining that the response to the first test command indicates that a card type is not supported by a plurality of card drivers. In response to said determining, at least one additional test command specific to a card type supported by a selected card driver is automatically transmitted, and if the response is successful, the selected card driver, which was previously determined not to support the card type of the memory card, is indicated to support the card type of the memory card.
US08434679B2
The personalisation machine for smart cards (5) comprises an administration computer system (1) connected via at least one data personalisation transmission element (2, 200) to a turning device (3) equipped with routing means of personalisation data to locations (32) of a plurality of card locations (5). Said transmission element (2, 200) is of wired type and has a maximal data transmission capacity greater than 100 MBps (megabytes per second). To ensure a substantial processing rate with a compact machine, it is provided with:—means (4) for driving in rotation of bi-directional type for turning the device (3) around an axis (23) of rotation, said system (1) remaining fixed;—a control module (40) regularly inverting the direction of rotation of the turning device. Stops are provided for preventing rotation of the device (3) beyond one turn.
US08434671B1
A manufacturing method of a forged golf club head has acts of: providing pre-forged strike element and the pre-forged hosel made with different materials, welding the hosel on a connecting end of the strike element, and press-forging the blank to form a main component of the golf club head. The main component of the golf club head may accomplish the golf club head. Otherwise, a pre-forged secondary component is welded on a back part of the strike face of the main component to accomplish the golf club head. The strike element and the hosel made of different materials are directly secured to each other to precisely form a predetermined, shape so that the following surface treating steps and the manufacturing time are reduced and the quality of the golf club head is enhanced.
US08434667B2
A flux composition is provided, comprising, as initial components: a carboxylic acid; and, a polyamine fluxing agent represented by formula I: with the proviso that when the polyamine fluxing agent represented by formula I is according to formula Ia: then zero to three of R1, R2, R3 and R4 is(are) a hydrogen. Also provided is a method of soldering an electrical contact using the flux composition.
US08434666B2
A flux composition is provided, comprising, as an initial component: a carboxylic acid; and, a fluxing agent represented by formula I: wherein R1, R2, R3 and R4 are independently selected from a hydrogen, a substituted C1-80 alkyl group, an unsubstituted C1-80 alkyl group, a substituted C7-80 arylalkyl group and an unsubstituted C7-80 arylalkyl group; and wherein zero to three of R1, R2, R3 and R4 is(are) a hydrogen. Also provided is a method of soldering an electrical contact using the flux composition.
US08434662B2
A method of welding that realizes enhancements of airtightness and watertightness at a weld area and a method of welding and method of friction stir welding that attain an enhancement of welding operation efficiency/speed. There is provided a method of welding including the first primary welding step of carrying out a friction stir welding on the abutting portion (J1) of metal members (1,1) from the surface (12) side of metal member (1) and the second primary welding step of carrying out a friction stir welding on the abutting portion (J1) from the reverse face (13) side of the member (1), wherein in the second primary welding step, the friction stir welding is performed while penetrating a stirring pin (B2) of rotation tool (B) in plasticized region (W1) formed in the first primary welding step.
US08434661B2
A friction stir welding tool and process for lap welding dissimilar materials are detailed. The invention includes a cutter scribe that penetrates and extrudes a first material of a lap weld stack to a preselected depth and further cuts a second material to provide a beneficial geometry defined by a plurality of mechanically interlocking features. The tool backfills the interlocking features generating a lap weld across the length of the interface between the dissimilar materials that enhances the shear strength of the lap weld.
US08434652B2
A cap for overfitting a nozzle having an elongate nozzle body; the cap having an elongate cap body with a longitudinal axis, and an outside surface and an inside surface. The cap body has closed end and an open end, with an at least one sidewall. A housing of the cap has an open end. The cap is for receiving and overfitting the nozzle body of the nozzle. The cap has three elongate spaced apart wing portions each having a wing profile each forming part of the outside surface of the cap. Each wing runs from the mouth of the cap to the closed end thereof, and each contiguous with the next so that an exterior face of one wing portion together with an exterior face of an adjacent wing portion form one continuous concave surface between each wing portion and the adjacent one. The cap has a part-helical, or skewed profile, which gives a visual indication of the direction of removal of the cap from the nozzle. A nozzle has matching depressions, which come into register with the concave surfaces of the cap. The assembly of cap over nozzle is suitable as a closure for a container holding curable product such as adhesive. A locking ring may be provided on the tube for locking a nozzle to the tube.
US08434651B2
A pouring member includes an unsealing cap and at least two rotation prevention sections extending vertically and downwardly from an end surface of an open end side of the unsealing cap and is arranged such that the at least two rotation prevention sections are apart from one another by an angle which is larger than a rotation angle required for twisting off the sealing part, and symmetrically with respect to the central axis of the unsealing cap. A recess is formed such that the recess opens to a front end side of the rotation prevention section, and an engagement projection engages the recess in a direction substantially parallel with a direction in which the rotation prevention sections are extended vertically and downwardly, and is formed at a specific position of the flange part of the pouring member.
US08434644B1
The present invention is directed to a two-handed tube squeezer for facilitating the expulsion of material from a collapsible container. In one embodiment, the tube squeezer includes a pair of frames that each has a handle portion and a tube engagement portion that supports a roller. The frames are connected by a hinge. When the frames are substantially parallel to one another, the handle and tube engagement portions all lie in a low profile plane. The handle portions also form a handle that is separated from the tube engagement portions. When a user is holding the handle with one hand and causing the rollers to squeeze a tube with the other hand, the hand that is holding the handle is separated from the tube engagement portions such that the squeezed portion of the tube is unlikely to come in contact with the hand that is gripping the handle.
US08434636B2
A culturing container is disclosed having a container base and a container cover with plural vent openings. Plural filter retaining frames are affixed surrounding the vent openings to accommodate filter retention across the vent openings thereby establishing plural integral filter vents in the container cover. Multi-ridge outer peripheries of the container base and the container cover are engageable to provide substantially air-tight container sealing.
US08434630B2
A method of assembling a merchandising system includes providing a retail display fixture including first and second ends each supporting the retail display fixture on a floor. The method further includes providing a display fixture accessory releasably secured to the retail display fixture and coupling an accessory sheath to the retail display fixture. The accessory sheath includes two substantially planar panels extending substantially parallel to one another and defining a cavity between the two substantially planar panels, a top panel extending between and coupled to each of the two substantially planar panels, and an open bottom providing access to the cavity. Coupling the accessory sheath to the retail display fixture includes sliding the accessory sheath over the display fixture accessory to substantially enclose the display fixture accessory within the cavity such that the accessory sheath substantially covers an entirety of two opposite sides of the display fixture accessory.
US08434629B2
A track assembly for a shelving system is disclosed that includes at least two tracks. The tracks are configured to slide relative to each other in an overlapping manner. Each track has one or more fastener holes along a longitudinal length of the track and one or more portions protruding outwardly from the track. The one or more protruding portions defining one or more recessed portions on an opposite side of the track, such that at least one protruding portion of one track is configured to be slidably engageable within at least one recessed portion of the other track when the corresponding overlapping fastener holes are aligned. The slidable engagement of the one or more protruding portions of one track within the one or more recessed portions of the other track may thus indicate that the tracks have been slidably positioned relative to each other with their overlapping fastener holes aligned.
US08434623B2
The present invention relates to a process for separating at least one first material from a mixture comprising this at least one first material and at least one second material, which comprises the following steps: (A) contacting of the mixture comprising the at least one first material and at least one second material with at least one selective hydrophobicizing agent in the presence of a suspension medium so that an adduct is formed from the at least one hydrophobicizing agent and the at least one first material but not with the at least one second material, (B) contacting of the adduct from step (A) with at least one magnetic particle which is functionalized on the surface with at least one polymeric compound having a transition temperature LCST (lower critical solution temperature) at a temperature at which the polymeric compound has hydrophobic character so that the adduct from step (A) and the at least one functionalized magnetic particle agglomerate, (C) if appropriate addition of further suspension medium to the mixture obtained in step (B), (D) separation of the agglomerate present in the suspension from step (B) or (C) from the suspension by application of a magnetic field, (E) dissociation of the agglomerate separated off in step (D) by setting of a temperature at which the polymeric compound has hydrophilic character in order to obtain the at least one first material.
US08434621B2
A wiper blade packing case including a plate-type lower panel; a plate-type upper panel; and a pair of covers, each of which has an elliptical cross-sectional surface corresponding to the cross-sectional surface of the receiving portion, and each of which is bent and extends from each of the shorter sides of the upper panel to close openings formed at both sides of the receiving portion.
US08434613B2
The invention provides a chain conveyor system capable of avoiding damages and vibration noise by securely attracting and retaining metallic magnetic articles in inclined conveyor lines or slippery wet conveyor lines and of providing ready transfer or relay of the articles to other conveyors or equipment also in a conveyor terminal carry-out area. The chain conveyor system comprises a conveyor chain having article-attracting magnet pieces for attracting and retaining articles on loading surfaces thereof and an article-separating device that is disposed coaxially with a sprocket wrapped by and engaging with the conveyor chain and has article-separating magnet pieces that cut the attraction of the article-attracting magnet pieces with the articles on an outer circumferential parts of a free roller.
US08434612B2
The postal sorting machine has sorting outlets in which mailpieces are accumulated, said sorting outlets being disposed in line along a certain longitudinal axis. It further includes a recirculation device for recirculating the mailpieces stored in the sorting outlets, this device comprising a belt (40) mounted to move along the sorting outlets and to which cleats (41, 42) are fastened to define a succession of compartments (4a, 4b, 4c) that face respective ones of the sorting outlets, each compartment being arranged to store, on edge, mailpieces taken from a corresponding sorting outlet.
US08434610B2
A loading head for use with food articles has a main conveyor adapted to convey a plurality of food articles, an indexing conveyor positioned beneath the main conveyor, and a transfer member positioned between the main conveyor and the indexing conveyor. The transfer member is adapted to transfer each food article from the main conveyor to the indexing conveyor. A buffering mechanism is adapted to move the transfer member between a first position and a variable second position. A pusher mechanism is associated with the indexing conveyor to raise and lower gates from an open position permitting food article transfer to a closed position prohibiting food article transfer. The pusher mechanism includes a cam operably associated with the gates to open and close the gates.
US08434608B2
A centrifugal clutch (1) has a clutch drum (2) and at least one centrifugal weight (6). The centrifugal weight (6) is arranged on a carrier (5) and is radially displaceable referred to the rotational axis (8) of the centrifugal clutch (1). At least one holder (7, 27) holds the centrifugal weight (6) in at least one axial direction of the rotational axis (8) on the carrier (5). The holder (7, 27) includes at least one guide surface (14, 34) with which the holder is guided in radial direction to the rotational axis (8). The guide surface (14, 34) extends parallelly and radially to the rotational axis (8) of the centrifugal clutch (1). The guide surface (14, 34) is configured in a planar region of the holder (7, 27) in order to obtain a long service life of the centrifugal clutch (1).
US08434602B2
A torque transfer device in the drive train of a motor vehicle for transferring torque between a drive unit and a shaft rotatable about a rotation axis, including: a hydrodynamic torque converter, which includes a converter cover, connectable to the drive unit, and which can be coupled through a pump shell to a turbine shell for torque transfer, which can be bridged by a torque converter lockup clutch for torque transfer, which comprises a piston, movable in an axial direction within a range towards the cover in order to clamp a friction liner support with at least one friction liner between the piston and the cover for torque transfer. A friction ring is disposed between the piston and the friction liner support, and the friction ring is movable in an axial direction within a range between the piston and the friction liner support and connected to the converter cover.
US08434601B2
A carrying case for an electronic device includes a main compartment receiving the electronic device and having an opening as an entrance, a cover foldably fixed on the main compartment for covering the opening, a first supporting member positioned on the cover and a second supporting member positioned on the cover and spaced from the first supporting member, a first engaging member and a first fixing member. The first supporting member and the second supporting member are capable of forming a V-shaped ridge structure when the cover is partially elevated above the main compartment and supporting the electronic device. The first engaging member is fixed on the first fixing member to maintain the V-shaped ridge structure.
US08434600B2
Damping device for damping motion of movable furniture parts. A piston mounted in housing in longitudinally displaceable manner which, due lo displacement, forms two variable-size working chambers on opposite sides with damping medium. Via overflow-connection, throttled transfer of damping medium is possible between two working chambers. Piston plunger, fed selectively, is connected on one side of pislon. Via the outer end of piston plunger, the motion of the furniture part to be damped is transferred to the piston. On side of piston, an elongated adjustment shaft is connected to the piston plunger. Free end of plunger is fed in sealed manner out of front face lying opposite front face that is sealed on the piston plunger side. The end of adjustment shaft engages with a passage duct connecting two working chambers and forms a variable-sized throttle cross section in the passage duct, making adjusting motion of shaft relative to piston.
US08434595B2
A valve body cover of an automatic transmission, may include a cover plate having a hole, an oil level plug having a cap detachably mounted onto the cover plate from the outside of the cover plate and an insertion extended from the cap and selectively inserted into the hole of the cover plate, and rotational pressing members formed in the insertion of the oil level plug and the cover plate respectively to press the cap against the cover plate while the insertion of the oil level plug inserted in the hole is rotated relatively with respect to the cover plate.
US08434592B1
A mobile tower drive system for efficiently attaching a removable drive system to a scaffolding unit and driving the scaffolding unit from the work platform. The mobile tower drive system generally includes a lower unit adapted to be secured to a lower end of a scaffolding unit, wherein the lower unit has a wheel to operably engage a floor surface and move between an engaged and disengaged position. The lower unit removably attaches to an upper unit, wherein the upper unit is secured relative the upper frame of the scaffolding unit. Both, the lower unit and the upper unit employ coaxial drives for turning and driving the wheel. The coaxial drive also is used to brake the wheel. The coaxial drives are generally controlled via manually operable rotational control levers; however automated power sources may be utilized. Also disclosed are swivel locks for the caster wheels of the scaffolding unit.
US08434590B2
The present invention relates to a muffler (8) for an exhaust system (6) of a combustion engine (1), more preferably of a motor vehicle, with a housing (14) comprising at least one exhaust gas inlet (18) and at least one exhaust gas outlet (19), with a pipe arrangement (20) for conducting exhaust gas arranged in the housing (14), which comprises at least one pipe section (21) running within the housing (14), and with a hollow space (22) formed in the housing (14), which is present in addition to the pipe arrangement (20) and is connected to said pipe arrangement at least for the airborne sound transmission.
US08434587B2
A purpose is to provide a tubular body soundproof cover and a covered tubular body, for which elastic deformation of the tubular body is unlikely to be inhibited. The tubular body soundproof cover includes a sound absorbing layer arranged on outside in an axially perpendicular direction of a tubular body having tubular body side curved sections; a skin layer arranged on outside in the axially perpendicular direction of the sound absorbing layer; and cover side curved sections arranged on outside in the axially perpendicular direction of the tubular body side curved sections, including at least a portion of the sound absorbing layer and at least a portion of the skin layer. The cover side curved sections have non-adherent sections in which the sound absorbing layer and the skin layer are not bonded over the entire circumferential length.
US08434584B2
The invention relates to an electric machine (1) comprising: —a rotor (4) having 14 rotor poles (8) which is arranged rotatably about a central axis and—a stator (2) having 12 stator teeth (3) which project in a radial direction relative to the central axis from the stator (2) in the direction of the rotor (4), characterized in that each of the stator teeth (3) is surrounded by a stator coil (9) which surrounds only one of the stator teeth.
US08434573B2
In one aspect of the invention, a tool has a working portion with at least one impact tip brazed to a carbide extension. The carbide extension has a cavity formed in a base end and is adapted to interlock with a shank assembly of the cutting element assembly. The shank assembly has a locking mechanism adapted to interlock a first end of the shank assembly within the cavity. The locking mechanism has a radially extending catch formed in the first end of the shank assembly. The shank assembly has an outer surface at a second end of the shank assembly adapted to be press-fitted within a recess of a driving mechanism. The outer surface of the shank assembly has a coefficient of thermal expansion of 110 percent or more than a coefficient of thermal expansion of a material of the driving mechanism.
US08434572B2
Cutting elements for downhole cutting tools comprise a top surface having a cutting surface portion and a cutting profile asymmetrically disposed across the top surface. The cutting elements comprise first and second longitudinal side surfaces and first and second lateral side surfaces, each having a respective cross-section. The cross-section of one of the longitudinal side surfaces can have one beveled portion and the cross-sections of the other longitudinal side surface and the first and second lateral side surfaces can have two beveled portions. A cutting end of a downhole cutting tool comprises two cutting elements disposed facing each another with a portion of the cutting surface portion of a first cutting element being disposed opposite the cutting profile of the second cutting element and the cutting surface portion of the second cutting element being disposed opposite the cutting profile of the first cutting element.
US08434567B2
Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to couple a tubular member to a bottom hole assembly, dispose at least one adjustable stabilizing member on the tubular member, and control at least one of a radial extension of the adjustable stabilizing member and an axial position of the adjustable stabilizing member relative to the bottom hole assembly to adjust a borehole trajectory, wherein the adjustable stabilizing member is adjustable in both radial and axial directions. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US08434566B2
A power tool for operating on a workpiece, the power tool having a housing and a motor disposed within the housing. A controller is connected to the motor and receives user inputs for turning on the motor and a power tool battery pack is connected to the controller and the motor. At least one light is connected to the controller for illuminating the workpiece. The controller can turn on the light in a predetermined pattern to alert the user to a tool condition, such as the charge level being below a predetermined level.
US08434551B2
A solvent based gravity drainage process whereby the vertical growth rate of the chamber is restricted by placing, monitoring and managing a buoyant gas blanket at the top of the vapor chamber. The process reduces the heat loss to the overburden as well as providing a means to preserve a barrier layer of bitumen saturated reservoir sand at the top of the pay zone in reservoirs where there is limited or no confining layer present.
US08434546B1
A device and method for retaining the position of a core in a casting mold, such as a vehicle cylinder head casting mold. The core may be a port core, such as an exhaust port core. A plunger assembly is arranged in the mold to produce a substantially unidirectional pressing force against a supported end of the core. Due to the shape of the core and its orientation and arrangement with respect to the mold, the substantially unidirectional force exerted by the pin also creates a moment that results in an additional pressing force component that is substantially perpendicular to the direction of the pressing force exerted by the pin. This second force component presses contacting ends at the other end of the core into tight contact with an associated molding surface. Consequently, the plunger assembly produces a retention force on the core in two directions.
US08434545B2
A die casting tool (1) of a die casting machine, includes a first mold (2) having a first and a second mold part (5, 6), which can be displaced in a linear manner to each other for closing and opening the mold and which form at least one casting chamber between each other, and including at least one casting runner (16), further includes an additional, second mold (3) having a third and a fourth mold part (7, 8), which can be displaced in a linear manner to each other in a parallel manner to the mold parts (5, 6) of the first mold (2) for closing and opening the mold, and which form at least one further casting chamber between each other, wherein a mold part (5, 6) of the first mold (2) and a mold part (7, 8) of the second mold (3) are disposed back-to-back and receive between each other an intermediate element (4), which is the casting runner (16).
US08434536B2
A heat-seal device generally includes a heat source, a thermal conductor, which encapsulates at least a portion of the heat source and is capable of transferring heat from the heat source, and a thermal insulator, which substantially surrounds the thermal conductor but leaves a portion thereof exposed, the exposed portion of the thermal conductor providing a heat-seal contact surface, which is adapted to be brought into contact with a material to be sealed.
US08434529B2
A filling device for beverage bottles, having a filling valve by way of which different media, including a product to be bottled, can be supplied and/or discharged, and a return gas pipe that is displaceable in linear fashion relative to the filling valve by means of an electromagnetic positioning drive. The positioning drive is a linear motor having a stationary stator housing and a rotor coupled to the return gas pipe.
US08434520B2
Valve control unit, particularly pilot control unit for a pressure modulator of a commercial vehicle
A valve control unit, particularly for a pressure modulator of a commercial vehicle includes a valve control housing, solenoid valves, which are provided with solenoids and internal valve pieces inserted into the solenoids, and a pneumatic interface. The solenoids are accommodated inside the valve control housing. Pressure sensors for measuring pneumatic pressures are accommodated in or on the valve control unit, preferably on the top surface. Valve bores, into which the internal valve pieces are inserted, extend within the valve control housing. Air ducts extend between the pneumatic interface, the valve bores, and the pressure sensors, inside the valve control housing. The solenoids and pressure sensors are contacted with an electrical interface. The valve control housing can be a single piece.
US08434512B2
A rotating disc diluter (1) has a rotatable rotary element (4) which carries surface-accessible transfer volumes (9, 10) which along their common path of movement alternately glide over feed and discharge ports (11-18) for an undiluted fluid flow on the one hand and for a dilution fluid flow on the other hand. For the simple widening of the usable dilution rate range, the rotary element (4) has at least two rows of transfer volumes (9, 10) on different paths of movement, the associated feed ports (11-14) of which for the undiluted fluid flow and/or for the dilution fluid flow can be separately controlled.
US08434507B2
A safety valve device has a safety valve body and is configured to open at a temperature of or over a preset reference temperature. The safety valve device also includes a gas flow path arranged to make a flow of hydrogen flowing out of a hydrogen tank via the safety valve body in a valve open position, and a discharge pipe configured to have a hydrogen discharge opening and arranged to discharge the hydrogen flowing through the gas flow path to the outside. The hydrogen discharge opening of the discharge pipe is formed to discharge the hydrogen in an oblique direction relative to a direction of an axial center of the gas flow path. The discharge pipe also has a groove formed to apply an input rotational force to the discharge pipe and thereby rotate the discharge pipe around the axial center of the gas flow path.
US08434505B2
In this disclosure, a reactor system is described. The reaction system comprises (a) a reaction vessel having an inner wall, wherein said reaction vessel is configured to receive reactants and export products and byproducts; (b) a primary quench device (PQD) configured to receive a coolant and disperse said coolant into said reaction vessel; and (c) a secondary quench device (SQD) configured to receive a coolant and disperse said coolant into said reaction vessel; wherein said PQD comprises an array of spray nozzles fixed on the inner wall of said reaction vessel at a first axial position; and wherein said SQD comprises (1) an axially movable pipe having a coolant entry end and a nozzle end, wherein said pipe is configured to be removably fixed inside said reaction vessel; and (2) a spray nozzle that is fluidly connected to said pipe at its nozzle end via a fluid tight seal connection.
US08434502B2
A caustic recovery arrangement for a clean-in-place system permits recovery of the caustic solution used for cleaning sanitary liquid-food processing equipment. A recovery tank receives the caustic aqueous solution and entrained solids. The caustic recovery tank has an upper barrel portion and a lower conic portion. The caustic solution remains in the recovery tank for about eight hours to allow the solids to settle out into the conic portion. A solution drain conduit at a lower end of the barrel portion connects to a caustic recovery line with a pump that feeds the recovered solution back to a main caustic supply tank. A solids drain conduit leads from an outlet at the bottom end of the conic portion of the caustic recovery tank to a solids receptacle so that the solids can be recovered for use, e.g., as animal feed or as fertilizer.
US08434499B2
A filter for a smoking article, which includes an upstream segment having a carbon filter and a downstream segment of filtering material. The upstream segment includes a carbon filter with a hollow tubular member concentrically positioned within the carbon filter, and one or more holes around an outer circumference of the hollow tubular member to allow mainstream smoke to bypass the carbon filter during the first puff. During use, the hollow tubular member has a lower resistance to draw than the carbon filter during an initial puff or puffs, and after the initial puff or puffs, mainstream smoke is drawn through the carbon filter.
US08434498B2
A filter material adapted for use as a filter element of a smoking article is provided, the filter material including at least one segment of fibrous tow having a plurality of degradable particles dispersed therein, the degradable particles comprising a starch material. Exemplary starch materials include naturally-occurring starch, hydroxyalkylated starch, starch esters, ionically modified starch, oxidized starch, hydrolyzed starch, plasticized starch, gelatinized starch, grafted starch, crosslinked starch, transglycosylated starch, starch ethers, and mixtures thereof, as well as blends of starch with other polymers. Filter elements and smoking articles, such as cigarettes, that contain the filter material are also provided. A method of preparing polymer fibers for use in filter elements is also provided, the method including adding the starch material to a fiber precursor solution prior to fiber extrusion or dry-blending the starch material with the polymer material to be formed into fibers.
US08434497B2
A cigarette pack capable of carrying different-sized and different-branded cigarettes is disclosed. The cigarette pack may consist of a first portion, a second portion hingedly coupled to the first portion, and a top portion hingedly coupled to a sliding portion slidably disposed within the second portion. The cigarette pack may also include sleeves disposed within the first portion and second portion and configured to support cigarettes within the sleeve. The cigarette pack may also include a platform for supporting cigarettes within either of said portions.
US08434496B2
A method of thermally processing a tobacco material is provided, the method including the steps of (i) mixing a tobacco material, water, and an additive selected from the group consisting of lysine, glycine, histidine, alanine, methionine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, proline, phenylalanine, valine, arginine, di- and trivalent cations, asparaginase, saccharides, phenolic compounds, reducing agents, compounds having a free thiol group, oxidizing agents, oxidation catalysts, plant extracts, and combinations thereof, to form a moist tobacco mixture; (ii) heating the moist tobacco mixture at a temperature of at least about 60° C. to form a heat-treated tobacco mixture; and (iii) incorporating the heat-treated tobacco mixture into a tobacco product. Heat-treated tobacco composition prepared according to the method are also provided, such as heat-treated smokeless tobacco composition comprising a tobacco material, water, flavorant, binder, and filler, the heat-treated smokeless tobacco composition having an acrylamide content of less than about 2000 ppb.
US08434494B1
A gravity type water pipe providing enhanced cooling of smoke generated thereby. The water pipe comprises a water reservoir and a movable assembly which in operation is raised and lowered in water contained in the water reservoir. The movable assembly may comprise a vertical conduit, a bowl for containing ignited substances, and an enlarged chamber below the vertical conduit. A supplementary cooling chamber for containing ice is contained in the smoke flow path of the movable assembly. The supplementary cooling chamber is adapted to receive ice and may for example have a grate for entrapping ice cubes place in the supplementary cooling chamber. The supplementary cooling chamber may be a component unto itself which is removable from the movable assembly.
US08434484B2
This disclosure describes systems and methods for ventilating a patient with a system that includes an accumulator for storing a gas mixture. The disclosure further describes a novel approach for a fast delivery of a change in gas mixture to a patient by utilizing a variable-sized accumulator.
US08434475B2
A reaction and distribution system may include a distributor securable near or in a path correspond to a breathing passage such as the nostrils or the mouth of a user for delivering nitric oxide therapy thereto. The distributor may contain an internal reactor for creating the nitric oxide from reactants. Alternative embodiments may rely on a line delivering nitric oxide to the distributor from a remote generator such as a cannister carried in a pocket or placed/at the bedside of a user.
US08434474B2
Dispensing apparatus for delivering metered doses of product from a pressurized dispensing container, having a housing for receiving, in use, the pressurized dispensing container, and an outlet through which, in use, metered doses of product from the pressurized dispensing container can be dispensed. The housing has an aperture via which the pressurized dispensing container can be inserted into the housing. The dispensing apparatus is at least partially enclosed by a shrink wrapped film, the shrink wrapped film including an opening which is: (a) at least partly aligned with the aperture of the housing; and (b) dimensioned so as to allow, in use, said pressurized dispensing container to pass through the opening in order to be inserted into the housing via the aperture.
US08434470B2
An adjustable burn apparatus for a fireplace using a liquid or gel-type fuel. The apparatus includes an elongate housing with an elongate top opening into which an elongate removable fuel container is inserted. The removable fuel container has an elongate open top of a length approximating the length of the elongate housing, and an elongate cover which is hinged to the housing preferably along its long dimension and has an elongate flame opening. The hinged cover itself has a shutter slidably secured at its lower surface that is movable along positions opening, controlling and closing the flame opening.
US08434469B2
A portable radiant heater supplied by an associated fuel source comprises a housing having a handle for transporting the heater. A plenum in the housing receives fuel from the associated fuel source and mixes the fuel with air. A burner assembly includes a radiant surface that communicates with the plenum. A regulator limits the pressure of the associated propane source to approximately eleven inches water column, and an oxygen depletion system associated with the burner assembly automatically shuts off the heater at a predetermined oxygen content. A tank fitting with a position that can be adjusted relative to the regulator facilitates the installation of the associated fuel source to the heater.
US08434467B2
A quiver assembly for detachable connection to an archery bow includes a mounting base connectable to an archery bow and a quiver releasably connectable to the mounting base. The mounting base includes a base portion and a first clip portion extending from the base portion. The quiver is adapted to hold at least one arrow and includes a rail with a first longitudinally extending edge that cooperates with the first clip portion during rotation of the rail with respect to the mounting base for releasably connecting the quiver to the mounting base.
US08434466B2
A bow hunting attachment is provided that includes a mounting bracket configured for attachment to a bow. A spool is attached to the mounting bracket and has an outer surface a portion of which is configured for having a line wrapped thereon. A keeper is present and is configured for retaining the line onto the outer surface of the spool and is resilient so as to be capable of being displaced to allow the line to be removed from the outer surface of the spool upon firing of an arrow and pulling of the line that is attached to the arrow.
US08434463B2
A crossbow may include a main beam: (a) a bow assembly including a bow and a bow string adapted to propel an arrow; (b) a trigger mechanism mounted to the main beam; (c) and a bow assembly mounting apparatus for use in selectively mounting the bow assembly at a first location on the main beam to provide a first draw weight and for use in selectively mounting the bow assembly to a second location on the main beam to provide a second draw weight that is substantially different from the first draw weight.
US08434460B2
An integrally molded carbon canister is provided. The integrally molded carbon canister includes a housing including four external side walls and an upper portion at least partially enclosing an internal cavity connected to a vapor inlet and outlet port, the upper portion including a depressed flow disruptor positioned rearward of an injection gate, and a first and second projected flow channel positioned adjacent to the injection gate and laterally spanning the housing. The depressed flow disruptor has a thickness that is less than a section of the upper portion surrounding the depressed flow disruptor and the projected flow channels have a thickness that is greater than a section of the upper portion surrounding the projected flow channels.
US08434456B2
A method for setting a combustion in a combustion engine, particularly in a diesel engine, having the following steps of generating a manipulated variable, particularly a point of injection (PI), as a function of a combustion feature (MFB50%), the combustion feature (MFB50%) representing a condition in cylinder, especially a pressure characteristic in the cylinder, and setting the combustion in cylinders of the combustion engine with the aid of the manipulated variable, the manipulated variable further being generated as a function of a correction value (CV), which is determined as a function of combustion information (dQmax) that provides an indication about the quality of the combustion.
US08434453B2
An electronic throttle control system and method are provided. The system includes a throttle valve, a motor configured to drive the throttle valve, and a throttle position sensor configured to detect an angle of the throttle valve. The system further includes an engine rotating speed detector, and a controller. The controller is configured to drive the motor to control the angle of the throttle valve. The controller is configured to initially set a lower limit value of the angle to an angle which is greater than a full closure angle of the throttle valve by a predetermined amount. The controller is further configured to, when a rise in an engine rotating speed is detected, re-set the lower limit value to reduce it by a predetermined amount to control the engine rotating speed to within a predetermined value from the preset idle speed.
US08434442B2
The object of the present invention is to provide a glow-plug engine capable of achieving suitable operation using a glow plug even for various kinds of fuel other than special alcohol based fuel. The end section of a glow plug protrudes inside a combustion chamber and is located in a specified area near the top surface 53a of piston when located at the top dead center. By doing so, it is possible to achieve suitable operation (combustion) using a glow plug even for various kinds of fuel other than special alcohol based fuels.
US08434441B2
A connecting device for the pivotal and loss-prevention joining of an actuating lever (1) and a support element (6) of a valve operating mechanism of a combustion engine. The actuating lever (1) has, in a supporting section (3), a spherical cap-shaped cavity (5) inside of which the spherical end (7) of the supporting element (6) may be placed. A recess and/or undercut (8) is formed underneath the spherical end (7) in the supporting element (6). The actuating lever (1) has, in the supporting section (3), a spherical upper surface (4) above the spherical cap-shaped cavity (5). A securing element (9) joins the actuating lever (1) and the supporting element (6) to one another. This securing element (9) has a U-shaped cross-sectional shape with an upper and a lower limb (10, 11) that are joined to one another via a joining section (12). Geometrically closed openings (13, 14) for accommodating the recess (8) of the supporting element (6) or the spherical upper surface (4) of the supporting section (3) of the actuating lever (1) are made in both limbs (10, 11). The opening (13) in the upper limb (10) is essentially round, and the opening (14), which is located in the lower limb (11) while being assigned to the supporting element (6), is provided, in essence, in the form of a slot.
US08434440B2
A switchable finger lever for a valve train of an internal combustion engine, said finger lever comprising an inner lever comprising on an underside on one end, a support for a gas exchange valve and on another end, a contact surface for a head of a support element, said inner lever being flanked by outer arms which are articulated for pivoting relative to the inner lever on a side of the one end, at least each of said outer arms comprising on an upper side, a cam contacting surface, said inner lever comprising directly next to the contact surface a coupling device for an optional connection of the outer arms to the inner lever, said coupling device comprising a cross-bore in which two coupling slides are arranged diametrically opposite each other, which coupling slides for effecting coupling engage partially in or under an entraining surface arranged on the respective outer arm ending in this region, and the at least one restoring spring being likewise arranged in the region of the another end while being clamped between the inner lever and the outer arms.
US08434428B2
An animal exercise system in the form of a game includes an apparatus comprising an animal transport device; a game board; a plurality of edible game pieces in the form of a treat. In operation, the animal transport device engages and travels along the game board to selectively contact the game pieces. One or more of the game pieces may be fed to the animal as a reward.
US08434427B2
A styptic powder applicator and file for use with pets. The applicator is designed to be integrated with the container and have a funnel-like shape in order to handle a styptic powder in an easier fashion. The container further has a file attached to a side of the container for the removal of burrs left after clipping a pet's nails. This invention provides a more efficient structure for grooming a pet by incorporating a file for removing burrs with the styptic applicator for staunching the flow of blood from a “quicked” nail.
US08434423B2
Disclosed is a substrate carrying apparatus having a simple configuration capable of inhibiting the occurrence of pattern collapse. A carrying tray of the disclosed substrate carrying apparatus includes a bottom plate for supporting the substrate and a circumferential side wall being provided around the bottom plate. An opening is formed in the bottom plate. An elevating member, to and from which the substrate is to be transferred, passes through the opening. A space is temporarily formed in a carrying tray. The elevating member within the opening passes to the outside of the carrying tray through the space. When the substrate is carried, the liquid is reservoired within the carrying tray, and the substrate is carried while the liquid remained on the upper surface of the substrate.
US08434415B1
Disclosed is a combination furniture article and table support. The device comprises an article of furniture having an upstanding seatback and a flush-mounted frame therealong. The frame supports a hingeable tabletop that is flush with the seatback when in a stowed state. When deployed, the table is pulled away from the frame, rotated outward and secured within a cavity along the upper interior portion of the frame. This cavity secures over the upper edge of the table and supports the table in a horizontal configuration. The preferred embodiment utilizes a spring and damper element to draw the table into the cavity; however several embodiments are contemplated. The lower underside of the table includes a magnet or ferric material that aligns with a magnet within the lower portion of the frame to retain the table within the frame when stowed.
US08434410B2
A round of ammunition for an assault rifle or the like includes a cartridge and a bullet or projectile. The cartridge includes a rear portion and a forward portion with a reduced diameter while the rear portion is dimensioned to fit into the breach of a rifle and defines a hollow chamber or interior volume for a mass of gun powder and primer. The forward portion of the cartridge joins a bullet. The bullet includes a bullet shaped rounded lead tip and an aerodynamically shaped forward portion including a tapered shell and a solid cylindrically shaped lead middle portion. The forward portion also includes an axial steel rod between the tip and the middle portion. The bullet also includes a rear portion including a tapered shell surrounding a second hollow chamber with a small opening in the distal part of the bullet.
US08434405B2
A method for setting an operation condition of a press line includes a conveyance route setting step of setting a conveyance route so as to minimize a clearance between a work and a lower die; a phase difference setting step of setting a phase difference between conveying operations of respective conveyance machines so as to minimize a clearance between a work to be taken-out and a work to be taken-in; and a press-conveyance phase difference setting step that sets a phase difference between pressing operation and conveyance operation in accordance with the conveying route set for each conveyance machine, the phase difference between the conveyance machines, a line SPH, and a press SPH.
US08434403B1
This disclosure relates to the field of stovetop popcorn poppers, with an interoperating apparatus to facilitate the mixing or stirring of the popped popcorn during a coating or flavoring operation.
US08434392B1
A sensor and monitoring system for performing work upon an inner diameter of a machined workpiece, such as a pipe turned by a lathe, with the work being viewed and/or recorded remotely. The system includes a sensing device having an elongated rod, at least one sensor mounted to a first end of the rod, and a power supply and a transceiver mounted to a second end of the rod, the sensor being positioned within the bore of the workpiece for performing work upon the inner diameter and the transceiver and power supply positioned external to the bore. A controller device is wirelessly connected to the transceiver for wirelessly receiving and sending communication signals to and from the sensor via the transceiver. The sensor may of various types, such as a linear touch probe, a distance sensing laser, a temperature, vibration, gas, noise, or ultrasonic sensor, or a camera.
US08434391B2
A hand operated gripping tool includes a first jaw fixedly connected with a first jaw handle, a second jaw movable relative to the first jaw such that the first and second jaws cooperably define a variable size space therebetween for receiving a part to be gripped, a second jaw handle pivotally connected with the second jaw for moving the second jaw relative to the first jaw, a link system pivotally connected to the second jaw handle and having a guided portion selectively engageable with a plurality of guide portions provided on the first jaw handle. The guided portion being engageable with a first of the guide portions to define a first range of movement of the second jaw towards the first jaw and a second of the guide portions to define a second range of movement of the second jaw towards the first jaw.
US08434386B2
A system for cooling a power transfer unit includes a case enclosing said unit and including an outer surface, a chamber bounded by said outer surface, an inlet for carrying coolant from a source of pressurized coolant into the chamber, and an outlet for carrying coolant from the chamber.
US08434369B2
A preloaded pressure sensor module (PPSM) is disclosed, where the PPSM outputs a linear Conductivity Response versus Pressure Force input. The PPSM has a convex or concave profile which is prepared by pressing a flat pressure sensor device onto to a convex or concave base respectively so that the pressure sensitive layer inside the sensor module is bent and displays a preloaded effect.
US08434364B2
A MEMS detection structure is provided with: a substrate having a top surface, on which a first fixed-electrode arrangement is set; a sensing mass, extending in a plane and suspended above the substrate and above the first fixed-electrode arrangement at a separation distance; and connection elastic elements that support the sensing mass so that it is free to rotate out of the plane about an axis of rotation, modifying the separation distance, as a function of a quantity to be detected along an axis orthogonal to the plane. The MEMS detection structure also includes: a coupling mass, suspended above the substrate and connected to the sensing mass via the connection elastic elements; and an anchoring arrangement, which anchors the coupling mass to the substrate with a first point of constraint, set at a distance from the axis of rotation and in a position corresponding to the first fixed-electrode arrangement.
US08434359B2
The invention relates to a sensor arrangement for detecting ambient conditions, in particular for a motor vehicle, with at least one carrier plate and optical elements arranged on this carrier plate, wherein several of the optical elements are arranged around a shared central region on the carrier plate, and at least two of the optical elements arranged around the central region exhibit primary action axes. These primary action axes are adjusted at a predetermined angle relative to the carrier plate, wherein the primary action axes are directed toward the shared central region. Additional sensors arranged on the carrier plate include a rain sensor, a solar sensor as well as various light sensors, which preferably are arranged on receiving surfaces of the carrier plate.
US08434357B2
A system and method for obtaining a clean fluid sample for analysis in a downhole tool are provided. In one example, the method includes directing fluid from a main flowline of the downhole tool to a secondary flowline of the downhole tool. While the fluid is being directed into the secondary flowline, sensor responses corresponding to the fluid in the secondary flowline are monitored to determine when the sensor responses stabilize. The secondary flowline is isolated from the main flowline after the sensor responses have stabilized. A quality control procedure is performed on the fluid in the secondary flowline to determine whether the captured fluid is the same as the fluid in the main flowline. Additional fluid from the main flowline is allowed into the secondary flowline if the captured fluid is not the same.
US08434354B2
This invention describes an apparatus and a method for integrity monitoring of a borehole and the seal integrity of a caprock suitable for sequestration of greenhouse gases. The apparatus includes plural neutrally buoyant sensors for placement outside of a casing, placement including distribution within at least mud filter cake, cement, and proppant. This invention also includes a method for monitoring integrity of a borehole suitable for sequestration of greenhouse gases or other types of well using the described apparatus.
US08434350B2
An apparatus for determining and/or monitoring at least one process variable of a medium. The apparatus includes: at least one mechanically oscillatable unit; at least one transducer unit, which excites the mechanically oscillatable unit to mechanical oscillations based on an exciter signal and which receives the mechanical oscillations of the mechanically oscillatable unit and converts such to a received signal. The transducer unit has at least one piezoelectric element. The apparatus further includes: at least one electronics unit, which supplies the transducer unit with the exciter signal and which receives the received signal from the transducer unit; and at least one compensation element, which supplies the exciter signal to the electronics unit and from which the electronics unit receives a compensation signal. The invention provides that the compensation element has at least one at least element made at least partially of a piezoelectric material.
US08434343B2
An aspirating system for detecting the presence of a product representative of a hazard and a method of detecting the presence of a product representative of a hazard in an aspirating system are provided. The system comprises: piping that includes a plurality of apertures spaced apart along the length of the piping; an aspirator for drawing air from outside the piping into the piping through at least one aperture, a detector coupled to the piping for detecting the presence of a product representative of a hazard; a generator of test stimulus for generating the product representative of a hazard; wherein the test stimulus generator is fixed in, near, or on the piping such that in use a test stimulus is provided adjacent to at least one aperture of the piping. A control means can be provided to control the activation of the test stimulus from the generator and the time taken for the test stimulus to reach the detector can be measured.
US08434342B2
Can shells are produced with tooling installed on a single action mechanical press, and the tooling includes an upper retainer supporting a blank and draw die enclosing an outer pressure sleeve and an inner pressure sleeve surrounding a die center punch, all having air actuated pistons. The die center piston has an air reservoir connected by air passages which form air springs for the inner pressure sleeve, and the outer pressure sleeve receives the same controllable air as the reservoir or low pressure plant air supply. The inner pressure sleeve has a projecting nose portion which initiates the drawing of a cup and has contoured surfaces which mate with corresponding surfaces on a die core ring to form and clamp the chuckwall of the shell during downstroke of the press. A lower panel punch forms the center panel, panel wall and countersink of the shell during upstroke of the press.
US08434341B2
An apparatus for supporting a semiconductor workpiece includes a heating system configured to cause thermally-induced motion of the semiconductor workpiece by heating a surface of the workpiece relative to a bulk of the workpiece. The thermally-induced motion includes vertical motion of an outer edge region of the workpiece and a center of the workpiece relative to each other. The apparatus further includes a support system configured to allow the thermally-induced motion including the vertical motion of the outer edge region of the workpiece and the center of the workpiece relative to each other while supporting the workpiece.
US08434335B2
A combination door latch and deadbolt assembly that has first and second configurations for use with a door having a deadbolt aperture and a latchbolt aperture spaced by either a first vertical distance or a second vertical distance. The second vertical distance is less than the first vertical distance. In the first configuration, an insert slide is connected to an interconnect slide for vertical movement with the interconnect slide and the interconnect slide is operably connected to a deadbolt assembly via the insert slide. The insert slide and interconnect slide are movable vertically to move a deadbolt from an extended position to a retracted position in response to movement of an interior actuator from a first position to a second position. In the second configuration, the interconnect slide is operably connected to the deadbolt assembly without the insert slide.
US08434334B2
A drum type washing machine including a tub installed in a cabinet is disclosed. The drum type washing machine includes a drum performing washing, a motor rotating the drum, bearing housings having bearings to support a rotation shaft, a suspension connected to the bearing housings and the cabinet to mitigate vibration generated during rotation of the drum, a bracket installed to the bearing housings to form the rear side of the tub, and a gasket installed between the bracket and the tub to seal the tub and to prevent vibration from being transmitted from the bracket to the tub. Volumes of the tub and the drum can be easily increased without increasing the volume of the cabinet. Even when the volume of the washing machine is changed, only one of the tub and the bearing housings, which is not applicable to the drum type washing machine having the changed washing capacity, is selectively replaced. Thus parts can commonly used in various drum type washing machine having different volume.
US08434332B2
The present invention provides a rotary sinker capable of suppressing energy loss and achieving reduction in the driving load, a knitting machine provided with the rotary sinker, and a knitting machine control apparatus. The sinker 3 comprises a rotating body 4 that can rotate about an axis, and supporting members 32, 34 which rotatably support the rotating body 4. A circumference edge portion of the rotating body 4 is provided with sinker teeth 41 formed of a plurality of projecting sections to which rotational drive force is transmitted and with which a knitting yarn can be engaged.
US08434331B2
Disclosed is a tubular knit glove and method of flatbed knitting. The outward portion of a thumb pouch (7) is knitted while the direction of the wales continues from the end of a four finger body (6) with a reciprocating motion in the direction of the course. Rows of stitches are knit in the center and yarn-overs (8,9) are added on each side as connecting stitches. The inward portion of a thumb pouch (10) forms rows of stitches that link with the yarn-overs (8,9) when knitting back from the end of the outward portion of the thumb pouch (7). After forming a thumb pouch (11), a five finger body (14) is knit as a circularly-knit tube wherein the knitting thread revolves in the course direction completing a glove (1).
US08434330B2
In a technique for fabricating a birefringent optical fiber, a preform rod is fabricated having a longitudinal axis, an outer peripheral surface, and a selected refractive index variation. At least one longitudinal groove is cut into the preform rod through its outer peripheral surface, wherein the at least one longitudinal groove has a cross sectional area equal to that of a respective birefringence-inducing stress element to be loaded into the groove, such that when the stress element is loaded into the groove, a portion of the stress element protrudes outside of the circumference of the preform. A respective birefringence-inducing stress element is loaded into the at least one longitudinal groove. A preform assembly is created by positioning the loaded preform rod within an overcladding tube. The preform assembly is drawn into optical fiber.
US08434327B2
The present invention provides an improvement in an article of jewelry of the type in which the ornamental portion of the article is secured or released selectively from the support portion of the article. The removable jewelry setting provides a simplified construction which is used readily by the wearer of jewelry to assemble a particular combination of ornament and support selected from a wide variety of such combinations made available by the improvement. The construction also enhances the ability to tailor a jewelry article to a particular style of dress without unduly multiplying the number of expensive ornaments required to provide a wide range of ornamented articles. The construction opens new fields of fashion by rendering a wide variety of jewelry articles more available at lowered expense and provides a construction which is universal in the ability to accommodate almost any available ornamental element, including gemstones of essentially all sizes and cuts, so that the ornament is available for selection and placement by the wearer in combination with any one of a wide variety of supports. The construction enables ease of interchange of the ornamental portion of an article of jewelry.
US08434322B2
A refrigerator is disclosed which enables the user to easily take ice out of an ice maker without causing a variation in the capacity of the refrigerator or a limitation on the position of a freezing compartment. The refrigerator includes a refrigerator body which includes a freezing compartment and a refrigerating compartment, an ice making compartment which is arranged in the refrigerating compartment, to make ice, a heat exchanger which generates cold air for freezing food stored in the freezing compartment, and a cold air guiding device which guides the cold air generated by the heat exchanger to the ice making compartment, to enable the ice making compartment to make ice.
US08434321B2
An ice making assembly for a refrigerator and a method for controlling the ice making assembly are provided. The ice making assembly and the method of controlling the ice making assembly provides a constant amount of water supply for each ice making cycle regardless of environmental conditions such as the varying water supply pressure of different installation locations. Furthermore, overflowing can be prevented during water supply with the use of a capacitance water level sensor.
US08434319B2
An apparatus for preparing and dispensing a flavored ice beverage and a method of using thereof. The apparatus includes at least one container for holding flavor ingredients, a blending unit including a blender container and a blending mechanism, an ice flakes supplying unit, a mechanism for transferring the flavor ingredients to the blender container and a computerized control unit for controlling one or more aspects of the process of producing the ice beverage. The flavor ingredients can be in grain form, powder form or in liquid form.
US08434313B2
A thermal machine, especially a gas turbine, includes an annular combustor which is outwardly delimited by an outer shell and an inner shell (33) and through which a hot gas axially flows. The outer shell and inner shell (33) are each provided with a concentric cooling shroud (31) which is attached at a distance on their outer side, forming a cooling passage (32) through which cooling passage (32) cooling air flows in a direction which is opposite to the hot gas flow. The cooling of the combustor is improved by at least one of the cooling shrouds (31), on the side on which the cooling air enters the cooling passage (32), having an outwardly curved, rounded inlet edge (37) for improving the inflow conditions.
US08434308B2
A first portion of each of a plurality of Qu-type heat pipes is disposed in a hot gas path, and a second portion of each of the plurality of Qu-type heat pipes disposed away from the hot gas path. Also, the first portion of each of the plurality of Qu-type heat pipes extracts heat from the hot gas path and wherein the second portion of each of the plurality of Qu-type heat pipes creates a vapor that exits each second portion of the plurality of Qu-type heat pipes and away from the hot gas path.
US08434305B2
A turbocharger system for an internal combustion engine that powers a vehicle having a pressure vessel storing pressurized air. The turbocharger system comprises a turbocharger and a valve system. The system is configured such that the air intake system of the internal combustion engine can be supplied with air at super-atmospheric pressure either from the compressor of the turbocharger or from the pressure vessel. When the pressure vessel is supplying the intake system, compressed air from the compressor is recirculated back to the air inlet of the compressor so as to help prevent a surge condition in the compressor.
US08434283B1
The painting method disclosed is carried out by providing a curable liquid paint composition and an edging product having a colored surface and an adhesive surface opposite to the colored surface. The colored surface of the edging product is preferably a previously manufactured surface closely matching the to-be-used paint composition once the paint composition has been permitted to cure. The edging strip is permanently affixed onto a wall to be painted with the curable paint composition, with an edge of the edging strip contacting a surface bordering the wall or surface which is not to be painted with the curable liquid paint composition. The wall is then painted with the curable liquid paint composition, and the curable liquid paint composition is partly overlapped onto the edging product. The method provides a crisp even line at the interface between the wall and the bordering surface. Where the edging product has a thickness of less than 5 mils, it is easily concealed by partially overlapping with suitable paints on a wall on which it has been deployed.
US08434278B1
A storage bin support system for providing a leg structure to better support the storage bin and allow for easier access underneath. The storage bin support system generally includes a bin for holding the particulate material, wherein the bin includes a roof, sidewalls, and a base, and wherein the roof includes an inlet for filling the bin and wherein the base includes an outlet for emptying the bin, and a supporting framework for supporting the bin above a ground surface in an upright position, wherein supporting framework includes an outer framework and an inner framework interconnecting the outer framework with the base. The outer framework is spaced along an outer perimeter of the bin and the inner framework includes a plurality of upper angled supports comprising an upper end and optionally a plurality of lower angled supports comprising a lower end.
US08434277B2
Demountable modular structure for the construction of one-deck raised parking lots, preferably without foundations, designed to be employed for parking vehicles in angled arrangement, or herringbone pattern, including two or more parallel structure strips, each one defined by two rows of pillars offset from each other in the longitudinal direction of the structure strip so as to form, between two adjacent couples of pillars, parallelogram-shaped portions of ground surface, wherein the upper level is made of an orthogonal network of main beams resting on each one of the rows of pillars and secondary beams resting on the pillars or fixed in orthogonal position to the main beams, and of rectangular or square floor slabs. The structure allows easier parking and maneuvering of larger vehicles as compared with structures with 90-degree parking stalls, with no detectable losses of efficiency in terms of parking places obtainable from a given available surface.
US08434273B1
A deck for the roof of a grain bin includes a plurality of deck units each having a plate having an upper face and a lower face and openings spaced from each other and adjacent each longitudinal edge of the plate. The spacing of some of the openings is substantially the same as the spacing of openings in the roof whereby the plate may be attached to the roof. A pair of ring segments extend substantially perpendicular to the elongate plate and rest upon the plate. Openings are in the ring segments and at least one of which is aligned with openings in the plate whereby the ring segments may be attached to the upper face of the plate. A riser extends upwardly from the ring segments opposite the plate, and the riser and ring segments are attached. A deck plate is attached to the riser opposite the ring segments.
US08434272B2
A recreational vehicle with weatherproofing for a slide-out compartment has a main body, a slide-out compartment having a side wall with an upper wall, a bottom wall and a pair of end walls extending inwardly from the side wall, and a first cover having one end affixed to the side wall of the main body and an opposite end affixed to the slide-out compartment. The first cover extends over top wall and a pair of end walls of the slide-out compartment. The first cover is formed of a flexible watertight material. The first cover is affixed by bracket to the side wall of the main body and to the slide-out compartment. A second cover is affixed to the first cover and extends through a slot formed between the upper wall of the slide-out compartment and the opening of the side wall of the main body.
US08434264B2
Described is an animal door for enabling an animal to pass through a structure and for having an adjustable height. More specifically, the animal door is capable of being installed at the structure at multiple orientations, whereby the orientation at which the animal door is installed governs the height of the door. Additionally, the animal door is removably installed at the structure such that the orientation, and thus the height, of the door is adjustable.
US08434261B2
The Invention relates to a planting pot made of plastic and having a bottom provided with holes, comprising in particular a multipart base region forming a first plane for setting the planting pot on a contact surface, wherein the base region is interrupted by at least one channel leading to the outside on the edge, wherein in an area adjoining the base region the planting pot comprises a hole, which is arranged at a distance from a channel for draining a bottom planting pot region.
US08434260B2
A decorative surround for potted plants is described. The surround may be a shell having a generally convex outer surface and an aperture in the shell suitable for either receiving or supporting a plant pot. The surround may be supported with respect to the ground or other reference surface by the periphery of the shell or by the bottom of a structure within the aperture, and the surround held against the ground by the weight of the potted plant. Alternatively, the surround may be affixed to the ground with pins or stakes. Another decorative surround is sized so that the aperture is smaller than a maximum diameter of the plant pot, and a strap is provided to hold the plant pot against an inner surface of the shell. The visible surface of the surround may be formed, textured or colored so as to have a visual appearance simulating natural rock.
US08434256B2
An apparatus for cleaning a gun barrel having striations formed on an inner surface of the gun barrel includes a cleaning means that is in contact with the inner surface of the gun barrel as being moved by a drive means installed inside a cylindrical main body. The cleaning means includes a main member having a circular plate on which a plurality of insertion holes is formed along its circumference; a rotating member formed inside the circular plate and having a motor and a rotating gear interlocking with the motor; and cleaning members formed to be inserted into the insertion holes, respectively, to clean the inner surface of the gun barrel and having lower sides interlocking with the rotating gear, respectively, to be rotated. The apparatus for cleaning a gun barrel is rotated at high speed with an appropriate pressure along the groove part of the gun barrel accurately, and thus a wide area can be cleaned in a short time. Even if the brusher is worn out, an appropriate pressure is maintained by the spring, and thus the amount of wear is compensated for. Since the brusher does not secede from the barrel, the accuracy is increased, and since the respective brushers are replaceable and it is not required to replace the whole cleaning member, the cost is saved.
US08434251B2
Disclosed is a display apparatus including a first case and a second case coupled to each other to define an external appearance of the display apparatus. A fastening guide extends from an inner surface of the first case, and a fastening member is engaged with the fastening guide. The fastening member is provided with a boss portion for screw-fastening. The first case and second case are coupled to each other using the fastening guide and fastening member having a thin thickness, whereby a reduced thickness of fastening parts and stable inter-coupling of the first case and second case are accomplished.
US08434242B2
The technology relates to spray dried plasma and methods of making the same. The method includes providing plasma to a spray drying apparatus, spray drying the plasma, at the spray drying apparatus, to form physiologically active plasma powder, the spray drying apparatus configured utilizing one or more parameters, and storing the physiologically active plasma powder.
US08434241B2
A method for drying a wet material, which comprises a liquid Fd to be distilled, uses a gas-tight container system resistant to excess and/or negative pressure and a drying container, a condenser and a vapor chamber connecting the drying container and condenser. The temperature adjustable drying container contains the wet material. The liquid Fd is turned to vapor in the temperature adjustable vapor chamber. The condenser condenses the vapor to give the condensation product. The pressure in the vapor chamber is monitored and controlled so that drying and distillation are always carried out in a range close to the saturation vapor pressure of the liquid Fd to be distilled. The pressure and the temperature in the vapor chamber are continuously determined. If the pressure goes above the upper limit of the range, the pressure is reduced in such a manner that especially foreign gas is removed.
US08434240B2
A method of controlling the primary drying stage in a freeze drying apparatus having a shelf and bulk product or a number of vials in different areas on the shelf which contain product to be freeze dried. Temperature sensors are positioned in selected locations or vials which are representative of the different bulk product areas or the positions of all of the vials in different areas of the shelf. The temperature sensors are monitored and compared to determine the selected location or vial having the highest temperature while the temperature sensor therein is still in ice. The shelf temperature is controlled based on the selected location or vial with the highest temperature so long as the temperature sensor therein is still in ice. When the temperature sensor in the highest temperature selected location or vial is no longer in ice, another selected location or vial with the highest temperature and a temperature sensor therein that is still in ice is then used to control the shelf temperature.
US08434237B2
An illuminated level has a housing containing a solid body pivotally mounted in the housing and forming a pendulum which can pivot to a first position in which the surface is accurately level. A light path is provided through the solid body having an exit opening at the pivot point and an entry opening the opposite end. A source of laser light on the housing is arranged to transmit light through an orifice on the housing so that the light through the orifice enters the entry opening to pass along the path when the solid body is in the first position and is prevented from entering the entry opening when the solid body is out of the level position. A light receiver in the housing at the outlet is responsive to the passage of light through the path for providing a sound indicating when the solid body is in the first position.
US08434225B2
A method for manufacturing a heat pipe. Activated particles or particle clusters are formed. The activated particles or particle clusters are contacted with a working fluid in a non-oxidizing environment to form a chemisorbed layer of the working fluid thereon to generate chemisorbed working fluid surfaced activated hydrophilic particles or activated hydrophilic particle clusters which provide a solid-liquid contact angle to working fluid when subsequently added of <30 degrees. The chemisorbed working fluid surfaced activated hydrophilic particles or hydrophilic particle clusters are vacuum transferred and filled inside the heat pipe along with an additional volume of working fluid. The heat pipe is then sealed.
US08434222B2
A first artwork layer having a first adaptable-mask section allows a graded amount of light to pass into an underlying first photoresist layer. Subsequent to developing the first photoresist layer, the graded amount of light creates a rounded geometric void used as a mold or sidewall for the creation of at least a lower portion of a rounded trace. A dielectric layer is laminated upon the lower portion and a second artwork layer having an second adaptable-mask section allows a graded amount of light to pass into a second photoresist layer. Subsequent to developing the second photoresist layer, the graded amount of light creates a rounded geometric void used as a mold or sidewall for the creation of at least an upper portion of a rounded trace. The photoresist and dielectric layers are removed resulting in a circuit apparatus having a rounded differential pair trace.
US08434221B2
The present invention discloses a method for generating nano patterns upon material surfaces. The method for generating nano patterns upon material surfaces comprises the following steps: providing a thin film capable of controlling lattice directions, applying a nanoindentation action to the thin film to generate an indentation at a specific position on the thin film. At least one hillock is then generated in a specific direction to generate a pattern and to be applied to a data storage system.
US08434213B2
There is provided a system for readily and efficiently fabricating a wound coil composed of a bobbinless coil. The system includes a coil winding device having an upper jig to which an upper plate is attached and a lower jig to which a lower plate is attached which are provided so as to be relatively displaceable and a tension device for applying predetermined tension to a wire rod fed from a wire rod supplying source. The coil winding device is provided with a claw section having first through third split claws that function as a winding section around which the wire rod is wound between the upper and lower plates and that slide in a radial direction when the upper jig is assembled coaxially with the lower jig.
US08434212B2
A stator coil producing method and a stator coil production machine. The stator coil is used in an electric rotating machine. The stator coil production machine includes a rotary retainer which retains and moves shaping press pairs along a looped path to press or shape portions of a conductor wire into in-slot portions to be disposed in slots of a stator core and coil-end portions which extend outside the slots. The method comprises a coil-end portion shaping step of bringing press members of each of the shaping press pairs close to each other in sequence to shape the coil-end portions and an in-slot portion shaping step of advancing the shaping press pairs on the looped path in contact with the cam mechanism and also moving selected ones of the shaping press pairs in sequence in a direction perpendicular to the path to shape the in-slot portions.
US08434209B1
An animal deterrent device and methods for installing and producing an animal deterrent device for delivering an electric shock to an animal, pest, or bird to be deterred, having the typical components of a non-conductive base to which the electrically conductive elements are attached. The bottom layer unfolds outward to allow sewing of the conductive elements to the top layer of the elongated base, while preventing the stitching from penetrating the bottom layer of the elongated base. The bottom layer is then folded back into place after sewing is completed, thereby insulating any hole, fastener, or conductive element that pushed through the top layer of the elongated base from water or other material that may congregate at the bottom exterior, preventing unwanted arcing to the exterior surface below.
US08434207B2
Methods of forming a lined tubular member are described herein. A method includes forming at least one corrugated portion in a conduit having at least one substantially tapered end to form a corrugated conduit, providing the corrugated conduit to a tubular member; and expanding the corrugated conduit while the corrugated conduit is inside the tubular member.
US08434202B2
The slide fastener includes elements and a slider, wherein each of the elements includes a horizontal functional section an upper vertical functional section and a lower vertical functional section the slide fastener includes a plurality of fastener units in each of which the elements are arranged to oppositely face each other and the meshing portions are meshed with each other by sliding the slider between the oppositely-positioned elements, whereby the engagement pieces of the oppositely-positioned elements form an engagement portion and the engagement holding pieces of the oppositely-positioned elements in pair form an engagement holding portion, and the plurality of fastener units are constituted in a multilayered structure by engaging the engagement holding portions of a second fastener with the engagement portions of a first fastener such that the engagement holding portions of a new fastener unit are engaged with the engagement portions of a preceding fastener unit.
US08434197B2
One end portion of a front-rear adjustment member 17 is disposed in a door-side mounting member 3 such that the front-rear adjustment member 17 is rotatable about a second shaft 12. An adjustment screw (not shown) having an axis thereof oriented in the left-right direction is provided in the door-side mounting member. The adjustment screw is threadedly engaged with the other end portion of the front-rear adjustment member 17. After the adjustment screw is rotated in normal and reverse directions, thereby rotating the front-rear adjustment member 17 as appropriate, a connecting arm 13 is rotated about a first shaft 11 so as to cancel out the rotation of the front-rear adjustment member 17.
US08434196B1
Multi-axis compliant hinges used in conjunction with strut elements to form a collapsible structure. The hinges behaves similar to a pin-clevis hinges but have increased compliance during the deployment sequence allowing connected struts to translate and rotate finite amounts relative to each other. Once deployed, the hinges lock out to form strong and stiff joints. The hinge uses two opposing resilient tape spring surfaces for each axis. The opposing tape spring surfaces of each axis are joined together by rigid inserts at their ends opposite the common connection point and to which structural members or struts are connected.
US08434193B2
A cleaning appliance of the canister type includes separating apparatus for separating dirt from a dirt-bearing fluid flow, a floor engaging rolling assembly comprising a device for drawing the fluid flow through the separating apparatus, a chassis connected to the rolling assembly, a duct moveable relative to the chassis for conveying the fluid flow to the separating apparatus, a floor engaging steering member for steering the rolling assembly, and a control mechanism for moving the steering member relative to the rolling assembly in response to movement of the duct relative to the chassis.
US08434189B2
A brush includes: a brushing unit including a bristle-retaining member that has a first side and a second side opposite to the first side, a plurality of bristles retained on the bristle-retaining member and disposed on the first side, and a pivot connector provided on the second side of the bristle-retaining member; a handgrip having a pivoted portion that is pivotally connected to the pivot connector, a grip portion that is opposite to the pivoted portion, and a positioning portion that is disposed between the pivoted portion and the grip portion; and a resilient component disposed between the brushing unit and the handgrip, and providing a biasing force for urging the positioning portion of the handgrip to abut against the bristle-retaining member.
US08434188B1
The present invention is directed generally to building tools with improved comfort in gripping and/or efficient control that may be used in various manners and orientations. A handle and work object (e.g., trowel blade) may be connected together by a connecting member (or connecting means) that may be a sloped, angled, and/or substantially curved member, so that a user has increased hand orientation options and/or control over the tool while gripping the handle and/or connecting member in various manners and orientations. In various embodiment(s), the connecting member (e.g., a tang for a trowel) may be a relatively gradually and/or notably sloped, angled, and/or curved structure that may reasonably provide a comfortable extension of the handle and augment the gripping of the tool. The various tools may include a handle connecting member having construction whereby a portion of the sides of the handle connecting member are removed. Magnesium may be used.
US08434178B2
By providing a plurality of preformed components which are quickly and easily affixed in engagement with each other, a final construction is realized which peripherally surrounds any desired mattress configuration in cooperating association therewith. In this way, a new foam plastic product is achieved which is capable of being quickly and easily mounted to mattress constructions peripherally surrounding the mattress and providing an enhanced side support system. In this way, any desired mattress size or configuration is capable of being peripherally surrounded with a foam support assembly for enhancing the mattress construction and configuration. Furthermore, by employing the present invention, a rapid, convenient, and virtually labor free assembly is realized.
US08434171B2
A commode seat for a rollator, incorporating therein a collapsible telescopic splash guard.
US08434167B2
An improved face shield assembly universally fits to most hard hats and includes a dual-point pivot system which allows the face shield to be located in a “down” as-used position, an “up” as-used position and a “stowed” position above the hard hat. The improved face shield assembly includes three separate brackets, namely a main mounting bracket secured to the brim of a hard hat, a rotating bracket pivotably mounted to the main mounting bracket and a lens mounting bracket pivotably mounted to the rotating bracket. Spring-loaded struts stabilize and retain the lens mounting bracket in the as-used and stowed positions relative to the rotating bracket.
US08434163B1
The present invention features a therapy vest system for providing targeted heat or cold application to a person. In some embodiments, the vest of the vest system comprises a first shoulder pocket secured over a first shoulder region of the vest, and also a second shoulder pocket secured over a second shoulder region of the vest. In some embodiments, the vest further comprises a first side pocket secured to a first rib side region of the vest and also a second side pocket secured to a second rib side region of the vest. In some embodiments, the vest system further comprise extremity tubes.
US08434162B2
An eye protector (16) is provided for mounting to a protective helmet (10) of the type worn by a firefighter or other emergency worker. The protective helmet (10) has a brim (14), and the eye protector (16) includes a bracket (20) mounted to the brim (14), a first stop surface (38) carried on the bracket (20), an eye shield (18) attached to the bracket (20) for movement between a storage position extending along the brim (14) and a usage position extending downward from the brim (14) to shield the eye of the wearer, and a second stop surface (37) carried on the eye shield (18) and abutted against the first stop surface (38) with the eye shield (18) in the usage position to limit movement of the eye shield (18) beyond the usage position.
US08438659B2
A method of authenticating the interoperability of a headset and a device, as well as a headset and a device, is provided. The method includes, in a headset, monitoring at least one input for a verification signal, and, in response to failing to detect the verification signal within a predetermined period of time, selectively disabling a speaker and/or microphone of the headset. An alternative method includes, in a device, detecting a coupling of a headset to the device, transmitting a verification signal to the headset, and receiving, from the headset, at least one of a serial number associated with the headset, an identification of a user of the headset, a security certificate, or a voice translation template associated with the user.
US08438642B2
A method for detecting potential phishing URLs includes extracting a URL from a document, analyzing the URL context, and comparing the URL to stored trusted URLs and stored known phishing URLs. The URL context includes anchor text and surrounding content associated with the URL. The method further includes generating a phishing alert based on the comparing and the analyzing.
US08438641B2
Described embodiments provide a network processor that includes a security protocol processor to prevent replay attacks on the network processor. A memory stores security associations for anti-replay operations. A pre-fetch module retrieves an anti-replay window corresponding to a data stream of the network processor. The anti-replay window has a range of sequence numbers. When the network processor receives a data packet, the security hardware accelerator determines a value of the received sequence number with respect to minimum and maximum values of a sequence number range of the anti-replay window. Depending on the value, the data packet is either received or accepted. The anti-replay window might be updated to reflect the receipt of the most recent data packet.
US08438638B2
A method and system for determining whether an IP address is part of a bot-network are provided. The IP-address-aggregate associated with the IP address of an e-mail sender is determined. The IP-address-aggregate is associated with an IP-address-aggregate-category based on the current SMTP traffic characteristics of the IP-address-aggregate and the known SMTP traffic characteristics of an IP-address-aggregate-category. A bot-likelihood score of the IP-address-aggregate-category is then associated with IP-address-aggregate. IP-address-aggregate-categories can be established based on historical SMTP traffic characteristics of the IP-address-aggregates. The IP-address-aggregates are grouped based on SMTP characteristics, and the IP-address-aggregate-categories are defined based on a selection of IP-address-aggregates with similar SMTP traffic characteristics that are diagnostic of spam bots vs. non-botnet-controllers spammers. Bot likelihood scores are determined for the resulting IP-address-aggregate-categories based on historically known bot IP addresses.
US08438635B2
A mechanism is provided for automatically logging into a cloud based system that does not accept token log-on credentials generated by a single sign-on service. In an embodiment, a one-time password is automatically generated and persisted. The generated password is used to log in automatically to a cloud based system that does not accept tokens generated by the web-ID providers and for connecting to other services. Examples of such systems may include Windows, Linux, and iOS.
US08438631B1
Disclosed are methods and devices to provide an end-to-end secure transaction over a software defined network (SDN). In one embodiment, a machine-implemented method includes: opening, through an enclave device, an in-band virtual secure channel (VSC) or an out-of-band VSC over the SDN; authenticating, through the enclave device, a user of a resource over the in-band VSC or the out-of-band VSC; facilitating, through the enclave device, an authorization of the user to access the resource over the in-band VSC or the out-of-band VSC; and accounting for a transaction conducted by the user accessing the resource, through the enclave device, over the in-band VSC or the out-of-band VSC.
US08438620B2
A portable device for activating access in or over a computer network that is connectable to a terminal, which is connected to the computer network at least temporarily. The portable device is configured to be insertable into a communication path between the terminal and the computer network, for authenticating a user, and for providing access data for activating access.
US08438619B2
An system for controlling access to a network by a user device. The system includes a criteria engine that generates a plurality of criteria to be monitored on the user device and a checker that generates at least one check for each of the plurality of criteria. The system further includes a profiler that retrieves a profile for the user device, the profile including the plurality of criteria and the at least one check for each of the plurality of criteria, a comparator that compares a summary of the retrieved profile to a summary of a profile received from the user device and a communicator that communicates a message to the user device based on the comparison.
US08438618B2
Active management technology (AMT) may be provisioned in a client device automatically, which may provide a secure connection between the provisioning server and the client device. The client device comprising the active management technology may support zero-touch provisioning and one-touch provisioning.
US08438617B2
An authentication server authenticates a first user, and generates a voucher code that is provided to the authenticated first user. The first user may provide the voucher code to a second user, responsive to a request by the second user for the first user to vouch for the second user, to thereby allow the second user to be authenticated. The authentication server receives the voucher code from the second user, and authenticates the second user based on the voucher code. The authenticated second user may be provided with a temporary password or other type of code utilizable for at least one additional authentication.
US08438614B2
Authentication information for each communication destination and communication condition information are stored so as to be associated with each other in accordance with each communication destination designated by a request accepted by a server apparatus. Communication permission information containing authentication information of the communication destination is accepted from a requester. Communication condition information associated with authentication information contained in the accepted communication permission information is acquired. Determination is made as to whether or not communication requested by the requester is consistent with a condition indicated by the acquired communication condition information. When determination is made that the communication requested by the requester is consistent with the condition indicated by the acquired communication condition information, the communication from the requester is relayed to the requested communication destination via a virtual service private line which is set in advance.
US08438597B2
According to a vehicular communication system (10) of the present invention, a specified time slot in compliance with one broadcast time slot corresponded to one attribute pertinent to or possessed by a vehicle (1) among a plurality of attributes corresponded to a plurality of broadcast time slots of programs, respectively, according to the broadcast program list. Even though the IGN switch (101) of the vehicle (1) is set at the OFF state, the vehicular communication system (10) is operated or kept at the operating state so as to receive the program broadcasted in the specified time slot.
US08438595B1
A method of correlating content-specific metadata to a point of interest in primary video content includes generating a series of content-specific temporal markers spaced throughout the play time of the primary video content and receiving input of the content-specific metadata intended for temporary display at the point of interest during playback of the primary video content. The content-specific metadata and point of interest are associated with at least one of the content-specific temporal markers. Additional methods of temporarily displaying metadata and apparatus for correlating content-specific metadata to a point of interest in primary video content are described.
US08438587B2
There is provided a motor with an improved sleeve holder and base plate combining structure and an optical disc drive using the same. The motor according to the present invention includes a base plate having a plate shape; a sleeve holder including a cylindrical body part having a sleeve fastened thereinto and a flange part formed to be horizontally protruded in an outer-diameter direction from the lower end portion of the body part to surface-contact the upper surface of the base plate.
US08438569B2
The present invention provides for notifying threads. A determination is made whether there is a condition for which a thread is to be notified. If so, a notification indicia is broadcasted. A flag is set in at least one memory storage area as a function of the notification indicia wherein the setting the flag occurs without the intervention of an operating system. Therefore, latencies for notification of threads are minimized.
US08438561B2
A receiving section receives an installation request including a validation date and time when a license of a plug-in is validated from a management apparatus. A license key acquiring section acquires a license key of the plug-in by requesting temporary issue thereof from a license server prior to the activation date and time. A plug-in acquiring section acquires the plug-in by requesting distribution thereof from a plug-in server prior to the validation date and time. A license key acquisition determining section determines whether the license key of the plug-in can be acquired from the license server at the time when the validation date and time has passed. An installing unit causes a multifunction peripheral to install therein the plug-in by using the temporarily issued license key and the plug-in when it is determined that the license key cannot be acquired.
US08438560B2
A resource assessment method and system. The method comprises identifying at least one information technology resource, providing characteristics of the information technology resource, maintaining a database of characteristics of at least one software product, generating a data collector software tool based on the characteristics of the information technology resource and the characteristics of the software product, composing a resource assessment agent that includes the data collector software tool, adapted for installation on the information technology resource to collect data pertaining to the information technology resource, to perform an analysis of the data by reference to the characteristics of the software product and to return at least one result of the analysis, deploying the resource assessment agent on the information technology resource, receiving the result of the analysis from the information technology resource, and outputting the result of the analysis.
US08438556B2
This invention has as its object to control a peripheral device by selecting optimal processing even when the version of the OS of an information processing apparatus is updated and when the version of firmware of the peripheral device is updated. To this end, according to this invention, the version information of the OS of an information processing apparatus, that of firmware of a printer, and that of a printer driver are acquired. A control method that acquires status information of the printer is set according to the acquired information.
US08438546B2
System and method for mitigating repeated crashes of an application resulting from supplemental code
Provided is a method for mitigating the effects of an application which crashes as the result of supplemental code (e.g., plug-in), particularly a plug-in from a source other than the source of the operating system of the device or the source of the application that crashes. The method includes executing the application. As the application is running, it may be monitored to determine if normal execution of instructions ceases. When that occurs, the system will make a determination if code from a supplemental code module was the cause of the crash, and will make an evaluation if that supplemental code module is from a source other than the source(s) of the operating system and application in question. In some implementations, remedial steps may be provided, such as providing information on subsequent executions of the application.
US08438534B2
A method of creating computer instructions for transforming inbound instances, being instances of an inbound data format, into outbound instances, being instances of an outbound data format. At least one of the inbound and outbound data formats has a number of segments arranged in a hierarchical manner. The method uses a computing device having at least a processor, a memory, a display device and an input device. The method includes allowing a developer to use the input device to create a graphical representation of the inbound data format on the display device and allowing the developer to use the input device to create a graphical representation of the outbound data format on the display device.
US08438533B2
Multiple development models of software applications utilizing different service environments may be annotated with additional information and transformed within a transformation chain into a resulting unified performance analysis model that may be used to evaluate the development models, for example, for simulations and/or analytical sensitivity analysis by utilizing different performance analysis environments. By relating elements of the development models through the transformation chain to elements of resulting unified models, the evaluation may be performed with respect to the resulting/transformed model, but provided to a user in terms of the original development models. In this way, a user of the development models may work with the more-familiar development models, utilizing multiple different performance analysis tools, without having to alter the development models directly in order to obtain the evaluation.
US08438529B1
A computer-based method and a computing device for checking signal transmission lines of a printed circuit board (PCB) layout are provided. The computing device identifies differential pairs in a currently run PCB layout according to an information file for the currently run PCB layout, checks whether any signal transmission line is routed between switching vias of each differential pair according to the information file for the currently run PCB layout, and displays a routing error window to display information of each misrouted signal transmission line.
US08438528B1
A method is provided to evaluate whether one or more test patterns is power safe for use during manufacturing testing of an integrated circuit that includes a nonuniform power grid and that includes a scan chain, the method comprising: assigning respective toggle count thresholds for respective power grid regions of the non-uniform power grid; and determining whether respective numbers of toggles by scan elements of the scan chain within one or more respective power grid regions meet respective toggle count thresholds for the one or more respective regions during at least one scan-shift cycle in the course of scan-in of a test pattern to the scan chain.
US08438523B2
In layout design step of the semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturing method, when it is found that the wiring length between an external terminal and an IO block (external terminal I/F circuit) corresponding to the external terminal increases after a floorplan of a circuit including a functional block and the IO block is determined, placement of the IO block is determined such that the IO block is placed close to the external terminal to alleviate constraints on the wiring between the IO block and the external terminal, and timing adjustment circuits whose number is determined according to the wiring length of a bus (or a shared bus) connecting a data transfer circuit and the IO block is inserted into the bus.
US08438516B2
A circuit design that contains at least two clock domains is simulated using a novel system and method for injecting the effects of metastability. The system includes detectors for detecting, during simulation, when a clock in a transmit clock domain and a clock in a receive clock domain are aligned and when the input of a register receiving a clock-domain-crossing signal is changing. The system includes coverage monitors for measuring, during simulation, statistics related to metastability injection. The system accurately models the effects of metastability by, at appropriate times during simulation, pseudo-randomly inverting outputs of registers receiving clock-domain-crossing signals. By accurately modeling the effects of metastability, errors in the circuit design can be detected while simulating a pre-existing simulation test. The simulation with metastability effects injection is repeatable and requires no modification of pre-existing RTL design files or simulation test files.
US08438510B2
System and method for developing an ASIC. A software program may be stored which includes program instructions which implement a function. The software program may be executed on a processing system at a desired system speed and may be validated based on the execution. A first hardware description of at least a portion of the processing system may be stored and may specify implementation of at least a portion of the processing system. A second hardware description may be generated that corresponds to a first portion of the first hardware description. The second hardware description may specify a dedicated hardware implementation of a first portion of the software program executing on the processing system. Generation of the second hardware description may be performed one or more times to fully specify the ASIC. An ASIC may be created which implements the function of the software program.
US08438499B2
An aspect of the present invention relates to methods and systems involving receiving an indicator of an attempted interaction of a user with an item of website content and presenting one or more indicia of a website's reputation to the user attempting to interact with the website content. The act of presenting the indicia may be in response to the user's attempted interaction with the website.
US08438491B2
A method and apparatus for managing a network access device is provided. Embedded within the access device are three distinct software layers. The first layer is a combined text-interface generator and Hypertext Transport Protocol client. The second layer is a combined Hypertext Transport Protocol server and Simple Network Management Protocol manager. The third layer is a Simple Network Management Protocol agent that has direct access to the configuration data of the access device. A user can manage the device through the embedded text-interface generator, by using an external HTTP client to communicate with the embedded HTTP server, or by using an external SNMP manager to communicate with the embedded SNMP agent. Techniques are disclosed for embedding SNMP information in messages passed between HTTP clients and servers.
US08438489B2
The system and method as described herein can be advantageously used in a plurality of scenarios, two of which include field markup and data collection and collaborative review. The system and method handles the allocation of digital paper pattern background and the creation of required page definition files embedded into digital paper enabled PDFs. Optionally, action palettes can be automatically overlaid on the drawings as legend boxes to enable field personnel to select the operations they want to perform on the digital paper as they would on a computer interface. For instance letting users select the types of callouts and clouds to add to their markup. These drawings can be printed or plotted onto paper and sent to a work site for markup.
US08438482B2
A computer implemented method and system is provided for controlling playback of multimedia content in real time. An interactive media application is provided to a first user and a second user. The first user defines multiple controls for the multimedia content and parameters associated with the defined controls using the interactive media application. The interactive media application renders a graphical representation of the defined controls with the multimedia content on an interface on the second user's computing device. The interactive media application acquires one or more control inputs from the second user. The control inputs provide a selection of values for the defined parameters associated with the defined controls. The interactive media application executes the defined controls based on the selected values for modifying one or more variables of the multimedia content. The interactive media application renders the multimedia content in accordance with the modified variables to the second user.
US08438481B2
A graphical user interface for use in connection with a device having navigation and media functionality includes a navigation interface and a media interface that each have having a plurality of screens adapted to facilitate interaction between a user and a navigation application and a media application, respectively. An application interface toggle button it is actuatable on at least one of the plurality of navigation interface screens and on at least one of the plurality of media interface screens. Actuation of the application interface toggle button from a navigation interface screen invokes display of a media interface screen, and actuation of the application interface toggle button from a media interface screen invokes display of a navigation interface screen.
US08438480B2
A system and method for tracking an input device uses positional information of a display screen in frames of image data to determine the relative position of the input device with respect to the display screen.
US08438473B2
Properties defining modes for handling user events such as cursor events and touch events on a computing device such as a touchscreen device are provided. One property determines, for an entire webpage or for elements thereof, whether received cursor events should be processed in accordance with default handling routines configured in the browser environment, or passed for handling by an event handler defined for the element. Another property determines, for the entire webpage or elements thereof, whether received touch events should be processed in accordance with default handling routines, passed for handling by an event handler, or converted to cursor events or mouse events for handling by an event handler.
US08438471B2
A system for speeding up rendering of and interacting with one or more web pages to accomplish some task using the internet. In a system comprising one or more client computers which can be cell phones, laptops or desktop computers coupled in any way to the internet and a template server and other web servers coupled to the internet, a microbrowser under control of a task workflow template is executed either by a client computer or the template server. The task workflow templates are custom defined workflows which define one or more web pages which need to be accessed and the data from each web page that needs to be extracted. The data defined in the task workflow template (and only that data) is extracted by the microbrowser and displayed on the client computer. Faster rendering results. Interaction by filling in of forms and extraction of data from the web pages that result when the form data is sent to the web server allows accomplishing of tasks using the internet much faster, especially using cell phones.
US08438466B2
In one embodiment, on a first date, a computer system receives a watch list term that is specified by a user. The computer system receives an electronic version of a paper on a second date after the first date, and the computer system searches the electronic version for the watch list term, without the user specifying the watch list term after the first date, and without the user initiating the searching after the first date. The computer system outputs a result of the searching for display on a display device.
US08438463B2
A user equipment (UE) comprising at least one component configured to decode a tail-biting convolution code (TBCC) by calculating a plurality of paths that correspond to a plurality of encoder starting states and trace back at least one of the calculated paths per at least one iteration until a trace-back convergence check (TCC) condition fails, wherein the TCC condition fails if a starting state of a first traced back path among the calculated paths is not equal to a starting state of a subsequent traced back path.
US08438460B2
Error correcting systems, methods, and devices for non-volatile memory are disclosed. In one embodiment, a non-volatile memory device comprises a data area for storing data, an error correcting code generation section for generating an error correcting code in response to receipt of a code generation command, and an error correcting code area for storing the error correcting code. The non-volatile memory device further comprises a detector circuit for detecting the generating of the error correcting code, and a read section for correcting the data stored in the data area based on the error correcting code upon the detecting of the generation of the error correcting code by the detector circuit, where the code generation command is forwarded by a memory controller when the data are is filled with the data beyond a threshold level
US08438456B2
A method begins by a processing module receiving streaming data and dispersed storage resource configuration information. The method continues with the processing module allocating a plurality of sets of dispersed storage resources, obtaining error coding dispersed storage function parameters, and partitioning the streaming data into a plurality of data streams in accordance with the dispersed storage resource configuration information when the dispersed storage resource configuration information requires a plurality of sets of dispersed storage resources. In addition, the method continues with the processing module converting, via the plurality of sets of dispersed storage resources, the plurality of data streams into pluralities of sets of error coded data slices in accordance with the error coding dispersed storage function parameters.
US08438455B2
In some embodiments, a solid state disk includes a non-volatile memory and a controller. The controller performs ECC on data stored on the non-volatile memory, and performs a parity operation on the data if the ECC cannot correct the data. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08438452B2
In one embodiment, a method provides determining one of an occurrence and a non-occurrence of an event, the one of the occurrence and the non-occurrence resulting in an event determination; and processing a code having an event bit, said processing in accordance with the determination and the code, by determining if the event bit corresponds to the event determination, and if the event bit does not correspond to the event determination, encoding the code to generate a poison bit that corresponds to the event determination.
US08438445B2
The invention provides an error detection method for data transmission in a transmission system with a first device, a second device and a data line. The method comprises the following steps. Firstly, a clock signal is sent to synchronize the first and second devices. Secondly, at least one serial data is sent from the first device to the second device in response to the clock signal. After sending the serial data, the first device sends an acknowledgement signal to the second device. After sending the acknowledgement signal, the first device reads the data line to obtain a reading value and determines whether the serial data is correct according to the reading value and a default value of the data line.
US08438436B1
A method of securing a design-for-test scan chain within a programmable integrated circuit device (IC) can include placing the programmable IC in an operational mode and responsive to a request to access a scan chain within the programmable IC, selectively enabling a secure mode within the programmable IC according to a configuration state of the programmable IC. Enabling secure mode within the programmable IC can provide access to the scan chain. Responsive to enabling the secure mode, the programmable IC can remain in the secure mode and be prevented from re-entering the operational mode until the programmable IC is power cycled.
US08438435B2
In a method for testing an address bus in a logic module, a logic module, a computer program and a computer program product, the method provides for a logic module to have at least one data register, into which addresses detected by the address decoder are written.
US08438424B2
A method of assessing a computer program under actual working conditions according to one embodiment comprises executing the computer program multiple times under actual working conditions, in response to each unhandled exception encountered during execution of the computer program, creating a corresponding stack frame signature to characterize the state of the program, and comparing the stack frame signatures to determine which unhandled exceptions are likely to have resulted from similar features.
US08438419B2
A differential communication bus comprising a master module and a plurality of slave modules connected to at least first and second conductors whereby to communicate between the master and slave modules. The master module comprises a driver for applying first and second voltages respectively to the first and second conductors and for sourcing and sinking currents in the first and second conductors. The driver controls a difference between the first and second voltages and a common mode value of the first and second voltages. The driver includes first sourcing and sinking current limiters and second sourcing and sinking current limiters for limiting the currents in the first and second conductors. The master module is selectively responsive to a fault condition triggering simultaneous activation of the first and second sourcing current limiters or of the first and second sinking current limiters to disable the driver.
US08438418B2
An aspect of the present invention simplifies software maintenance of nodes in a data center. In one embodiment, a management system receives data specifying a set of commands to be executed on a node in the data center, and then forms a maintenance script by programmatically incorporating instructions for executing the set of commands on the node and to perform a set of management actions. The management system then executes the maintenance script to cause execution of the set of commands on the nodes, thereby performing maintenance of the node. A user/administrator of the data center needs to specify only the commands, thereby simplifying the software maintenance of data centers. According to another aspect, the maintenance scripts (formed by incorporating the commands provided by a user) are executed as part of a disaster recovery process in the data center.
US08438417B2
A method, device and system for generating an HA group according to a user's HA requirement by retrieving an applicable HA pattern, according to a result of HA requirement analysis on the user's HA requirement; generating an initial HA group based on the retrieved HA pattern; performing context rebuilding on a member unit in the initial HA group to obtain a preliminarily configured HA group; generating a member unit based HA group variant for the preliminarily configured HA group according to an HA group redundancy obtained from the user's HA requirement; and performing structure configuration and attribute configuration on a member unit in the generated HA group variant to obtain an HA group that meets the user's HA requirement.
US08438415B2
A system, method and computer program product for steering a time-of-day (TOD) clock for a computer system having a physical clock providing a time base for executing operations that is stepped to a common oscillator. The method includes receiving, at a processing unit, a request to change a clock steering rate used to control a TOD-clock offset value for the processing unit, the TOD-clock offset defined as a function of a start time (s), a base offset (b), and a steering rate (r). The unit schedules a next episode start time with which to update the TOD-clock offset value. After updating TOD-clock offset value (d) at the scheduled time, TOD-clock offset value is added to a physical-clock value (Tr) value to obtain a logical TOD-clock value (Tb), where the logical TOD-clock value is adjustable without adjusting a stepping rate of the oscillator.
US08438414B2
A method of using a counter stored in flash memory includes providing a base value field, a selector field, and a plurality of increment fields. The base value field represents a base value for the counter, and the selector field indicates a first one of the increment fields. The method further includes changing a bit of the first increment field from an erased value to a written value to indicate a change in a value stored in the counter.
US08438405B2
The invention discloses a compute system which may detect the state of a power supply. The system includes a power supply and a motherboard. The power supply has a detecting unit for detecting a power state of the power supply. The detected information is converted to a high-frequency signal and outputted to the motherboard via a “power good” pin in an ATX power connector. The motherboard may obtain a voltage, current, power, temperature and other values inside the power supply via the ATX power connector and allow the values to be displayed on the screen to provide a real-time monitoring function for the users.
US08438403B2
Provided is a storage apparatus capable of encrypting data without affecting the business performance. This storage apparatus includes a cache memory, a first controller for controlling the writing of data in the cache memory pursuant to the write command, a second controller for controlling the writing of the data written in the cache into the storage devices, and an encryption engine for encrypting data pursuant to the write command. When the second controller reads the data from the cache memory and writes the data in said storage devices, the encryption engine encrypts the data, and the second controller writes the encrypted data in said storage devices.
US08438400B2
A multiple user desktop graphical identification and authentication configured as a loadable dynamic link library (DLL) intended to replace the default Microsoft graphical identification and authentication. It has the ability to create secure, private logon sessions for each user that logs on to the system. There can be up to at least thirteen users logged in at the same time and each user will have their own desktop environment. Auto log off functions may be set based on time of inactivity and/or number of individual users. The multiple user desktop graphical identification and authentication functions in a domain and non-networked environments and needs no added hardware.
US08438389B2
A method and system to facilitate dynamic service negotiation with a uniform and persistent security control plane in a wireless network. In one embodiment of the invention, a node in the wireless network determines each capability provided by each of one or more virtual nodes that it supports and transmits a frame that has information of each capability provided by each of the one or more virtual nodes. By combining all the information of each capability provided by each of the one or more virtual nodes into one frame, the node reduces the volume of management traffic required and increases the available usable channel bandwidth in one embodiment of the invention.
US08438384B2
A system and method for performing mutual authentication verifies a username and a password of a handheld device by a server, and verifies an identity of the server by the handheld device if the handheld device passes the username and password verification. The system and method further verifies an identity of the handheld device by the server if the identity of the server is valid, and gives an access authority to the handheld device if the identity of the handheld device is valid.
US08438383B2
An ID vault computer control program detects when a user's browser navigates to a third-party website that requires a user ID and password. If it hasn't done so already, it automatically requests a decryption key for a local encrypted vault file from a network server by supplying a personal identification number (PIN) from the user through the input device, a copy of the GUID, and a signature of GUID using a private key for the root certificate. If a decryption key is returned from the network server, the local encrypted vault file is unlocked and automatically supplies a corresponding user ID and password to log-on to the third-party website without the user.
US08438374B2
A computer system includes a device which transmits data through a predetermined interface and outputs first recognition information in response to a predetermined power on self test (POST) control signal, a device controller which has second recognition information about whether the device is mounted, and a system controller which outputs the POST control signal to the device when powering on, and recognizes the device on the basis of the first recognition information and the second recognition information.
US08438371B2
Whenever a link address is written to the link stack, the prior value of the link stack entry is saved, and is restored to the link stack after a link stack push operation is speculatively executed following a mispredicted branch. This condition is detected by maintaining a count of the total number of uncommitted link stack write instructions in the pipeline, and a count of the number of uncommitted link stack write instructions ahead of each branch instruction. When a branch is evaluated and determined to have been mispredicted, the count associated with it is compared to the total count. A discrepancy indicates a link stack write instruction was speculatively issued into the pipeline after the mispredicted branch instruction, and pushed a link address onto the link stack. The prior link address is restored to the link stack from the link stack restore buffer.
US08438353B1
A method, system, and computer readable medium for asynchronously processing write operation on a volume having copy-on-write snapshots. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of: updating a normal mirror with write data associated with a write operation for the volume; asynchronously copying the write data from an asynchronous mirror to at least one copy-on-write snapshot; and, once the at least one copy-on-write snapshot is updated, updating the asynchronous mirror with the write data from the normal mirror.
US08438349B2
A system and method for backing up a virtual machine executing on a virtualization server computer are described. A snapshot of a virtual disk image file of the virtual machine may be created on a network-attached storage (NAS) device coupled to the virtualization server computer. The snapshot may be used to backup the virtual disk image file from the NAS device to a backup storage device without transferring the virtual disk image file through the virtualization server computer. Mapping information useable to access the plurality of files stored in the virtual disk image file on an individual basis may be created and stored together with the backup copy of the virtual disk image file on the backup storage device.
US08438348B2
In control of the disk array device (backup system), when a blackout occurs, the disk array device is first operated in a first method to backed up a main memory by using a power supply from a battery. During the first method, a blackout continuous time and the like are integrated, and at a timing in which the integrated value satisfies a condition, the first method is then shifted to the second method to evacuate data from the main memory onto a nonvolatile memory based on a power supply.
US08438345B2
A multi-priority encoder includes a plurality of interconnected, single-priority encoders arranged in descending priority order. The multi-priority encoder includes circuitry for blocking a match output by a lower level single-priority encoder if a higher level single-priority encoder outputs a match output. Match data is received from a content addressable memory, and the priority encoder includes address encoding circuitry for outputting the address locations of each highest priority match line flagged by the highest priority indicator. Each single-priority encoder includes a highest priority indicator which has a plurality of indicator segments, each indicator segment being associated with a match line input.
US08438341B2
A method for unidirectional communication between tasks includes providing a first task having access to an amount of virtual memory, blocking a communication channel portion of said first task's virtual memory, such that the first task cannot access said portion, providing a second task, having access to an amount of virtual memory equivalent to the first task's virtual memory, wherein a communication channel portion of the second task's virtual memory corresponding to the blocked portion of the first task's virtual memory is marked as writable, transferring the communication channel memory of the second task to the first task, and unblocking the communication channel memory of the first task.
US08438330B2
A method and apparatus for ordering a plurality (P) of entries having various prefix lengths for storage in a number (T) of available storage locations in a content addressable memory (CAM) array according to the prefix lengths is disclosed. Initially, a first number (N) of the entries of selected and used to generate a distribution graph of their prefix lengths. Then, for each unique prefix length, a corresponding subset of the T storage locations in the CAM array are allocated according to a predicted prefix length distribution indicated by the distribution graph. Then, all of the entries are stored in the corresponding allocated storage locations according to prefix length.
US08438329B2
An apparatus and method couples memory devices in a memory module to a memory hub on the module such that signals traveling from the hub to the devices have approximately the same propagation time regardless of which device is involved. Specifically, the devices are arranged around the hub in pairs, with each pair of devices being oriented such that a functional group of signals for each device in the pair, such as the data bus signals, are positioned adjacent each other on a circuit board of the module. This allows for a data and control-address busses having approximately the same electrical characteristics to be routed between the hub and each of the devices. This physical arrangement of devices allows high speed operation of the module. In one example, the hub is located in the center of the module and eight devices, four pairs, are positioned around the hub.
US08438328B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth an abstracted memory subsystem comprising abstracted memories, which each may be configured to present memory-related characteristics onto a memory system interface. The characteristics can be presented on the memory system interface via logic signals or protocol exchanges, and the characteristics may include any one or more of, an address space, a protocol, a memory type, a power management rule, a number of pipeline stages, a number of banks, a mapping to physical banks, a number of ranks, a timing characteristic, an address decoding option, a bus turnaround time parameter, an additional signal assertion, a sub-rank, a number of planes, or other memory-related characteristics. Some embodiments include an intelligent register device and/or, an intelligent buffer device. One advantage of the disclosed subsystem is that memory performance may be optimized regardless of the specific protocols used by the underlying memory hardware devices.
US08438326B2
A memory interface system can include a memory controller configured to operate at a first operating frequency. A physical interface block can be coupled to the memory controller. The physical interface block can be configured to communicate with the memory controller at the first operating frequency and communicate with a memory device at a second operating frequency that is independent of the first operating frequency.
US08438322B2
A processing module includes a fetch and decode module, an instruction register, a data register, an execution module, and a millimeter wave (MMW) transceiver section. The fetch and decode module is operable to fetch and decode an instruction of a program and to identify data associated with the instruction. The execution module is operable to execute the instruction upon the data associated with the instruction. The MMW transceiver section is operable to wirelessly receive at least one of the instruction and the data associated with the instruction from memory.
US08438320B2
Various methods and apparatus are described for a target with multiple channels. Address decoding logic is configured to implement a distribution of requests from individual burst requests to two or more memory channels making up an aggregate target. The address decoding logic implements a channel-selection hash function to allow requests from each individual burst request to be distributed amongst the two or more channels in a non-linear sequential pattern in channel round order that make up the aggregate target.
US08438319B1
In a computer system configured to handle I/O signals received by the computer system from input devices and/or output signals output by the computer system, a virtual attachment module includes logic for selecting such that program code for coupling can alter the operating system's selection of I/O devices used for particular I/O device operations, coupling to a wireless I/O device at least for determining whether the wireless I/O device is available, and causing redirection of I/O signals destined to a default I/O device to be to the wireless I/O device, if the program code for coupling determines that the wireless I/O device is available. A virtual connection module could be used to intercept system messages indicating a wireless device is present and connected, determine whether the wireless device is present and/or connected, and determine which intercepted messages to forward, drop, delay or reformulate.
US08438312B2
Dynamically rehosting at least one or more elements of a first resource originally hosted at an origin server. A dynamic web content transformation server receives a first HTTP request from an Internet client for the first resource that includes a value in a host header field that refers to the dynamic web content transformation server. The content transformation server transforms the first HTTP request including changing the value in the host header field to refer to the origin server, and transmits the transformed HTTP request to the origin server. The content transformation server receives an HTTP response from the origin server that includes the first resource that includes a client-side script that, when executed by the Internet client, makes a second HTTP request for a second resource hosted at the origin server. The content transformation server automatically transforms the HTTP response such that the client-side script, when executed by the Internet client, makes the second HTTP request for the second resource at the dynamic web content transformation server, and the content transformation server transmits the transformed HTTP response to the Internet client.
US08438311B2
An image processing method applied to an image display system is provided. The image processing method comprises generating a statistic data according to a transmitting time of at least one image from an image transmitting end to an image receiving end and a processing time for displaying the at least one image at the image receiving end, generating a parameter data according to a predetermined time interval and the statistic data, transmitting the parameter data from the image receiving end to the image transmitting end, and adjusting an appointed image according to the parameter data to generate an adjusted image, and transmitting the adjusted image from the image transmitting end to the image receiving end. Accordingly, images are displayed on the image display system at a constant interval.
US08438307B2
The present invention provides a method and device of load-sharing in an IRF stack. The method includes: the Master device checking a congestion state of the main path, obtaining a path for forwarding service flow according the congestion state of the main path, where the path is the main path or a backup path, and forwarding the service flow to the egress device through the main path or the backup bath to implement the load-sharing in the IRF stack. In the embodiments of the present invention, by checking the congestion states of main path and the backup path in real-time, the load-sharing of the IRF stack is implemented. When new service flow is added, the data may be forwarded through another path, which can improve the efficiency of member devices in the IRF stack and solve the problem of forwarding bottleneck to which the member devices face.
US08438306B2
A method, apparatus, and system for providing layer concurrency connecting two or more master Intellectual Property cores to a Network on a Chip (NoC) for an integrated circuit is provided. An embodiment includes two masters connected using a common tightly coupled protocol to a first interface of an NoC. A protocol conversion unit can be coupled between the two or more masters and the NoC to convert a request in the tightly coupled protocol to a decoupled protocol that decouples request phasing from response phasing and then passes the request in the decoupled protocol format onto the NoC. The system also provides for arbitration amongst the two or more masters. Requests from the masters are still in the common tightly coupled protocol and are translated by the protocol conversion unit into a request in a decoupled protocol to enable out of order return of responses.
US08438303B2
A method and apparatus are provided for managing logging data communications in a computer system. The computer system is configured with a proxy agent in communication with a client machine and storage, and an embedded agent in communication with the proxy agent and the client machine. All inbound communications from the client machine to the storage are maintained in a log local to the proxy agent. However, all outbound communications are split between two different communications paths, with one outbound path from the storage directly to the client machine and a second outbound path from the storage to the client machine via the proxy agent. One of the two outbound paths is selected based upon one or more of the characteristics of the associated communication.
US08438289B1
Techniques are described herein that provide for inter-domain communications with one or more shared worker applications. A parent web application associated with a first domain may create a child web application associated with a second domain different than the first domain. The child web application may determine whether a shared worker associated with the second domain is operating. The shared worker acquires information associated with the second domain in response to one or more requests, and stores acquired information associated with the second domain in a memory of the local computing device. The parent web application may request, via the child web application, information associated with the second domain from the shared worker. In response to the request, the parent web application may receive, from the shared worker, information associated with the second domain stored in the memory of the local computing device.
US08438287B2
Described is a system and method for managing a mobile device by using a user device, wherein the mobile device includes a web server and one or more web pages including a home web page that is accessible via an assigned uniform resource locator (URL). The method includes establishing a local connection between the mobile device and the user device, and detecting the established local connection by the user device. The method further includes launching a web browser of the user device when the local connection is detected using an auto-launch application to access the home web page via the assigned URL using a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request, and providing the home web page to the web browser by the web server in response to the HTTP request, wherein the home web page provides access to the mobile device and facilitates management of the mobile device.
US08438262B2
The invention provides a method and system for fusing message paths that occurred in a first domain in a communication network, with message paths that occurred in a second domain in the communication network a communication channel exists between the two domains. A first message path that occurred in the first domain and included a message sent to the second domain along the communication channel is fused to a second path that occurred in the second domain that included the message received from the first domain. Each message that is transmitted in the communication channel between the two domains is assigned a message unique identifier that allows each domain to associate a message sent from one domain to the other with a response message sent in the opposite direction.
US08438258B2
Updating user data on a website includes: authenticating a user who is accessing the website via a client; determining whether an operation behavior of the user satisfies a first preset condition; in the event that the first preset condition is satisfied, obtaining user identification information, including a user identifier (ID); determining whether a stored user property that corresponds to the user ID satisfies a second preset condition; and in the event that the second preset condition is satisfied, updating designated service related data of the user.
US08438257B2
Methods and apparatus facilitate recovery of an IMS in which an S-CSCF has suffered a restart (after a failure, software upgrade, or other reasons). One or more of first and second methods comprise submitting, from the S-CSCF towards a HSS, contact data required by the S-CSCF to contact a given subscriber, or to contact a proxy server through which the subscriber is accessible; storing the contact data at the HSS; and providing from the HSS towards an IMS entity, which may be previously assigned S-CSCF or a new S-CSCF, contact information elements selectable from the contact data.
US08438251B2
Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for implementing a virtual Storage Area Network (SAN) in software. According to one embodiment, a method for implementing a virtual SAN can comprise defining an application for accessing a computing grid for storing information wherein defining the application for accessing the computing grid for storing the information comprises defining a resource and defining one or more state objects for the resource, wherein the one or more state objects are handled independent from the resource. For example, the computing grid can comprise an Oracle Coherence grid. Such a computing grid can maintain a primary copy and a backup copy of the information and provides the backup of the information if the primary copy is unavailable. The information stored on the computing grid can be accessed via the application.
US08438246B2
A Device Management system includes a device management server used by a network operator to manage one or more mobile devices operating in a wireless communications network. The device management server provides the mobile devices with Representational State Transfer (REST) commands to be executed by the mobile devices. The REST commands identify a location of one or more files on a network server that, when executed by the mobile devices, allows the devices to retrieve the files from the server, or directly from a data storage system accessible to the mobile device. The device management server may also provide the mobile devices with REST commands that allow the mobile devices to upload and store their files and information onto the network server at the specified location.
US08438238B2
A heterogeneous information technology system in which compatible and incompatible client systems are able to dynamically access master data stored in a master database maintained by a master data server. An integration server communicates with the client systems and the master data server, and in response to a request for data from a client system, maps the master data in the master database to mapped data based on a set of mapping rules associated with the client system, and sends the mapped data to the client system.
US08438233B2
Systems and methods for the storage and distribution of content for user device groups are presented. In one example, a device group including a plurality of user devices is defined based on logical relationships among the plurality of user devices. A group data structure corresponding to the device group is stored in a data storage device, the group data structure including a parent data structure. An item of content is received from a first user device of the device group and stored in the data storage device as a child data structure of the parent data structure. The item of content is transmitted to other user devices of the device group based on the item of content being stored in the group data structure.
US08438227B2
Methods and systems for instant messaging using a browser to eliminate the requirement of installation of instant messaging software at the user end is described. When a source user sends an instant message to a target user, the source server (the server which the source user is logged in) searches the information of the target server (the server which the target user is currently logged in) with the help of an instant messaging status server, and sends the instant message to the target server according to the search result. The target server then relays the instant message to the target user. The target server may also send a reply message to the source server, which in turn transmits the reply message to the source user. Preferably, at least one of users uses a browser and not an instant messaging client software.
US08438217B2
An image processing apparatus is disclosed as an embodiment of the invention. The image processing apparatus which is connected to a communication network and can communicate with an outside includes an operating unit which allows the user to operate the image processing apparatus, a managing unit which manages a program and data existing in the image processing apparatus, an obtaining unit which obtains a program to control the image processing apparatus from an information processing apparatus connected via the communication network, a display unit which displays a screen according to the obtained program; a recognizing unit which recognizes an end of a process based on the program in the image processing apparatus, and a deleting unit which deletes the program in response to the end of the process of the program.
US08438213B2
A system for presenting telephone state information includes a presence server 10; a presence client end 20 and a presence contact end 30 which are respectively connected with the presence server 10 and communicate with each other through the presence server 10; a user telephone line monitoring device 40, used for monitoring the state of the user telephone line 50, and sending the monitored state to the presence client end 20. Wherein, the presence contact end 30 is used for displaying presence information of a corresponding telephone state of the presence client end 20 it subscribed. The present invention also provides a method for presenting telephone state information. Through the invention, a client can inform his/her telephone state information to the contacts in time. The system and method do not depend on special telephone switch, and have a low cost, can be used in any area.
US08438207B2
Two process-tolerant arithmetic circuit architectures are implemented to develop functional blocks for error-tolerant applications such as FIR filters and FFT blocks. The resulting blocks may achieve computational performance of up to 42 times higher than conventional architectures. Embodiments adaptively change the precision of the computation to achieve a high precision computation given the underlying speed of the circuit. The resulting improvement can be allocated to increasing yield or dynamically trading off between reduced power consumption, faster computation, or higher-fidelity computation.
US08438201B2
A method and apparatus for fractional digital integration of an input signal is provided, the input signal including a time series of numerical values and the method or apparatus including applying the input signal time series to one input of a two-input summer at a time I, providing an output of the summer to a delay register at time I, providing an output of the delay register from time i−1 to a two-input multiplier, providing an output of the multiplier to the summer at time I, using a resettable counter to determine a value i and index a lookup table with i to provide the indexed value of the lookup table as an input to the multiplier, and obtaining an output signal time series from the output of the summer.
US08438199B1
In one embodiment, improved techniques are provided for identifying and/or highlighting a graphic element. A multi-dimensional data structure corresponding to a visual representation of information may be created, wherein, for each active point in the visual representation of information, the multi-dimensional data structure has a corresponding location that stores a globally unique identifier (GUID) that indicates one or more graphic elements present at that point in the visual representation. A selection from a user of a selected point in the visual representation of information may be received. A location of the selected point may be used as an index into the multi-dimensional data structure to determine a particular location in the multi-dimensional data structure that coincides with the selected point. A particular GUID may be retrieved from the particular location and used to identify one or more graphic elements.
US08438198B2
The invention concerns an integrated circuit device including first and second memories, the two memories comprising files organized in respective tree structures. The invention is characterized in that one of the memories includes an indication of a path to at least one file in the tree structure of the other memory.
US08438195B2
A method of operating a file system in a host configured to store write data in a data storage device including a first region and a second region is disclosed, and includes; receiving a write data request for write data associated with a file, classifying the write data as hot data or cold data using file meta data for the file, and if the write data is classified as hot data, storing the write data in the first region, and otherwise if the write data is classified as cold data storing the write data in the second region.
US08438193B2
A method for performing garbage collection on an object heap is described. In one embodiment, such a method includes performing a copy phase on an object heap by copying live objects from a source space to a destination space. An abort condition is generated when copying an object from the source space to the destination space fails due to insufficient space. In response to the abort condition, tracing work and reference updating associated with the copy phase are terminated. A mark phase is then initiated that marks live objects in the source space. This mark phase resumes tracing work and reference updating terminated by the copy phase in order to avoid or minimize the repetition of work performed by the copy phase. A corresponding computer program product and system are also described.
US08438184B1
An entity (a device, a user of a device or set of devices, a user of one or more applications on a device, a group of users of the device or set of devices, or the like) is identified across multiple device, usage, and application domains. The entity is assigned a unique entity identity that is generated from a set of feature data that model the entity. The feature data typically includes deterministic data, device and system-specific feature data, and usage feature data. The identity is generated by applying to the feature data one or more rules that identify which of the feature data to use to generate the entity identity. The rules include at least one deterministic rule, and at least one probabilistic rule. Periodically, an identity is merged into one or more entity identities that are found, by applying a rule, to represent a same entity.
US08438180B2
A contents display and search system for navigating and searching and exploring a collection of objects includes a database of Attributes; each of the Attributes being associated with one or more objects, and a database of Kinds, each Kind being associated with one or more Attributes. When a user enters a search query including at least one Attribute, an object is tested to determine whether it has Attributes of the Kind corresponding to the Kind of the at least one specified Attribute before function testing is performed. Search and contents investigation results are presented in a hierarchical format in which Kinds and Attributes rather than objects, are displayed until the search or content type is further specified by selecting additional Kinds and/or Attributes such that the number of objects satisfying the specified search is below a threshold. User interaction modifies the hierarchical order of Kinds and Attributes in the display.
US08438178B2
A computer-implemented method is provided, which includes constructing first and second user profiles for respective first and second users, by observing respective online behaviors of the first and second users. The first and second user profiles are projected onto an N-dimensional vector space as respective first and second vectors. An interaction between the first and second vectors in the vector space is modeled. Responsively to the modeled interaction, at least one entity is modified, the entity selected from the group consisting of: the first user profile, and the first vector. Content is presented to the first user responsively to the modified entity. Other embodiments are also described.
US08438177B2
A graphical user interface in a database application includes a control for manipulating a result set of a query. The control is operable to display multiple graphical representations of a result ratio between a total number of rows in a database table returned in response to the query and a total number of rows of the database table. By interacting with the control, the user can switch (e.g., toggle) between graphical representations of the result ratio. The toggling can be achieved by automatically creating supplemental queries to the database. The graphical representations can be a pie chart, bar chart, eye chart or any other graphical representation that is suitable for displaying the result ratio.
US08438172B2
Provided are an information processing method, an information processing program, and an information processing device for copying or moving a file. The method includes a step for comparing file information and judging whether the file information coincide. The comparison element of the file information contains a file content. That is, the method includes: a step for comparing the file names of the copy source and copy destination or the movement source and the movement destination and judging whether a file of the same name exists in the copy destination or the movement destination; a step for comparing the file contents if a file of the same name exists in the copy destination or the movement destination so as to judge whether the file contents are identical; and a step for outputting the comparison results of the file contents.
US08438164B2
Techniques for providing relevant information to a user based on information or documents accessed or viewed by the user. The relevant information is provided automatically to the user without requiring user input. The information provided to the user is selected from information provided by various content provider systems. The present invention uses several techniques to determine relevancy between the contents of the document accessed by the user and between the information provided by the content provider systems. The relevancy information is used to select information to be provided to the user.
US08438157B2
System and methods are provided, which include a presentation device that presents one or more data streams of information to one or more users. Each of the data streams has one or more samples that are arranged a temporal order. A relevancy display has two or more relevance indications, and each of the relevance indications is uniquely associated with one of the samples. The relevance indications are ordered on the relevancy display in the temporal order that corresponds to the order of the samples in the data stream.
US08438155B1
A coverage evaluator determine search results that are a subset of potential search results, the search results provided in response to search requests, wherein a covered portion of the potential search results are associated with quick review information and a non-covered portion of the potential search results are not associated with quick review information. A coverage calculator may calculate a coverage of search results, based on a relation of covered, weighted impressions of the covered portion to weighted impressions, wherein the weighted impressions include non-covered, weighted impressions of the non-covered portion, if any.
US08438148B1
Embodiments for generating search shortcuts and inline auto-complete entries are described herein. An embodiment includes, detecting text input in a browser, determining if the text input corresponds to an identifier from where a search was initiated and presenting one or more identifiers and an option to search content based on the determining step. Another method embodiment includes, determining if a user attempted to navigate to an identifier or if the user provided a search query, presenting one or more search results based on the search query, providing a HTTP request concurrently with the presenting step to retrieve content associated with the identifier, and presenting a user interaction area to determine if the user intended to navigate to the identifier.
US08438145B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products for determining availability of presentable content via a subscription service are disclosed. According to one aspect, a method includes receiving an indication of first presentable content associated with a first subscription service. Metadata associated with the selected first presentable content is received. Based on the received metadata, it is determined whether second presentable content corresponding to the first presentable content is available from a second subscription service. Further, and indication is provided that the second presentable content is available.
US08438128B2
A method and system of estimating the performance of a classifier system based on a reported confusion matrix includes, in one embodiment, parameters fit to observed confusion matrices, such that the expected performance of decision detection versus the probability of not-in-library reports can be estimated based on the forced decision confusion matrix. The approach also lends itself to a general methodology for modeling classes of confusers in a statistical manner, which can be extended to modeling clutter severity.
US08438124B2
Systems and methods of a knowledge management networking are disclosed here. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of hosting a web-space having a plurality of objects, the plurality of objects to include one or more of, representations of a set of users, a set of web-items, and a set of nets; wherein a net of the set of nets is a subset of the web-space comprising a sub-plurality of the plurality of objects. One embodiment can include, tracking an explicit relationship between a first set of at least two objects of the set of objects; the explicit relationship to be pre-determined by a user of the set of users, identifying an implicit relationship between a second set of at least two objects of the set of objects; the implicit relationship to be identified based on a semantic relationship between the at least two objects, and determining a default set of privacy rules governing access between the at least two objects based on one or more of the identified explicit relationship and the implicit relationship.
US08438121B2
A system (100) for analyzing and synthesizing a plurality of sources of sample data (310, 320) by automated learning and regression. The system includes data storage (110) with a stored multi-task covariance function, and an evaluation processor (102) in communication with the data storage (110). The evaluation processor (102) performs regression using the stored sample data and multi-task covariance function and synthesizes prediction data for use in graphical display or digital control.
US08438120B2
A method of determining hyperparameters (HP) of a classifier (1) in a machine learning system (10) iteratively produces an estimate of a target hyperparameter vector. The method comprises the steps of selecting from the random sample the hyperparameter vector producing the best result in the present and any previous iterations, and updating the estimate of the target hyperparameter vector by using said selected hyperparameter vector. The random sample may be restricted by using the hyperparameter vector producing the best result in the present and any previous iterations.
US08438119B2
Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having foundation layer functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.
US08438118B2
The present invention relates to transportation management processes and systems. One aspect of the invention is directed toward a method in a computer system for determining one or more routes for transporting items, including receiving multiple orders to transport items from an origination stop to a destination stop, generating one or more consolidations, and generating one or more shipments wherein each shipment includes a selected consolidation that meets at least one shipment parameter or an order. The method further includes generating one or more routes with an ordered sequence of stops wherein each route is associated with one or more shipments. The method still further includes selecting one or more routes based on one or more route parameters.
US08438108B1
A method for facilitating the sale of a loan having a loan asset and a service asset is provided. The method includes the steps of receiving a bid from one or more servicers for purchasing the servicing asset and receiving a loan commitment selection from a lender. The method further includes selecting a servicer from the one or more servicers with a lender based upon a predefined set of criteria for selecting a servicer. The method also includes generating an all-in price, the all-in price including the price for purchasing the loan asset and the servicing.
US08438104B2
Recurring loan payments (e.g., mortgage payments) through a transaction card account is disclosed. Information is received at a transaction account system from a loan company system corresponding to an application received at the loan company system from a requester for a loan involving automatic debits to a transaction card account. A determination is made as to whether the requestor is eligible for the loan to be associated with a transaction card account. If not, the customer receives a communication of rejection. If eligible, a determination is made whether the transaction account system has stored therein a transaction card account of the requester. If no, a transaction card account is opened for the requestor and associated with the loan. If yes, the loan payment is associated with the transaction card account bill.
US08438101B2
Disclosed herein is a trading market provision system and method using synthesis of instruments. The trading market provision system includes a synthesis unit for forming a synthetic group composed of individual items, each having a minimum quantity. A synthetic price calculation unit forms a synthetic price for the synthetic group formed by the synthesis unit. A display unit displays the change in the synthetic price calculated by the synthetic price calculation unit.
US08438100B2
An open-ended fund, such as an ETF, holds fixed-income securities and has a liquidation date. An order management system receives buy orders from a plurality of investors for purchasing shares of the fund receives and sell orders from a plurality of investors for selling shares of the fund. A fund management information system determines a yield for each investor based on the shares of the fund purchased by the investor and the fixed-income securities held by the fund at the time that the shares were purchased. The fund management information system also determines a plurality of distribution payments and a final liquidation payment for each investor so that the distribution payments and the final liquidation payment provide the yield determined for the investor when the investor purchased shares of the fund. This enables investors to use the fund in a bond laddering strategy.
US08438094B2
Systems and methods for creating and disseminating a SKEW index based on a statistical property reflecting the skewness of an underlying asset and creating and trading derivative investment products based on the SKEW index are disclosed. In one aspect, a SKEW index associated with an underlying asset is calculated. The SKEW index is accessed and a SKEW derivative is created based on the SKEW index. Information associated width the SKEW derivative is then transmitted for display.
US08438088B2
Systems and methods for providing a packaging recommendation to a customer is disclosed. In one embodiment, the system can present the customer with a merchandise list of merchandise, receive merchandise information from the customer about the particular characteristics of the merchandise, and generate a packaging recommendation via an interface to the customer.
US08438070B2
Described herein is technology for, among other things, exchanging value between a service buyer and a service provider. The technology involves establishing a virtual funds account associated with the service buyer. A request for services is received from the service buyer, which includes an amount that the service buyer is willing to pay for the services. An indication that the service provider will perform the services for the service buyer is received, and a hold is placed in the buyer's virtual funds account on an amount of virtual funds corresponding to the amount that the service buyer is willing to pay for the services.
US08438069B2
A method and system to facilitate a purchase of an item on a network-based marketplace. The system receives a request from a first user on a network-based social platform. The request identifies a virtual gift. Next, the system associates the virtual gift to an item for sale on the network-based marketplace. Finally, the system communicates interface information that enables the first user to purchase the item on the network-based marketplace.
US08438065B2
A point of sale computer system that allows a customer to select and consummate a sale himself. The system may include graphics storage media configured to store two- and three-dimensional graphics data relating to the sale, as well as business rules storage media, configured to store business rules that specify the graphics that should be displayed during the selection and consummation process based on input received from the customer. The technology allows a presentation to be made to the customer that is entertaining and that maintains the attention of the customer throughout the sale selection and consummation process.
US08438052B1
Automated processes are disclosed for identifying bundles of three or more items to suggest to users. In one embodiment, item action data, such as item purchase data reflective of the item purchases of a user population, is used to detect pairwise (item to item) associations between particular items represented in an electronic catalog. These pairwise associations are then used (optionally in combination with other information) to select bundles of three or more items to recommend to users. The bundles may, for example, be suggested on item detail pages of the electronic catalog.
US08438044B2
Systems and methods for delivering health information by combining print and audio information are provided. The systems utilize prerecorded audio systems, with or without recordable audio systems, in conjunction with print material to deliver individualized, patient-specific health information and/or instructions to a patient or caregiver. The method allows patients to collect and retain personalized, voice-recorded health material in the same location as printed and prerecorded health information. The present invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art by to provide to a patient or caregiver the ability to store, record, and deliver audio voice-recorded material along with print material in order to deliver individualized health information.
US08438039B2
A remote patient management system and method are provided including customizable workflow preferences. The method includes storing a user-programmed or “best practices” set of workflow operations, receiving a remote medical device data transmission, selecting a workflow preference in response to information contained in or relating to the data transmission, and performing remote patient management operations according to the selected workflow preference.
US08438034B2
A method of playing pictures includes receiving a voice message; extracting a key feature from the voice message; selecting pictures by matching the key feature with pre-stored picture information; generating a picture-voice sequence by integrating the selected pictures and the voice message; and playing the picture-voice sequence. An electronic apparatus includes a processing unit for implementing the method.
US08438032B2
An embodiment of the invention is a software tool used to convert text, speech synthesis markup language (SSML), and or extended SSML to synthesized audio. Provisions are provided to create, view, play, and edit the synthesized speech including editing pitch and duration targets, speaking type, paralinguistic events, and prosody. Prosody can be provided by way of a sample recording. Users can interact with the software tool by way of a graphical user interface (GUI). The software tool can produce synthesized audio file output in many file formats.
US08438027B2
An object of the invention is to conveniently increase standard patterns registered in a voice recognition device to efficiently extend the amount of words that can be voice-recognized. New standard patterns are generated by modifying a part of an existing standard pattern. A pattern matching unit 16 of a modifying-part specifying unit 14 performs pattern matching process to specify a part to be modified in the existing standard pattern of a usage source. A standard pattern generating unit 18 generates the new standard patterns by cutting or deleting voice data of the modifying part of the usage-source standard pattern, substituting the voice data of the modifying part of the usage-source standard pattern for another voice data, or combining the voice data of the modifying part of the usage-source standard pattern with another voice data. A standard pattern database update unit 20 adds the new standard patterns to a standard pattern database 24.
US08438022B2
A system improves speech detection or processing by identifying registration signals. The system encodes a limited frequency band by varying the amplitude of a pulse width modulated signal between predefined values. The signal is separated into frequency bins that identify amplitude and phase. The registration signal is measured by comparing a difference in average acoustic power in a plurality of adjacent bins over time.
US08438010B2
A system for stemming words of Semitic languages, the system including an affix scanner configured to scan a word of a Semitic language for at least one affix according to a predefined scanning sequence and determine if at least one predefined scanning criterion is met, and a stemmer configured to remove the affix from the word if the predefined scanning criterion is met.
US08438000B2
Generation of a test based on a test template comprising of branch instructions. The test template may be a layout test template, defining a set of possible control flows possibilities between template instructions in the layout test template. The test is generated by a test generator which may simulate a state of a target computerized system executing the test. The simulation may be performed during generation of the test. The test generator may further verify previously generated instructions. The test generator may further generate instructions associated with leftover template instructions.
US08437991B2
A method to predict heat transfer coefficients for metal castings during quenching and/or cooling is provided. First, an initial set of HTC data are obtained from the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation based on the metal casting geometry, initial metal casting temperature (distribution), quench bed/tunnel dimensions and set-up, and a given or baseline (standard) quenching condition including, but not limited to, air and/or gas flow velocity, air and/or gas flow direction relative to the work piece, air and/or gas temperature, air and/or gas humidity, etc. The initial HTC values for the entire surface of the work piece calculated from CFD can then be optimized by multiplying scale factors to minimize the error between the predicted temperature-time profiles and the experimental measurements for the given or standard/baseline quench condition. When the HTC values are optimized for a standard/baseline quench condition, a set of semi-empirical equations (or weight functions) can be used to quickly modify the standard/baseline HTC data for different quenching conditions (i.e., variations of quenching conditions from the baseline) without performing complete heat transferring and optimization calculations. A system and article of manufacture are also provided.
US08437984B2
A visualization system for creating, displaying and animating overview and detail heat map displays for industrial automation. The visualization system connects the heat map displays to an interface component providing manual or automatic input data from an industrial process or an archive of historical industrial process input data. The animated heat map displays providing quality, prognostic or diagnostic information.
US08437982B2
A load measuring device for a construction machine includes a processing unit for acquiring signals indicative of cylinder pressure of front and rear suspension cylinders via pressure sensors and computing a weight value of a load put on a dump body of the construction machine. When the construction machine is traveling on a curvilinear route, the construction machine makes the output of the weight value ineffective. In particular, when the differential speed value between the rear wheels, received from a speed difference detector, is below a preset value, the arithmetic unit outputs a loading weight W computed by the processing unit, as final loading weight, and so that when the differential speed exceeds the preset value, the arithmetic unit makes ineffective the computed loading weight W as the final loading weight output.
US08437981B2
In a method for verifying manufacturing accuracy, a point cloud of a workpiece is read. A first determined point is determined according to the first point of the point cloud and a second determined point is determined according to the final point of the point cloud. A first line, a second line, and a third line are all located by respectively connecting the first point and the first determined point, the final point and the second determined point, and the first determined point and the second determined point. Qualification of the workpiece is determined by measuring a first angle of the first line and the third line, a second angle of the second line and the third line, a first distance between the first determined point and the second line, and a second distance between the second determined point and the first line.
US08437977B1
An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method, apparatus, and computer program product for testing hardware. A number of commands are identified for a testing unit. A communication layer of the testing unit is requested to send the number of commands to a controller unit for a platform. The testing unit is remote from the controller unit. The number of commands is coordinated with the controller unit. Results of the number of commands of the testing unit are received through the communication layer.
US08437976B2
A gas density transducer including: a piezoresistive bridge sensor operative to provide an output indicative of an applied pressure, a computing processor having multiple inputs and at least one output, with the output of the bridge sensor coupled to an input of the processor; a temperature sensor coupled to an input of the processor for providing at an output a signal indicative of a temperature of the bridge sensor, the output of the temperature sensor coupled to an input of the processor; and, at least one memory accessible by the processor and having stored therein: compensation coefficients for compensating the output of the bridge sensor for temperature variation; an algorithm for solving Van der Waal's equation; and, code for providing at an output of the processor a signal indicative of a gas density when the bridge is subjected to a gas containing environment.
US08437973B2
A self calibrating cable, including a USB3 cable, with a boost device of the embodiment of the invention is described, in which parameters that control the response of the boost device are set optimally in a self-calibrating process comprising looping the boosted cable on itself through a calibration fixture that contains a calibration control device. The boost device includes pattern generators and a sampling circuit. Each high speed channel of the cable is separately tested and calibrated with the help of one of the other channels serving as a sampling channel. Additional embodiments provide for a selected replica boost device and a distinct pattern generator device in the calibration fixture. A corresponding system and method for calibrating a cable are also provided.
US08437966B2
A system for transferring data includes an analyte test instrument (ATI) adapted to store data, a wirelessly enabled data management device (DMD) for comprehensively analyzing data, and an adaptor removably connected to the ATI for transferring data stored on the ATI to the DMD. The adaptor includes a data communication device capable of removable connection with the ATI, a microprocessor electrically connected to the data communication device, a wireless controller electrically connected to the microprocessor and a wireless transceiver electrically connected to the wireless controller. In use, data transfer is executed between the ATI and the DMD by electrically and mechanically connecting the adaptor to the ATI. Data stored on the ATI is then automatically downloaded into adaptor memory. Upon completion of the download, the user activates an externally accessible input device on the adaptor which, in turn, wirelessly transmits data from the adaptor memory to the DMD.
US08437961B2
Method for determining time-dependent changes [73] in the earth vertical and horizontal electrical resistivity and fluid saturations from offshore electromagnetic survey measurements. The method requires both online and offline data, which should include at least one electromagnetic field component sensitive at least predominantly to vertical resistivity and another component sensitive at least predominately to horizontal resistivity [62]. Using a horizontal electric dipole source, online Ez and offline Hz measurements are preferred. For a horizontal magnetic dipole source, online H2 and offline E2 data are preferred. Magnetotelluric data may be substituted for controlled source data sensitive at least predominantly to horizontal resistivity. Maxwell's equations are solved by forward modeling [64,65] or by inversion [66,67], using resistivity models of the subsurface that are either isotropic contrast, and [64,66] or anisotropic [65,67]. Fluid saturation is determined from the vertical and horizontal resistivities using empirical relations or rock physics models [70].
US08437957B2
A method and device checks the conformity of a trajectory calculated by a flight management system of an aircraft in relation to reference data comprising a reference map. The method includes: geo-referencing of a reference map; determination of a reference trajectory from the geo-referenced reference map; detection of nonconformity in the trajectory calculated by the flight management system by comparison of the trajectory calculated by the flight management system with the reference trajectory; and emission of a warning if a nonconformity is detected.
US08437954B1
A travel director provides persons, robots and/or vehicles with real time “you-are-here” directions to a destination or series of destinations within a defined environment, such as a building. large aircraft, train or submarine. The director can also locate and/or direct travel to specific coordinates, people, places, and/or components and equipment within a defined environment. The director creates a complete virtual signature of an existing physical building/structure and defines coordinates on a virtual grid and compares the linear range from a set of unique segments programmed on multiple sequenced and strategically placed identifier tags/chips or from identified telemetric signals pre-existing in the environment.
US08437935B2
A vehicle monitoring system for turning off an idling engine comprises a vehicle speed sensor configured to detect a lack of motion, or “stationary status” of a vehicle and emit a parameter correlated to the motion status of the vehicle, a transmission status detector configured to detect a transmission status of the vehicle, an alerting device capable of warning other drivers of a stationary status of the vehicle and a control device. The control device is coupled to the vehicle speed sensor, the transmission status detector and the alerting device, wherein the vehicle speed sensor and the transmission status detector send a signal to the control device and the control device operates in a manner dependent on the motion status of the vehicle and the transmission status of the vehicle.
US08437929B2
A transmission control system includes an ECU, a throttle actuator, a clutch actuator, and a shift actuator. The throttle actuator adjusts a throttle opening under control of the ECU, the clutch actuator adjusts a state of a clutch under control of the ECU, and the shift actuator changes a gear position of a transmission under control of the ECU. When the transmission is shifted down, a throttle opening is adjusted to a first value and the clutch is disconnected such that a rotational speed of an engine increases. Then, the gear position of the transmission is moved to a lower position by one stage with the clutch being disconnected. After that, the throttle opening is decreased to a second value, and connection of the clutch is started. The second value is set to a value larger than a minimum value.
US08437926B2
A control device for automatically controlling a pitch angle of a blade includes a hydraulic oil amount calculation unit and an open ratio setting unit. The hydraulic oil amount calculation unit is configured to calculate an amount of hydraulic oil passing through a blade tilt cylinder valve. The open ratio setting unit is configured to cause the blade tilt cylinder valve to open at a predetermined open ratio when a request for the pitch angle to be changed has been received, to cause the blade tilt cylinder valve to close when the calculated amount of hydraulic oil has reached a predetermined amount of hydraulic oil required for the change of the tilt angle, and to cause the open ratio to be smaller than the predetermined open ratio while a request for a predetermined action necessitating that hydraulic oil be supplied from a main valve is being received.
US08437918B2
In the invention, a system is proposed for the automatic and dynamic correction of an orientation of a light beam emitted by a vehicle light source according to the attitude of the vehicle, by associating an image processing with static correction adapted to the slow variations in the attitude caused in particular by variations in load within the vehicle and an image processing with dynamic correction adapted to the rapid variations in the attitude due in particular to braking and acceleration of the vehicle, by means of a device for making the fusion of and filtering signals emitted simultaneously by the devices. A device for controlling the rotation of the light source orients the light source in a way appropriate to the driving according to the information received from the fusion and filtering device.
US08437903B2
An onboard system for determining vehicle emissions. The emissions are determined in real-time and may be transmitted to a remote terminal for storage and/or analysis. Data is supplied solely to an emissions unit from a vehicle diagnostic system; the vehicle diagnostic system receives vehicle data from vehicle systems and sub-systems.
US08437901B2
The illustrative embodiments provide a method and apparatus for controlling and coordinating multiple vehicles. In one illustrative embodiment, machine behaviors are assigned to multiple vehicles performing a task. The vehicles are coordinated to perform the task using the assigned behaviors and a number of signals received from other vehicles and the environment during performance of the task. In another illustrative embodiment, a role is identified for each vehicle in a group of vehicles. A number of machine behaviors are assigned to each vehicle depending upon the identified role for the vehicle. The machine behaviors are selected from coordinating machine behaviors stored in a behavior library. Each vehicle is then coordinated to perform the task according to the role and machine behaviors assigned.
US08437900B2
A control device for guided travel of an unmanned vehicle, in which the unmanned vehicle is guided to travel by receiving a signal sent from a GPS satellite by the unmanned vehicle, measuring its own vehicle position based on the signal, and controlling such that a positional shift between the vehicle position and a target point that is a passing point sequentially set on a target traveling course falls into an allowable range for controlling error, wherein a guidable range is set in advance such that a position measurement error is added to the allowable range for controlling error; the position measurement error is obtained based on position measurement accuracy information from the signal; the allowable range for controlling error is changed according to the obtained position measurement error; and control is performed such that the positional shift falls into the changed allowable range for controlling error.
US08437894B2
A method and system for improving aircraft performances during take-off is described. The system (1) can include means (4, 6, 7) for determining an optimised take-off position of the control surfaces (S1-Sn) of the aircraft, in the case where a regulatory safety criterion relating to the minimum gradient of climb with a breakdown engine is predominant.
US08437882B2
Power utilized in a local power network may be managed. The local power network may include a power management system. The power management system may communicate with one or more of a circuit controller, a switch controller, and/or an outlet controller in order to manage power utilization.
US08437870B2
System and method for implementing a VM APC platform are described. In one embodiment, the VM APC system comprises a process tool for processing a plurality of wafers, a metrology tool for measuring a sample wafer of the plurality of wafers and generating actual metrology data therefor, and a VM model for predicting metrology data for each of the plurality of wafers. The actual metrology data is received from the metrology tool and used to update the VM model. Key variables of the virtual metrology model are updated only in response to a determination that the VM model is inaccurate and parameters of the VM model are updated responsive to receipt of the actual metrology data for the sample wafer of the plurality of wafers. The system also includes an APC controller for receiving the predicted metrology data and the actual metrology data and controlling an operation of the process tool based on the received data.
US08437847B2
A pacemaker comprising a battery compartment displaceable between a removal position and an operating position along a first direction of displacement for receiving a replaceable battery having a first and a second battery pole disposed on a battery face. The battery compartment comprises an electrically isolating partial cover, which is disposed on a second side opposite the first side and designed to cover a base of the battery directed toward the second side in the direction of the removal side of the battery compartment.
US08437845B2
An apparatus for the diagnosis of a biological sample is disclosed. An embodiments of the apparatus includes a probe, a probe head distally connectable to the probe, the probe head further comprising a plurality of electrode elements thereby forming an electrode array where each electrode element is variably actuatable to apply an electrical signal to the biological sample; an RF signal source for applying the electrical signal to the electrode array; an electrode selector adapted and configured to switch the electrical signal from the RF signal source between the plurality of electrode elements; and a detection circuit for analyzing a dielectric property received from the biological sample. Methods and kits for diagnosing a biological sample are also disclosed.
US08437834B2
Tissue markers, systems for marking tissue, and methods of using tissue markers. A tissue marker may have a body with a first surface and a second surface, a plurality of coupling sites, and a plurality of elongate members. The tissue marker may include a remotely visible material. The tissue marker may have a delivery configuration that is different from a deployed configuration.
US08437823B2
An easily wearable noninvasive living body measurement apparatus is provided. The noninvasive living body measurement apparatus (1) is composed of an apparatus body (3) and a wristband (40). The apparatus body (3) is composed of a body section (31) and a body section retention member (4). The body section (31) is retained by the wristband (40) via the body section retention member (4). By allowing the wristband (40) to be attached to a position in the vicinity of a wrist of a forearm of a human, the apparatus body (3) is attached to a human body. An imaging section (5) is retained at a position protruding outside from a width D of the wristband (40). This allows, when the wristband (40) is worn around the arm, the imaging section (5) to be located at a position at which the imaging by the imaging section (5) can be performed.
US08437821B2
A non-invasive body information measurement apparatus, in which a blood glucose level is corrected using a blood glucose level measured with an invasive blood glucose measurement apparatus, wherein in a calibration period, measurement of body information is performed at a plurality of luminous energy levels, a plurality of estimated blood glucose levels are calculated from a plurality of characteristic quantities calculated at the various luminous energy levels and from blood glucose levels measured with an invasive blood glucose measurement apparatus, and at the end of the calibration period, the blood glucose levels measured with the invasive blood glucose measurement apparatus are compared with a plurality of estimated blood glucose levels, and in a normal measurement period a light source is controlled so that measurement is performed at a luminous energy level corresponding to the estimated blood glucose level that satisfies the targeted accuracy.
US08437820B2
A method of processing first and second signals obtained by measuring a medium, to obtain a pulse wave signal and an artifact signal which are separated, includes: separating vectors of the first and second signals by using a separation matrix into a vector of the pulse wave signal and a vector of the artifact signal, the separation matrix including a norm ratio of a stable zone of the pulse wave signal and a compensated norm ratio of an artifact zone.
US08437819B2
Superconductor cable having a plurality of flat, tape-shaped ribbon superconductor wires assembled to form a stack having a rectangular cross section, the stack having a twist about a longitudinal axis of the stack. Multiple superconductor cables including twisted stacked-cables of the flat-tape-shaped superconductor wires, and power cable comprising the twisted flat-tape stacked cables are disclosed. Superconducting power cable disposed within and separated from an electrical insulator with a space passing cryo-coolant between the superconducting cable and insulator is also disclosed.
US08437818B1
Superconducting integrated circuits require several wiring layers to distribute bias and signals across the circuit, which must cross each other both with and without contacts. All wiring lines and contacts must be fully superconducting, and in the prior art each wiring layer comprises a single metallic thin film. An alternative wiring layer is disclosed that comprises sequential layers of two or more different metals. Such a multi-metallic wiring layer may offer improved resistance to impurity diffusion, better surface passivation, and/or reduction of stress, beyond that which is attainable with a single-metallic wiring layer. The resulting process leads to improved margin and yield in an integrated circuit comprising a plurality of Josephson junctions. Several preferred embodiments are disclosed, for both planarized and non-planarized processes. These preferred and other methods may be applied to digital circuits based on Rapid Single Flux Quantum logic, and to quantum computing using Josephson junction qubits.
US08437815B2
A motor and a method of operating the motor are provided. The motor includes a stator including a high-temperature superconductor material at a temperature. The superconductor material is in a superconducting state in the presence of an external magnetic field below a critical field strength, wherein the critical field strength is a function of the temperature of the superconductor material. The motor further includes a rotor including a plurality of permanent magnets and configured to rotate about an axis, wherein each magnet of the plurality of permanent magnets has a magnetic field that interacts with the superconductor material. A sum of a non-zero time-invariant magnetic field strength and a time-varying magnetic field strength cycles between at least a first field strength below the critical field strength for the superconductor material at the temperature and at least a second field strength above the critical field strength for the superconductor material at the temperature, such that the portions of the material cycles between a superconducting state and a non-superconducting state. A time-varying force is applied to the rotor by an interaction of the rotor's magnetic field with the portions of the superconductor material. In certain embodiments, a motor is provided.
US08437814B2
A slide opening/closing device that includes a housing; an opening formed in the housing; a lid with a protrusion, the lid being configured to cover the opening; a sliding member having an abutting claw, and a sliding-movement restricting member. The sliding member is mounted on the housing proximal to the opening and at least partially covering the lid and opening when sliding in one moving direction. The sliding-movement restricting member includes an abutting portion and is made of an elastic material. The abutting portion is configured to abut the abutting claw of the sliding member when the lid is detached from covering the opening, and the abutting portion is configured to be displaced from a path of the abutting claw that is in the one moving direction when the lid is attached to the housing to cover the opening.
US08437806B2
A mobile terminal disposed with electronic paper and a method for displaying data in the mobile terminal are disclosed, wherein the mobile terminal comprises: a first display including a light emitting display; a second display including an electronic paper; and a controller configured to turn off the first display and to allow data to be displayed on the second display if a power event occurs.
US08437802B2
Methods and devices for allowing a wireless communication device (1301) initially unauthorized for communication with a network to obtain persistent soft network subscription credential information (1303) from a wireless communication device (1401) initially authorized for communication with the network are disclosed. In performing the persistent transfer of the soft network subscription credential information (1303), one of a token management module (1312), a session initiation protocol communication module (1408), or a electronic rights manager (1406) may be used to ensure that only one communication device is capable of communicating with a network at any one time.
US08437792B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate employing aperiodic closed loop power control corrections in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) based wireless communication environment. An aperiodic power control command can be sent over a downlink to control and/or correct an uplink power level employed by an access terminal. Transmission of the aperiodic power control can be triggered by a measurement (e.g., received power being outside a set margin, . . . ). The aperiodic power control command can include a single-bit and/or a multi-bit correction. Further, the access terminal can alter the uplink power level employed for subsequent uplink transmissions based upon the aperiodic power control command when received. Additionally, regardless whether the aperiodic power control command is received at a given time over the downlink, the access terminal can employ periodic power control commands and an open loop power control mechanism to adjust the uplink power level.
US08437788B2
Disclosed are method and apparatus for allocating radio resources. The method for allocating radio resource includes: determining, by a base station, a group of downlink sub-channels and transmission parameters related to the group of downlink sub-channels according to downlink channel characteristics and downlink interference characteristics of each resource block and a downlink bandwidth requirement of a terminal reported by the terminal, and transmitting the group of downlink sub-channels and the related transmission parameters determined to the terminal. The method and apparatus are able to allocate radio resources and determine transmission parameters based on user service requirement and system channel conditions, which greatly optimizes the system performances and improves efficiency.
US08437786B1
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and a device for adjusting a frequency band mode, which relate to the field of wireless communications. The method includes: according to pre-stored base station location information and an azimuth of an antenna of each base station, displaying each base station and the antenna of each base station on a map by using a base station identifier and an antenna identifier respectively; and according to a pre-stored range of cells covered by each antenna and environment information of each cell, obtaining a configured neighboring cell of each cell, and displaying the cell covered by each antenna and the configured neighboring cell of each cell on the map.
US08437783B2
A Location Server receives requests for subscribers that are within an Alert Area to enable notifications/alerts to be sent to the subscribers from an Alert Application. The Location Server extracts the location information by performing a search in a Database for subscribers that are located in the Alert Area. The quality of the locations in the database is dependent of the frequency with which a Core Network sends passive location data to the Location Server at network events when the Mobile Station is in contact with the network. The Location Server reconfigures the Core Network and Radio Access Network to send the information when it is needed. An advantage of the invention is that it is possible to provide services that require knowing which subscribers are currently located in a specific area in a flexible way without over loading the mobile network.
US08437780B2
A system, method and apparatus for protecting privacy when a mobile device is located in a defined privacy zone are described herein. The available features that a user of a mobile device may use are controlled while the mobile device is located in a define privacy zone. Once a mobile device is detected in the define privacy zone, a database is accessed to determine if the mobile device has the features available that are to be disabled. If the features are available, a disable signal is sent via the communications network to the mobile device and the feature is disabled. Once the mobile device is detected to be outside of the defined privacy zone, the previously disabled mobile device feature is enabled.
US08437778B1
Common search queries can be provided that are associated with a predicted path of movement of a mobile device. A location of a mobile device can be determined, along with a destination or direction of movement. Common search queries associated with the path of movement and locations along the path can be transmitted to the mobile device. A user of the mobile device is able to execute the common search queries from the mobile device.
US08437777B2
A method and system for managing images and associated geographic location data in a mobile device generates images using an integrated camera. After generating an image, the system determines a geographic location associated with the image. The system then stores the image, the associated geographic location data, and a record of the association in the mobile device's storage component. The system associates supplemental information, such as telephone number, category, and street address, with the image. The system provides one or more display modes for displaying the image and the associated information, including a list mode for displaying multiple images and portions of the associated data and a detail mode for displaying a selected image and the full set of associated data. The system may also provide a map display mode for displaying locations associated with one or more images on a map of a geographical area.
US08437764B2
It is described a method for determining an optimized configuration of a telecommunication network including a first base station serving first user equipments within a first cell and a second base station serving second user equipments within a second cell. The method includes (a) collecting first measurement reports from the first user equipments, (b) collecting second measurement reports from the second user equipments, (c) generating a first information based on the first measurement reports, wherein the first information is indicative for the current coverage situation within the first cell, (d) generating a second information based on the second measurement reports, wherein the second information is indicative for the current coverage situation within the second cell and (e) determining the optimized configuration of the telecommunication network based on the first and on the second information. It is further described a base station and a central network element, which are adapted to carry out the above described method.
US08437760B2
The present invention provides a method and system for facilitating efficient handoff and data throughput in mobile broadband communication systems. Methods implemented by a system constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention include selectively enabled soft handoff, performing Layer 2 bearer functions at the base station and using the mobile device to coordinate soft handoff and interference avoidance without the need for a centralized coordination function.
US08437758B2
The method and apparatus are used for media independent handover (MIH) measurement and reporting in wireless communications. A periodicity for measurement and reporting is set on the MIH function through an MIH protocol message or an MIH SAP primitive and on the link layer device through an MIH_LINK_SAP primitive. A new MIH_SAP primitive, MIH protocol message or MIH_LINK_SAP primitive is added to configure the periodicity. A new information element (IE) field for measurement reporting period may be added.
US08437757B2
Improved systems and methods for establishing peer-to-peer calls such as voice over IP calls and video over IP calls. In various embodiments of the invention, SMTP messages are exchanged between devices using a SMTP server, with the SMTP messages including IP address information. With this arrangement, the need for SIP service providers can be eliminated. In other embodiments of the present invention, SMS messages including IP address information are transmitted between devices during a GSM or other type of telephone call, enabling the call to “migrate” to a VoIP or video over IP call.
US08437753B2
There are provided a method for managing neighbor Base Station (BS) information in a mobile communication system, and a system thereof. A femto Access Service Network-Gateway (ASN-GW) controls at least one femto BS, manages scan information that an MS served by a macro BS requires in measuring at least one signal strength by scanning the at least one femto BS, creates the scan information in a format of Downlink Channel Descriptor (DCD) and Uplink Channel Descriptor (UCD) information, and transmits the scan information to the macro BS. The macro BS periodically broadcasts neighbor BS information of the femto BS, which includes the scan information, to MSs in its coverage using a Neighbor Advertisement (NBR-ADV) message.
US08437752B2
Methods and apparatuses for facilitating execution of automatic neighbor relation (ANR) functions are provided. A base station and operation and maintenance (OAM) system are disclosed. The base station receives neighbor cell detection data identifying neighbor cells detected by an access terminal. The base station also receives neighbor cell management data generated by the OAM system, which facilitates performing an ANR function. The base station then automatically updates a neighbor list according to the neighbor cell management data and the neighbor cell detection data.
US08437741B2
An intelligent network access controller for use with a wireless network that provides communications services to subscribers having wireless communications devices includes a multi-protocol interface for receiving and sending digital messaging by the wireless communications devices; an identification module that determines an identity of a wireless communications device; an access module that receives the identity and determines an access level for the wireless communications device; and a locking module that locks selected wireless communications devices to the controller based on the determined access level.
US08437736B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for implementing mobile device-based bandwidth throttling. In one aspect, a method includes receiving policy from a wireless carrier that specifies one or more data usage thresholds allotted by the wireless carrier for data transferred over a wireless carrier network during a predetermined period of time, determining an amount of data that has been transferred by the mobile device over the wireless carrier network during the predetermined period of time, determining that the amount exceeds one or more of the data usage thresholds, and throttling the bandwidth of a mobile device over the wireless carrier network based on determining that the amount exceeds one or more of the data usage thresholds.
US08437724B2
A method and system for output common mode control for reducing DC offset for an IF mixer that downconverts a received signal to DC without introducing additional offset is provided. Aspects of the method may comprise averaging signals having an output common mode DC level, which are generated from an output of the mixer. This determined average may then be compared to a reference voltage. The reference voltage may be an output common mode DC level required for baseband processing. The output common mode DC level may be corrected at an input of the mixer for signals that may subsequently be generated from an output of the mixer by utilizing results from the comparison. The corrected common mode DC offset level may be fed back to an input of the mixer.
US08437723B2
There is provided an amplifier circuit including: a first transistor having a source thereof connected to an input port and having a gate thereof grounded; a second transistor having a gate thereof grounded; a first inductor provided between a drain of the first transistor and a source of the second transistor; and a second inductor provided between a drain of the second transistor and an output port.
US08437721B2
A frequency synthesizer within an FM receiver employs a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) to generate a Local Oscillator (LO) signal. The LO signal is supplied to a mixer. The FM receiver also includes jammer detection functionality. If no jammer is detected, then the loop bandwidth of the PLL is set to have a relatively high value, thereby favoring suppression of in-band residual FM. If a jammer is detected, then the loop bandwidth of the PLL is set to have a relatively low value, thereby favoring suppression of out-of-band SSB phase noise. By adaptively changing loop bandwidth depending on whether a jammer is detected, performance requirements on sub-circuits within the PLL can be relaxed while still satisfying in-band residual FM and out-of-band SSB phase noise requirements. By allowing the VCO of the PLL to generate more phase noise due to the adaptive changing of loop bandwidth, VCO power consumption can be reduced.
US08437720B2
An apparatus and method is disclosed for adjusting a gain of an amplifier assembly array. The amplifier assembly array includes a first stage to provide an amplified signal based upon an input signal. The first stage has a variable gain controlled in response to one or more gain control signals. An Automatic Gain Control (AGC) module generates the one or more gain control signals according to a ramp function in response to a power level of the amplified signal. The first stage may include a first low noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify the input signal to provide a first amplified input signal and a second LNA to amplify a second input signal to provide a second amplified signal. A switch selects between the amplified signal and the second amplified signal to provide the amplified signal. The amplifier assembly array may additionally include a second stage to provide a second amplified signal based upon the amplified signal. The second stage may include a third LNA to amplify one or more used channels of the amplified signal and a fourth LNA to amplify one or more unused channels of the amplified signal.
US08437715B2
A device under test (DUT) may be connected to test equipment. The test equipment may include a multi-carrier signal generator and a host computer. The signal generator may provide a multi-carrier test signal that is fed to input-output devices of the DUT. The DUT may tune to a given radio channel on the test signal. The DUT may output an audio signal to the host computer to test for audio quality. Once desired measurements have been taken, the DUT may scan up or down to the next available radio channel on the test signal. The signal generator may not need to be reconfigured between scans, because the test signal contains multiple radio channels. The host computer may run a test program that directs a test program running on the DUT to perform the required tasks during testing.
US08437714B1
The present disclosure relates to the efficient transmission of voice and data signals using mobile terminals, and in particular to optimizing the power added efficiency (PAE) of a power amplifier (PA) by controlling the amplifier's load impedance over a range of radio frequency (RF) output power levels. A power amplifier having a first power level and at least a second power level is provided along with a first impedance matching network section with an output. A second impedance matching network section and at least a third impedance network section in communication with the output are selectably coupled to a load network by switches that are opened and close in response to various power levels of operation for the load switch circuit.
US08437713B1
In a wireless communication device, a geographic location system determines a geographic location of the wireless communication device. A power monitoring system determines battery power status for the wireless communication device. A transmit diversity control system determines a transmit diversity instruction for the geographic location. The transmit diversity control system processes the transmit diversity instruction and the battery power status to select a transmit diversity mode (on/off). The transmit diversity control system controls a plurality of power amplifiers to implement the selected transmit diversity mode.
US08437711B2
An integrated circuit (IC) includes a multi-input multi-output transceiver system that includes a plurality of RF transceivers. Each RF transceiver includes an RF transmitter that transmits a transmit signal at a selected transmit power, based on a transmit power control signal and a corresponding RF receiver for receiving a corresponding one of a plurality of received signals from an external device and for generating a signal strength indication corresponding to each of the plurality of received signals. A processing module generates the transmit power control signal for each RF transmitter based on the signal strength indication of the corresponding RF receiver, and that generates a power mode signal for adjusting a power consumption parameter of each RF transmitter in accordance with the selected transmit power for each RF transmitter.
US08437709B2
A wireless apparatus includes a display, a display case encasing the display, a body supporting the display case capable of rolling sideways the display, a first antenna element arranged in the display case, a second antenna element arranged in crossed direction of the first antenna element direction in the display case, and an antenna switch configured to switch between the first antenna and the second antenna in accordance with rolling positions of the display case with the body.
US08437705B2
A User Equipment (UE) configured for allocating resources and encoding for Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) is described. The UE includes a processor and instructions stored in memory. The UE receives Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, receives a reference signal and determines a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) based on the reference signal. The UE also determines a format for CQI transmission. If use of Format 3 is determined the UE determines cells for CQI reporting based on the RRC signaling and determines an encoding. The UE also encodes a feedback message based on the encoding and transmits the feedback message.
US08437704B2
System and method for controlling the transmit power of a mobile terminal. In some embodiments, a transmit power correction factor for a mobile terminal is set to the average transmit power correction factor for all active mobile terminals in the same cell as the mobile terminal.
US08437700B2
Various cognitive communications system architectures and their corresponding Protocol Reference Models (PRMs) are disclosed. Such PRMs incorporate a Cognitive Plane in addition to conventional Data and Management Planes. The additional Cognitive Plane functionality may include, for example, spectrum sensing, spectrum management, geolocation, and security functions. The Cognitive Plane may further include a Policy Engine and a Learning and Reasoning Module. In some embodiments, Management Plane functions may be effectively combined to form a database of primitives (and their respective values) called a Management Information Base (MIB). In addition, techniques are provided by which various components of cognitive and non-cognitive, as well as mesh-enabled and non-mesh-enabled nodes in a network, inter-operate with each other. The architectures allow a Spectrum Manager (or Signal Space Manager) to combine information from various network layers (e.g., PHY/MAC Layers, Spectrum Sensing Function, Geolocation Function, and/or Security Sublayers), and to make informed decisions on spectrum utilization.
US08437691B2
A mobile communications terminal is disclosed that includes a determination part configured to determine whether to perform relay control based on a signal received from at least one of a radio base station, a stationary relay station, and another mobile communications terminal performing relay control and a control part configured to control the mobile communications terminal so that the mobile communications terminal performs an operation as a relay station in response to the determination part determining to perform the relay control.
US08437687B2
A booklet is produced including an outer sheet and an inner sheet folded and nested together. A print image having a thickness is printed where it is between the two sheets when they nest together. A cut length is calculated using the thicknesses of the sheets and the thickness of the print image, so that when the sheets are folded and the inner sheet is nested into the outer sheet, the edges of the inner sheet will not protrude beyond the edges of the outer sheet. The inner sheet is cut to the calculated cut length either before or after printing. The cut inner sheet and the outer sheet are folded and nested together to produce the booklet.
US08437683B2
A sheet feeding device including: a sheet feeding tray; a first air blowing section which blows air against a lateral side of the sheet bundle; a second air blowing section which blows air against a leading edge of the sheet bundle; a sheet adsorption conveyance section which conveys sheets one by one; a sheet type information transmission section; a shielding member arranged to open or shield the ventilating path; a shielding state switching section which switches to any one state of opening, partial shielding and overall shielding, wherein in the partial shielding state, less amount of air is allowed to pass than the opening state; a sheet adsorption detecting section; and a control section which controls to switch among the state of opening, partial shielding and overall shielding of the ventilating path, in accordance with the information from the sheet type and the sheet adsorption detection.
US08437672B2
A separation unit is provided on a downstream side of a contact area between a belt-like rotating body and a pressure rotating body. The separation unit includes a pressure member, a guide portion and a pressure portion. The pressure member extends along a width direction of the belt-like rotating body, and presses the belt-like rotating body to deform the belt-like rotating body into a bent shape changing a course away from a surface of the pressure rotating body. The guide portion is on the pressure rotating body side of the pressure member to guide the belt-like rotating body so that an angle portion of the bent shape bites into the pressure rotating body. The pressure portion is on the surface in the pressure rotating body side, and the surface separates sequentially from the pressure rotating body in the extending direction from a center portion to an end portion.
US08437665B2
A developer cartridge provided in an image-forming device has a developer side casing that includes a toner-accommodating chamber and a developing chamber; and a plate wall disposed in the developing chamber for partitioning a thickness-regulating blade from the toner-accommodating chamber. When a thickness-regulating blade scrapes excess charged toner off the developing roller, the plate wall prevents this charged toner from returning to the toner-accommodating chamber. A flexible wiper for cleaning toner detection windows is attached to an agitator for stirring toner in the toner-accommodating chamber via a fixing member. The fixing member includes a support plate and a gripping plate disposed opposite each other with a slit formed therebetween. The wiper is inserted into the slit and is fixed to the fixing member when a boss protruding from a restricting plate becomes inserted into a through-hole formed in the wiper.
US08437660B2
An image forming apparatus is provided for forming an image on a recording material. An opening is provided to a main assembly of the image forming apparatus, with first and second openable members being movable between closed positions in which portions of the opening are closed and open positions in which portions of the opening are opened. A movable member is movable between a set position inside the main assembly and an outward position in which the movable member, having passed through the opening, is located at an outermost position. The movable member is capable of supporting a plurality of cartridges, side by side, with each of the cartridges including at least one of an image bearing member on which a latent image is to be formed and a developing roller for developing with a developer the latent image formed on the image bearing member.
US08437659B2
An image forming apparatus includes a housing, a transfer roller configured to be opposite to an image carrier when the housing is rotated around a rotation fulcrum, a transfer roller pressing member configured to urge the transfer roller toward the image carrier, a guide configured to feed transfer paper, a fixing hook configured to be urged in a direction to lock the housing about a main body, a transfer roller releasing lever configured to separate the transfer roller from the image carrier against urging performed by the transfer roller pressing member, a transfer roller positioning part that is disposed in the main body and configured to position the transfer roller, and an operation part configured to cause the fixing hook to rotate in a direction to unlock the housing such that the transfer roller releasing lever rotates in a direction to release the transfer roller from the image carrier.
US08437658B2
An image forming apparatus includes an operating portion that moves between a first operating position in which each of positioning members is moved to each of positioning positions and a second operating position in which each of the positioning members is moved to each of releasing positions through each of transmitting members and each of transmitted members when a first transmitting member and a first transmitted member are coupled to each other, and that carries out the movement to a first operating position to move a second positioning member to a second positioning position through a second transmitting member and a second transmitted member and carries out the movement to a second operating position to move the second positioning member to a second releasing position when the first transmitting member and the first transmitted member are decoupled from each other.
US08437649B2
A developing device includes: a plurality of developer retaining bodies that retain developer and rotate, and that respectively convey the developer, which is supplied to each of the developer retaining bodies from a developer supply section, to an image bearing body that rotates and bears a latent image; and a speed changing unit that is adapted to change a rotation speed of at least one of the developer retaining bodies excluding a developer retaining body that is furthest downstream side in a direction of rotation of the image bearing body.
US08437648B2
An image forming apparatus is configured to give an instruction for unlocking of a cover corresponding to a toner container, from a replacement screen of the toner container displayed when no toner inside the toner container is detected. Further, the image forming apparatus is configured such that the cover corresponding to at least one toner container can be unlocked at a time from the displayed screen.
US08437643B2
Systems and methods of compensating for transmission impairment are disclosed. One such method includes receiving a polarization-division multiplexed optical signal which has been distorted in the physical domain by an optical transmission channel, and propagating the distorted polarization-division multiplexed optical signal backward in the electronic domain in a corresponding virtual optical transmission channel.
US08437640B2
An apparatus comprises a housing, a bearing member, and a transmission system. The housing has a channel in communication with an opening at a first end of the housing and a first surface at a second end of the housing. The first surface is substantially perpendicular to a rotation axis through the channel. The bearing member is capable of rotating in the channel around the rotation axis. The bearing member has a second surface substantially perpendicular to the rotation axis and substantially parallel to the first surface. The transmission system is coupled to the first surface and the second surface. The transmission system has a transmitter and a receiver. The transmission system is capable of emitting an electromagnetic radiation in a beam that is capable of being received by the receiver, while a rotation occurs between the transmitter and the receiver about the rotation axis.
US08437635B1
A method for enabling alternating current (AC) coupling of high-speed burst data signals transmitted by an optical network unit (ONU). The method comprises generating a first data pattern to be sent to an optical transceiver through an AC coupling circuit, wherein the first data pattern is a direct current (DC) balanced pattern; generating a second data pattern to be sent to the optical transceiver through the AC coupling circuit, wherein the second data pattern is output prior to transmission of a high-speed burst data signal; and generating a third data pattern to be sent to the optical transceiver through the AC coupling circuit, wherein the third data pattern is output posterior to the transmission of the high-speed burst data signal.
US08437633B2
An attenuation amount corresponding to each wavelength at OADM node is optimized according to a calculation result in a network management system (NMS), so that an optical signal level diagram according to traffic volume variations is set, the level diagram allows each of optical signal quality indexes at terminal nodes for all wavelengths to be maintained at a required threshold value or more, and allows an optical signal quality index of a specific wavelength to be improved. Then, an FEC circuit in an optical receiver corresponding to the specific wavelength is turned OFF or the error correction ability is lowered, whereby power consumption of an overall optical network is efficiently reduced.
US08437629B2
In a minimally invasive surgical system, a camera includes a prismatic element having a lens within the prismatic element. The lens corrects the resulting image focus for the non-visible light to make it substantially the same as the focus for the visible light. Alternatively, the lens corrects the resulting image focus for the visible light to make it substantially the same as the focus for the non-visible light.
US08437627B1
The inventive warmer apparatus comprises a holding unit, enclosed on four sides, but open at the top to allow restaurants and kitchen operators easy access to food held in it. Food in the apparatus is exposed to radiant heat generated by a heated bottom surface and to hot convection air. Part of the convection air is used to create an air curtain to improve heat loss characteristics and protect from the environment. The apparatus uses a combination of radiant heat, convection air and a warm air curtain to keep food products hot and crisp. The air curtain provides additional food protection. The warmer apparatus conditions food to attain a noncooking biologically safe temperature and to retain its freshly cooked texture and internal moisture for at least twenty minutes. This allows restaurants to serve such food items longer to its customers, allowing more efficient batch cooking and significantly reducing food waste.
US08437624B2
A method includes reading selected portions of video content from a digital versatile disk (“DVD”), said selected portions of video content separated by periods of time to provide a fast forward or rewind mode; generating a transport stream of transport stream packets containing said selected portions of video content; and in response to detecting said fast forward or rewind mode, causing a transport stream decoder to decode said transport stream packets without synchronization.
US08437613B2
A content display control apparatus includes control functions, in which, a content is obtained, data associated with a character string corresponding to the content is obtained, the character string associated with the data is segmented into a line in accordance with a criterion determined in advance, a display duration time of the character string is set on a line-by-line basis, the segmented line is sequentially superimposed and displayed in accordance with the corresponding display duration time set thereby, the number of characters included in the segmented line is counted, a period of time corresponding to the counted number of characters is calculated, the calculated period of time is set as the display duration time corresponding to the segmented line, and subsequent to completion of displaying of the segmented line of the character string corresponding to the obtained content, a different content is displayed.
US08437612B2
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium and apparatus to reproduce from a storage medium are provided. The apparatus has a video decoder to decode audio-visual data and a subtitle decoder to receive text-based subtitle data having dialog presentation units and a dialog style unit defining a set of output styles to be applied to the dialog presentation units, converting the dialog presentation units into bitmap images based on the dialog style unit, and controlling an output of the converted dialog presentation units synchronized with decoded audio-visual data. Each dialog presentation unit has dialog text information, time information indicating a time for the dialog text information to be output, palette information defining colors to be applied to the dialog text information, and a color update flag indicating whether only the palette information has changed as compared with a graphical composition of a previous dialog presentation unit.
US08437600B2
Disclosed is a television broadcast receiving/recording device that receives a digital broadcast signal or an analogue broadcast signal, and outputs and records a video/audio signal of a selected channel, including a recording section to record predetermined type digital data including video data and audio data generated based on a received broadcast signal; a program information obtaining section to obtain program information through a predetermined path; a program information analyzing section to analyze the program information obtained by the program information obtaining section; a program recording control section which makes the program information analyzing section analyze the program information including a program which is being watched, thereby setting reservation to record a program when a recording command is input while watching the program; and an input section to input the recording command to the program recording control section by a single input operation to execute the reservation setting of recording.
US08437596B2
A fiber distribution terminal for use in an environmentally sealed enclosure can include a rotatable spool for housing input fiber cable. The spool is configured to be mounted in the environmentally sealed enclosure. The fiber distribution terminal can also include an adapter pack that secures the connections between fibers of the input fiber cable and fibers of the output fiber cable. The fiber distribution terminal can include an adapter plate that guides the routing of both the input and output fiber cables internal to the enclosure. The fiber distribution terminal can also include a spool lock that can direct the cable routing to a first side or a second side of the fiber distribution terminal.
US08437595B2
A fiber management shelf includes a housing having an opening, a door shiftable between open and closed positions, and a hinge connecting the door to the housing. The hinge includes a hinge pin and a receiver configured to receive and rotatably support the hinge pin. The receiver includes a channel having first and second sides defining a channel opening having a first channel width and at least one boss on the first or second channel side so that the channel has a second width at the boss less than the first channel width. The hinge pin has a first portion with a first width in a first direction and a second width in a second direction less than the first hinge pin width, and the first hinge pin width is greater than the second channel width and the second hinge pin width is less than the second channel width.
US08437591B1
A system includes at least two optical fibers crossing to form a vertice. The optical fibers comprise a core, a cladding surrounding the core, and a conductive coating at least partially surrounding the length of the cladding. A portion of the core of each of the fibers is exposed proximate to the vertice. An optical microsphere whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator is positioned to cover exposed core portion of each fiber and in contact with the conductive coating of each fiber. The optical fibers may be orthogonal to each other or offset by a non-orthogonal and non-zero angle. The WGM resonator may be positioned between each of the fibers. An optical energy source may be coupled to an end of the optical fibers, with an optical detector coupled to the other end. A voltage source may be connected to the conductive coating of each of the optical fibers.
US08437585B2
A passive optical waveguide is solely built on a Si substrate while still maintaining high optical quality. Two side-by-side diamond shaped cavities may be etched into the Si wafer and oxide grown on the inner walls of the cavities until the oxide meets at opposing inner vertices of the diamond shaped cavities. An optical waveguide is formed by the inverted, generally triangular cross-sectional, portion of silicon remaining between the top surface of the wafer and the opposing inner vertices.
US08437583B2
An optical module having a flexible substrate having, even after actual manufacturing steps, excellent transmission characteristics of high-frequency signals and an advantage that electromagnetic field radiation is reduced even when it is connected with a package. The flexible substrate used in external connection of the package of the optical module uses a flexible substrate having a coplanar line to which a lead pin is fixedly attached, a grounded coplanar line which is in contact with the coplanar region, and a microstrip line which is in contact with the grounded coplanar line. The flexible substrate has an electrode layout in which an electromagnetic field component of a surface ground line and a signal line is more dominant than an electromagnetic field component of a back-surface ground line and the signal line in a region of the coplanar line adjacent to the grounded coplanar line.
US08437582B2
Input light, such as from an optical sensor or stimulus-wavelength converter, includes one or more light or dark sub-bands. The input light is transmitted, such as through a transmissive layer or transmission component, to obtain effects due to transmission with lateral variation. A detector can, for example, obtain spectral information or other photon energy information about the sub-bands due to lateral variation. For each light or dark sub-band, a transmission component can, for example, provide a respective light or dark spot, and spot position can be used to obtain spectral information such as absolute wavelength or wavelength change. A photosensing component can sense or detect transmitted light or output photons, such as with a photosensor array or a position-sensitive detector. Circuitry can use photosensed quantities to obtain, e.g. a differential signal or information about time of wavelength change.
US08437580B2
To determine if a pixel exhibits artifacts, statistics are generated for the pixel and its neighbors. These statistics are compared with thresholds. If the comparison of the statistics and the thresholds suggests that the pixel exhibits a pixel artifact, then recourse can be taken, either to adjust the pixel value in some way, or to reject the angle of interpolation used in computing the value for the target pixel.
US08437567B2
Disclosed is an image inpainting apparatus and method using a restricted search region. The image inpainting apparatus sets a target image region to be inpainted in response to an image inpainting request, sets a surrounding image region, which has a preset size and includes the set target image region, sets a plurality of similar image regions by grouping similar pixels in the surrounding image region, divides the surrounding image region into the plurality of set similar image regions, divides the target image region according to the similar image regions, sets a search region of each divided target image region, and detects an image of an image region most similar to each divided target image region from the set search region of each divided target image region, thereby performing image inpainting. Accordingly, image inpainting is performed using a search region, which has been determined to include a similar image most similar to an image to inpaint, so that it is possible to increase the probability of searching for an image most similar to the inpainting image region.
US08437566B2
A system and method for autonomous concealed object detection and threat assessment. Image data is received from a millimeter wave imaging device comprising at least one scan of a scene. The image data is enhanced thereby creating enhanced image data comprising a plurality of enhanced image pixels. The enhanced image data is evaluated thereby identifying at least one subject within the enhanced image data. The subject is separated from a background within the enhanced image data. The contrast of the subject is enhanced within the enhanced image data. Concealed physical objects associated with the subject within the enhanced contrast image data are detected, thereby detecting at least one concealed object associated with the subject. A representation of the subject and the concealed physical object is displayed on a display device.
US08437565B2
Methods and apparatus for performing image encoding and rate control as part of the image encoding process, e.g., a JPEG-2000 compliant image encoding process, are described. As part of the image encoding processes, rate control operations are performed based on rate statistic information at a point where encoded image data in selected for storage in a buffer and based on updated statistic information at a point where encoded image data is selected to be output from the buffer. The statistic information including overhead information used for rate control is also updated after formatting of data to be included in the output set of encoded image data to reflect overhead, e.g., header overhead, associated with formatting the data for storage. Encoding and rate control is applied on an ongoing basis, e.g., as portions of an image are processed, so that buffer size does not grow proportionally with the image size.
US08437563B2
A block (300) of image elements (310) is compressed by determining multiple base vectors (510, 520, 530, 540) based on the feature vectors (312) associated with the image elements. Additional vectors (560, 570) are calculated based on defined pairs of neighboring base vectors (510, 520, 530, 540). A vector among the base vectors (510, 520, 530, 540) and the additional vectors (560, 570) is selected as representation of the feature vector (312) of an image element (310). An identifier (550) associated with selected vector is assigned to the image element (310) and included in the compressed block (500) which also comprises representations of the determined base vectors (510, 520, 530, 540).
US08437546B2
A first generation unit generates a RAW image reduced in the horizontal direction from a RAW image including pixels each having single-color signal information, by limiting the band of spatial frequencies in the horizontal direction and decreasing the number of pixels in the horizontal direction. The RAW image reduced in the horizontal direction is stored in a line memory. A second generation unit generates a reduced RAW image by decreasing, at least in the vertical direction, the number of pixels of the RAW image reduced in the horizontal direction. This makes it possible to generate a reduced RAW image using little memory capacity.
US08437544B2
A digital image of the object is captured and the object is recognized from plurality of objects in a database. An information address corresponding to the object is then used to access information and initiate communication pertinent to the object.
US08437530B1
A stack of a stack of currency bills is received, transported, and imaged. Image data reproducible as a visually readable image of one or more portions of at least one side of each currency bill in the stack is obtained. A serial number and at least one or more additional characters are extracted from the image data for each currency bill. A processor compares the extracted serial number and corresponding extracted one or more additional characters with stored serial number information and corresponding stored additional character information associated with the serial number information of genuine currency bills. The stored serial number information and corresponding stored additional character information uniquely identify a genuine currency bill. Any currency bill that does not have one or more extracted additional characters matching the stored serial number information and corresponding stored additional character information is flagged.
US08437526B2
A system locally allocates relatively higher and lower spatial resolution areas of a medical X-ray image in response to image spatial resolution requirements of individual sections of a partitioned image. A system processes image data by adaptively varying pixel resolution within a 2D (two Dimensional) X-ray medical image. The system includes an imaging detector comprising a matrix array of detection picture elements having a detector pixel resolution for detecting X-rays passed through patient anatomy. An image data processor determines a first area within a 2D image to be allocated a first pixel resolution and a second area within the 2D image to be allocated a second pixel resolution lower than the first resolution. A combinational processor combines image data of multiple adjacent detection picture elements to provide an individual pixel of the second pixel resolution. A user interface generates data representing a 2D X-ray medical image including the first area having the first pixel resolution and the second area having the second pixel resolution lower than the first resolution.
US08437525B2
A method and system is provided for performing medical imaging. The method and system includes at least one radiation detector to detect radiation from a subject, and an image processor which determines attenuation paths for an image point, groups substantially similar attenuation path lengths for the same image point to form a modified subset group, and processing image data using the modified subset group in order to provide a reconstructed image substantially similar to an original image.
US08437515B2
A face detection apparatus and a face detection method thereof are provided. The face detection apparatus includes a rectangle integral image unit, a feature mapping unit and a cascade and score unit. The rectangle integral image unit provides a rectangle integral image according to an original image. The feature mapping unit determines a face candidate region according to rectangular face feature templates, and calculates feature values of the rectangular face feature templates according to the rectangle integral image. The cascade and score unit judges whether the face candidate region conforms to cascade conditions or not, and gives the face candidate region a score according to the feature values when the face candidate region conforms to the cascade conditions. The face candidate region is a non-face region if the score of the face candidate region is lower than a threshold value.
US08437510B2
The present invention provides a system for identifying an individual provided with a portable communication device. In a system for identifying an individual using a portable communication device with a display, the display is a sensor-incorporated display, the sensor-incorporated display reads the biological information of a user, and, based on the read information, identifies an individual.
US08437490B2
A video teleconferencing directional microphone has two surfaces joined with an angle of 90° relative to each other, a first omni directional microphone element arranged adjacent to the intersection between the two surfaces. The ceiling microphone assembly also includes a second omni directional microphone element arranged at a predetermined distance (d) from both surfaces. A subtractor subtracts the output of the first microphone element from the output of the second microphone element, and the output of the subtractor is equalized by an equalizer (Heq) to generate an equalized output. The surfaces and subtractor generates a quarter toroid directivity pattern for the ceiling microphone assembly. The quarter toroid sensitivity pattern increases sensitivity in the direction of a sound source of interest, but reduces sensitivity to any sound waves generated by noise sources at other locations or reverberations.
US08437475B2
The disclosed technology provides a system and method of synchronizing cryptographic operation between a transmitter and a receiver. A transmitter can communicate encrypted data to a receiver according to a first communications protocol, and communicate a transmitter number and a portion of the encrypted data to the receiver according to a second communications protocol. The receiver can be in communication with a memory space containing locations that are each associated with an encrypted data and that can contain a previous receiver number. The receiver can receive transmitted encrypted data and an associated transmitter number and can search the memory space to find a location wherein the encrypted data associated with the location is entirely, or in part, the same as the transmitted encrypted data. When such a location is found, the receiver can compare the transmitter number with the previous receiver number stored in the location.
US08437454B2
The system and method of the present invention allows a customer to contact a vendor in person at a vendor's store or via a telephone or online through an internet connection to the vendor's computer for the purpose of adding a personalized voice message to a gift. The customer is directed to the vendor's computer which instructs the customer through a series of record-playback-rerecord-save commands until the customer's message is captured by the vendor's computer in a digital format. The voice message is saved in an audio file such as a .wav or .mp3 file and tagged with a unique identifier assigned by the system and associated with a unique order. The vendor can then download the audio message from the computer to a greeting card, gift, or the like using a direct connection from the computer to a small playback unit manufactured into the card, gift, or the like. The direct connection can be a USB cable, or other suitable connection between the computer and the playback device. The card, gift, or the like with the playback device incorporated therein and the sender's message downloaded into the playback device is delivered to the recipient, who can then activate the playback device such as by manual pressure on a button to play the customer's greeting.
US08437449B2
A facility for facilitating custom radiation treatment planning is described. During a distinguished radiation treatment session for a patient, the facility collects data indicating positioning of a predefined treatment site of the patient relative to a target treatment location throughout the distinguished radiation treatment session. The facility associates the collected positioning data with data describing one or more other aspects of the distinguished radiation treatment session. The facility provides the associated data to a treatment planning facility to determine a treatment plan for future radiation treatment sessions for the patient.
US08437446B2
A nuclear reactor module includes a reactor vessel and a reactor housing mounted inside the reactor vessel, wherein the reactor housing comprises a shroud and a riser located above the shroud. The nuclear reactor module further includes a heat exchanger proximately located about the riser, and a reactor core located in the shroud. A steam generator by-pass system is configured to provide an auxiliary flow path of primary coolant to the reactor core to augment a primary flow path of the primary coolant out of the riser and into the shroud, wherein the auxiliary flow path of primary coolant exits the reactor housing without passing by the heat exchanger.
US08437444B2
Disclosed are the apparatus and methods for closing a canister that stores and transports spent nuclear fuel. In one embodiment, the canister includes a canister shell that includes an open end. A closure lid is inserted within the open end of the canister shell. The closure lid engages the open end of the canister shell to provide a weld area that is substantially on the outer circumference of the closure lid. The weld area includes a first weld layer and a second weld layer. The first weld layer welds the closure lid to the canister shell at the weld area and closes the canister. The second weld layer also welds the closure lid to the canister shell at the weld area, providing a redundant closure seal, and is disposed substantially on top of the first weld layer. The method for closing the canister is provided herein.
US08437441B2
A phase locked loop includes a voltage controlled oscillator operable to generate an output signal corresponding to a reference signal in response to a control voltage signal outputted by a filter in response to a current signal, and a variable frequency divider operable to perform frequency division on the output signal using a variable divisor so as to generate a divided feedback signal. A charge pump outputs the current signal in response to a phase detecting output from a phase/frequency detector indicating phases of the divided feedback signal and the reference signal. A phase error comparator outputs, in accordance with the phase detecting output, a digital output indicating whether the divided feedback signal lags or leads the reference signal and further indicating a phase difference between the divided feedback signal and the reference signal. The variable frequency divider determines a value of the variable divisor in accordance with the digital output to reduce the phase difference between the divided feedback signal and the reference signal.
US08437438B2
A diversity reception device includes a power combiner to combine electric powers of OFDM signals, each OFDM signal being received by a first antenna and second antenna, a switch to change connections between branched output-ports of the first and second antennas, in mid-stream of effective symbol periods, the effective symbol periods are assigned respectively in each of symbol periods of the OFDM signals, a receiver to demodulate the OFDM signals, a phase shifter to shift phases of the OFDM signals received by the second antenna, and an arithmetic and control processing circuit to calculate complex correlation coefficient between a guard interval, assigned in each of the symbol periods associated with the first antenna, and a copy-source interval, assigned in each of the symbol periods associated with the second antenna, and to determine rotation angle on the basis of the complex correlation coefficient.
US08437435B2
An aspect of the invention is a signal processing method for correlation computation between received signal samples, code replica and carrier replica. The method is characterized in that the method comprises steps of: mapping (110) received signal samples into a range of unsigned integers; separating (120) bits of the mapped N-bit sample sequences into N sequences of bits; performing at least one exclusive or (XOR) operation between a sequence of bits and the code; counting (140) number of bits having value 1 in the result of the exclusive or (XOR); remapping (150) the sum back into numeric range of the received signal samples; multiplying the remapped sum by carrier replica; and accumulating (170) the product of multiplication for an interval of at least a code epoch.
US08437428B2
A device includes a signal generator having a delay locked circuit for providing a number of output signals based on an input signal. The output signals have a fixed signal relationship with each other and with the input signal. The signal generator also includes a selector for selecting an enable signal from a range of signals formed by the output signals. The device further includes a transceiver circuit in which the transceiver circuit uses the enable signal for data processing.
US08437407B2
Techniques are disclosed for employing a set of stream processors to greatly accelerate common video encoding and transcoding tasks, with the goal of making these tasks run at a reasonable rate on off-the-shelf hardware. Stream processors are most commonly found in the graphics processing unit (GPU), a commodity piece of computer hardware used to generate images for display. Embodiments of the invention are particularly advantageous to accelerate video encoding and transcoding tasks in which the blocks being processed have dependencies on their neighboring blocks.
US08437399B2
A method and an associated apparatus for determining a motion vector are disclosed. The method includes performing block matching for a first block where an interpolated block is located according to the first frame and the second frame to generate a first candidate motion vector of the interpolated block, performing block matching for a second block where the interpolated block is located according to the first frame and the second frame to generate a second candidate motion vector of the interpolated block, and determining a target motion vector of the interpolated block according to either of the first motion vector and the second candidate motion vector.
US08437394B2
A video encoder includes a prediction unit for performing prediction techniques according to original video data and reconstructed video data to generate prediction samples, a reconstruction unit for reconstructing the prediction samples to form the reconstructed video data, and a reference picture buffer for storing the reconstructed video data as reference video data. The video encoder also includes a filter parameter estimator for estimating filter parameters according to the original video data of a current picture and the reconstructed video data of the current picture, and an adaptive loop filter for filtering the reconstructed video data of the current picture according to stored filter parameters of a prior picture in coding order. The filter parameter estimator and adaptive loop filter can operate in parallel.
US08437385B1
Systems and methods for measuring transmitter and/or receiver I/Q impairments are disclosed, including iterative methods for measuring transmitter I/Q impairments using shared local oscillators, iterative methods for measuring transmitter I/Q impairments using intentionally-offset local oscillators, and methods for measuring receiver I/Q impairments. Also disclosed are methods for computing I/Q impairments from a sampled complex signal, methods for computing DC properties of a signal path between the transmitter and receiver, and methods for transforming I/Q impairments through a linear system.
US08437381B2
Certain aspects of a method and system for delay matching in a rake receiver for WCDMA closed loop modes are disclosed. Aspects of one method may include selecting a set of channel estimates from a plurality of channel estimates generated for a delay matched branch and/or a non-delay matched branch in a rake receiver. A plurality of weight factors may be generated based on the selected set of channel estimates. In the delay matched branch of the rake receiver, the application of the generated plurality of weight factors may be delayed by a particular time period. A delay associated with a control channel and/or a data channel may be compensated based on the delayed application of the generated plurality of weight factors.
US08437352B2
Certain aspects of a method and system for a power control based on application awareness in a packet network switch are provided. Data communication flow may be monitored in ports in a packet network switch based on packet classification. Ports where data flow is not detected may have at least some functionality disabled to reduce power consumption. In this regard, a power saving mode may be utilized for disabling at least some functionality in a switch port, such as Ethernet ports, for example. A partially disabled port may be fully enabled when monitoring detects active data communication flow in that port. Port functionality may be enabled or disabled sequentially, for example. In some instances, a physical layer portion of the packet network switch may be utilized to adjust power in a port based on the data communication flow.
US08437349B2
A network system includes: a core switch; and an edge switch. The edge switch includes: a join message identification unit; and a marking unit. The join message identification unit identifies a join message from among MAC frames from the user network. The marking unit marks mark information to a header of a MAC-in-MAC frame in which the identified join message is encapsulated. The core switch includes: a plurality of input/output ports; a mark identification unit; and a port setup unit. The mark identification unit identifies a MAC-in-MAC frame in which a header is marked with the mark information. The port setup unit associates a multicast group of a join message which is encapsulated in the identified MAC-in-MAC frame, with an input/output port to which the identified MAC-in-MAC frame is input.
US08437348B2
Transmission of multicast packets over a local area network is controlled by: identifying the condition where only a single receiver exists within the local area network for a given multicast group of packets, and allowing, upon occurrence of that condition, Automatic Repeat Request of the packets multicast towards said single receiver. A preferred field of application is wireless local area networks for use in a home environment.
US08437339B2
Techniques to provide integrated voice service management are described. An apparatus may comprise a mobile computing device having a voice service manager operative to receive control directives from one or more application programs, and manage one or more service features provided by multiple voice service platforms based on the received control directives, with at least one of the multiple voice service platforms comprising a voice over packet voice service platform. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08437337B2
A method and apparatus for enabling a user to signal to the network that a call to be initiated or a call that is in progress needs to occur in a peer-to-peer relationship with the terminating endpoint. The network will then remove itself from the call signaling and media path and direct the signaling and media communication to occur directly between the two endpoints.
US08437326B2
A method, mobile electronic device and system for synchronizing hand-off of a voice media session between a WAN/cellular network and a WLAN network. When a hand-off occurs, the connection with both networks is temporarily maintained and the voice data on both connections compared to determine differences in the delays experienced over both connections. The timing of one or both voice streams is adjusted to synchronize the voice streams, and then the handoff is completed.
US08437321B1
A mobile communication device obtains a receiving network voice data packet (containing a receiving network source IP address of an intermediate system, a receiving network destination IP address of the mobile communication device, and a fixed IP address based voice data packet (containing a fixed source IP address of a sending device, a fixed destination IP address of the mobile communication device, and a voice data payload of voice data)) from the intermediate system which has obtained a sending network voice data packet from the sending device over a first dynamic IP address based network, decapsulated the fixed IP address based packet from the sending network packet and encapsulated it into the receiving network voice data packet and provided the receiving network packet over a second dynamic IP address based network. The mobile communication device decapsulates the fixed IP address based packet from the receiving network packet.
US08437318B2
Provided are a reliability-based, real-time sensor network medium access control (MAC) communication system and method using a superframe. The superframe includes an active duration which is a time duration in which a communication is established, and a sleep duration which is a time duration in which no communication is established. The active duration includes a beacon block in which a plurality of beacon transmission nodes are respectively allocated beacon slots for transmitting a beacon frame, and a forwarding block in which each of sinks nodes is allocated a slot for unifying data regarding the sink node and data regarding sensor nodes managed by the sink node and transmit the result of unifying in order to establish a communication between the sink nodes and between each of the sink nodes and a base station.
US08437302B2
First and second wireless transmission protocol uplink channels are available for use by a wireless device in transmitting data to a network. In various examples, the device selects between the first and second wireless transmission protocol uplink channels according to various different criteria. Examples include selecting between the first and second wireless transmission protocol uplink channels according to the type of data to be transmitted and according to the identity of the device, and various combinations of these.
US08437298B2
A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided in which one or more semi-static parameters associated with at least one neighboring eNode B (eNB) and an interfering user equipment (UE) are detected, at an eNB, and a blind interference reduction scheme based on the one or more detected semi-static parameters to reduce a signal from the interfering UE is applied.
US08437293B2
Aspects of the present invention relate to the scheduling of resources in a telecommunication system that includes a mobile terminal and base station. In one embodiment, the mobile terminal sends an initial scheduling request to a base station. Subsequently, the mobile terminal does not transmit a scheduling request to the base station unless and until a scheduling request triggering event is detected.
US08437292B1
Methods and apparatus for transmitting communications using a radio frequency (RF) communication channel are provided. A network condition and/or a usage level of the RF communication channel are determined. A designated duration is selected based, at least in part, on the network condition and/or usage level. A time period for transmitting a communication in the RF channel is selected such that the time period has a duration corresponding to the designated duration. A transmission in the RF communication channel is initiated during the time period. The designated duration may be adjusted based on further observations of network conditions and/or usage levels.
US08437286B2
Systems and techniques for signaling between a subordinate base station and a superordinate base station in a wireless network with wireless relay stations to inform the superordinate base station of a failure in establishing an uplink related to the subordinate base station and scheduling wireless resource allocation between a base station and one or more relay stations.
US08437284B2
Systems and methods for utilizing transaction boundary detection methods in queuing and retransmission decisions relating to network traffic are described. By detecting transaction boundaries and sizes, a client, server, or intermediary device may prioritize based on transaction sizes in queuing decisions, giving precedence to smaller transactions which may represent interactive and/or latency-sensitive traffic. Further, after detecting a transaction boundary, a device may retransmit one or more additional packets prompting acknowledgements, in order to ensure timely notification if the last packet of the transaction has been dropped. Systems and methods for potentially improving network latency, including retransmitting a dropped packet twice or more in order to avoid incurring additional delays due to a retransmitted packet being lost are also described.
US08437277B2
Disclosed are methods, and control devices (110, 210, 310) having programmable processors configured to implement methods, of communicating with a network (100, 300) having an initially unknown topology and a plurality of unknown devices. The methods use set and get configuration commands to discover the unknown devices on the network using one or more host ports of the control device, enumerating the discovered devices by using the one or more host ports to assign a different network address to each discovered device, so that the enumerated devices correspond to the network topology.
US08437259B1
The present invention comprises methods for increasing the rank of the routing matrix of an IP network by systematically altering link weights in the IP network. A full rank routing matrix may be used with further methods in accordance with the present invention to estimate the mean traffic of the IP network based upon the full rank routing matrix and measured link utilization values. Example methods in accordance with the present invention for estimating mean traffic and covariance of traffic are described for both stationary and non-stationary link utilization data.
US08437258B2
A method for transmitting management message by a transmitting device in a communication network includes receiving a management message that is to be transmitted in the communication network. The transmitting device determines whether a feedback is required for the management message when the management message is transmitted in the communication network. The transmitting device also includes a feedback request information in a Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) including a last fragment of the management message. The management message can be transmitted in one or more MAC PDUs and can be divided into one or more fragments. The transmitting device also transmits the MAC PDU indicating the feedback request information.
US08437249B2
A node in a wireless communication system detects a requirement to discontinue communications on a primary channel. In response, the node sends a message to a plurality of nodes, which includes a reason for discontinuation of communications on the primary channel and availability of immediate operation of a secondary channel. The secondary channel is a channel the node was currently using for its communication. Another node receives a message including a requirement to discontinue communications on a primary channel and also the availability of immediate operation on a secondary channel. The receiving node detects the feasibility of moving the operation of its associated network to the secondary channel. When feasible, the node sends a message to other nodes to make the secondary channel its primary channel.
US08437246B1
A method and apparatus for alarming on all signaling protocol messages that fail in substantial numbers on any particular routes within an IP network are disclosed. For example, upon receiving these alarms, the network will attempt to identify, and to correct the error producing conditions to prevent further call signaling message failures.
US08437238B2
There is provided a diffraction grating including a convex portion and a concave portion which are used for lights having different wavelengths λ1, λ2 and λ3 and are alternately disposed on at least one surface of a substrate with a predetermined pitch. An average refractive index of the convex portion is smaller than an average refractive index of the concave portion. A phase difference in the lights having the wavelength λ1 which transmit the convex portion and the concave portion and a phase difference in the lights having the wavelength λ2 which transmit the convex portion and the concave portion are both substantially the integral multiple of 2π, and a phase difference in the lights having the wavelength λ3 which transmit the convex portion and the concave portion is substantially the non-integral multiple of 2π.
US08437234B1
A signal processing device with dynamic phase detector switching includes a first phase detector of a first type, a second phase detector of a second type, and a mixing device to switch between using output from the first phase detector and output from the second phase detector in real time based on specified changes in an input signal being fed to the signal processing device.
US08437209B2
An integrated circuit includes a normal data storage unit configured to store normal data and output the stored normal data in response to a write command, a read command, and an address signal in a normal operation mode, a test data storage unit configured to store the address signal as test data in response to the write command in a test operation mode, and output the stored test data in response to the read command, and a connection selection unit configured to selectively connect a data input/output terminal of the normal data storage unit or a data output terminal of the test data storage unit to a global line based on whether the integrated circuit is in a first or second one of the normal operation mode and the test operation mode, respectively.
US08437203B2
A nonvolatile memory apparatus includes a memory device having a configuration information storage block for storing a first configuration data group and a second configuration data group having fewer bits than the first configuration data group and a configuration information processing circuit configured to determine a majority of the first configuration data group outputted from the memory device, during a first period of a power-up operation, and determine a majority of the second configuration data group outputted from the memory device, during a second period after the first period.
US08437192B2
A 3D memory device includes bottom and top memory cubes having respective arrays of vertical NAND string structures. A common source plane comprising a layer of conductive material is between the top and bottom memory cubes. The source plane is supplied a bias voltage such as ground, and is selectively coupled to an end of the vertical NAND string structures of the bottom and top memory cubes. Memory cells in a particular memory cube are read using current through the particular vertical NAND string between the source plane and a corresponding bit line coupled to another end of the particular vertical NAND string.
US08437191B2
A flash memory device includes a memory cell string including a plurality of memory cells serially coupled to one another between a bit line and a source line, a page buffer configured to perform a precharging operation and a sensing operation with respect to the bit line, and a power supply unit configured to supply a certain supply voltage through the source line before the precharging operation.
US08437190B2
A flash storage system accesses data interleaved among flash storage devices. The flash storage system receives a data block including data portions, stores the data portions in a data buffer, and initiates data transfers for asynchronously writing the data portions into storage blocks interleaved among the flash storage devices. Additionally, the flash storage system may asynchronously read data portions of a data block interleaved among the storage blocks, store the data portions in the data buffer, and access the data portions from the data buffer.
US08437188B2
A nonvolatile RAM for reading and writing data in a random manner includes a memory area configured by a plurality of memory cells suited to a nonvolatile-mode write operation, in which the stored content thereof is not lost irrespective of a power-off event, and a volatile-mode write operation, in which the stored content thereof is lost in the power-off event. A register designates a first portion of the memory area adapted to the nonvolatile-mode write operation regarding fixed data such as program codes and a second portion of the memory area serving as a work area adapted to the volatile-mode write operation. A control circuit performs the nonvolatile-mode write operation on the first portion of the memory area while performing the volatile-mode write operation on the second portion of the memory area.
US08437183B2
Methods of writing data to and reading data from memory devices and systems for writing and reading data are disclosed. In a particular embodiment, a method includes writing data bits a first time into a memory. Auxiliary parity bits are written in the memory, where the auxiliary parity bits are computed based on the data bits. Subsequent to writing the data bits a first time and writing the auxiliary parity bits, the data bits are written a second time into the memory. Writing the data bits the first time and writing the data bits the second time are directed to one or more storage elements at a common physical address in the memory. Subsequent to writing the data bits the second time, the auxiliary parity bits are discarded while maintaining the data bits in the memory.
US08437178B2
A static random access memory cell includes a latch unit. The latch unit includes a bi-inverting circuit and a switching circuit. The bi-inverting circuit has a first terminal and a second terminal. The switching circuit is electrically connected between the first terminal and the second terminal, wherein when the switching circuit is turned on, the switching circuit forms a feedback between the first terminal and the second terminal for latching the latch unit; and when the switching circuit is turned off, the feedback is removed to cause the SRAM cell to write a data bit to the latch unit.
US08437170B2
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor storage device includes memory cells including serially-connected variable-resistance layer and diode. A memory cell array includes the memory cells arranged on a plane including a first and second axes and has a first region lying along an edge of the array and a second region lying opposite to the edge with respect to the first region. A first wiring is continuous along the first axis between both ends of the array, partly lies in the second region, and is connected to the first ends of the memory cells. A second wiring lies along the first axis only in the first region, is connected to the first ends of the memory cells, and is divided between adjacent memory cells. A third wiring is continuous along the second axis between both ends of the array, and connected to the second ends of the memory cells.
US08437169B2
A circuit to protect data on an FRAM during a read operation includes an FRAM voltage regulator having an output to supply an FRAM operating voltage to the FRAM. A voltage monitor monitors a supply voltage for the FRAM to generate a voltage fault signal if the supply voltage falls below a predetermined value. And a circuit responsive to the voltage fault signal maintains the FRAM operating voltage above a voltage required to assure data integrity of the FRAM for a sufficient time required to perform an FRAM read operation.
US08437165B2
A matrix is formed using a plurality of memory cells in each of which a drain of the writing transistor is connected to a gate of a reading transistor and one electrode of a capacitor. A gate of the writing transistor, a source of the writing transistor, a source of the reading transistor, and a drain of the reading transistor are connected to a writing word line, a writing bit line, a reading bit line, and a bias line, respectively. In order to reduce the number of wirings, a writing word line to which the gate of the writing transistor is not connected is substituted for the reading word line. Further, the writing bit line is substituted for the reading bit line.
US08437152B2
A pseudo-resonant switching power source device is provided which comprises a primary winding 2a of a transformer 2 and a main MOS-FET 3 connected in series to a DC power source 1, a voltage-resonant capacitor 12 connected in parallel to main MOS-FET 3, a rectification smoother 4 connected to a secondary winding 2b of transformer 2 and having a rectification MOS-FET 51 and a smoothing capacitor 6, a synchronized rectification controller 52 for turning rectification MOS-FET 51 on after turning-off of main MOS-FET 3 and turning rectification MOS-FET 51 off before turning-on of main MOS-FET 3, a pulse width elongation circuit 55 for extending on-pulse width of rectification MOS-FET 51, and a main control circuit 8 for producing main drive signals to turn main MOS-FET 3 off and on with operation frequency responsive to on-pulse width of rectification MOS-FET 51 extended by pulse width elongation circuit 55 to vary operation frequency of main MOS-FET 3 so as to restrain noise by high frequency components in main drive signals from main control circuit 8.
US08437149B2
A power supply produces one or more conditioned and scaled output voltages with low noise. The power supply has various components to produce a plurality of higher output voltages from a plurality of taps of a multiplier or multiple isolated outputs. Components include an internal reference voltage circuit or an external voltage that generates a reference voltage and a sine wave power oscillator circuit and resonant circuit that generates an alternating current and voltage. The power supply has a controlled current source circuit connected to the sine wave power oscillator circuit for regulating the power level to the sine wave power oscillator. A control amplifier circuit controls the current level to the controlled current source circuit based on the error between the sampled output and the reference voltage. The resonant transform connected to the sine wave power oscillator circuit generates one or more scaled output voltages on one or more secondary windings. A buffer voltage feedback circuit is connected to an output voltage and the control amplifier circuit for providing a feedback loop to regulate the output voltage.
US08437145B2
An image display apparatus including a display body which has a front face and a rear housing placed on a back side of the front face and a support portion which is fixed to the rear housing of the display body or which is integrated with the rear housing to support the display body from a rear side. The support portion has a storage portion to store an article and is configured by a plate member or a linear member that has an inclination portion inclined by a predetermined angle with respect to the front face of the display body. The storage portion is located on the rear side and has a groove portion opened upwards. The upper surface of the inclination portion and an inner wall side surface of one side of the groove portion are contiguous to each other by a gentle slope.
US08437144B2
A laminate mount assembly includes a first member that includes an inter-member connection electrode that is provided on an end surface that forms a predetermined inter-member connection side surface; a second member that includes an inter-member connection electrode that is provided on an end surface that forms the inter-member connection side surface, the second member being arranged to be parallel with the first member; and a conductive film that electrically connects the inter-member connection electrodes to each other over a portion in which the first member and the second member are opposite to each other.
US08437133B2
An information handling system (IHS) chassis defines a component housing. An IHS component is located in the component housing. The IHS component defines a module channel, a module chassis locating slot adjacent the module channel, and a pair of module chassis securing apertures adjacent the module channel. The IHS component includes a module chassis retaining surface that is spaced apart from the module channel. A module chassis is located in the module channel, includes a retaining wall that engages the module chassis retaining surface and a locating member that extends into the module chassis locating slot, and defines a module housing. The module chassis is secured to the component through the pair of module chassis securing apertures. A latching module is located in the module housing and secured to the module chassis. The latching module engages the IHS chassis to resist removal of the IHS component from the component housing.
US08437129B2
A server cabinet is provided, which not only utilizes a first cooling fluid to flow through a heat exchanger of the cabinet to lower the temperature of entrances of fan modules without wasting additional energy, but also utilizes a cooling fluid pipe set to send a second cooling fluid to heat exchange apparatuses in a server to lower the temperature of heating elements inside the cabinet. The server cabinet could lower the heat dissipating loading of the heat exchanger of the cabinet and achieve the efficiency of saving energy.
US08437124B2
A video display includes a housing, a screen and a protective cover. The housing includes a first side and a second side opposite to the first side. The screen is disposed on the first side of the housing. The protective cover is rotatably connected to the housing and coverable on the screen. The protective cover is capable of being held in any position in the process of rotating from the first side to the second side, as the driving force is removed. A car using the video display is also provided.
US08437121B2
A portable electronic device includes a shell, an actuation member, a latching member, and a transmission member. The shell defines a first hole and a second hole which are linearly arranged with the first hole. The actuation member is received in the first hole and can be operated to move in the first hole. The latching member is partially received in the second hole and can move between a first position in which the latching member is spaced from a boundary of the second hole to allow a lanyard strap to be sleeved on the latching member and a second position in which the latching member contacts the boundary of the second hole to lock the lanyard strap to the shell. The transmission member is driven by the actuation member to move the latching member between the first position and the second position.
US08437114B2
An ESD protection device is constructed such that its ESD characteristics are easily adjusted and stabilized and degradation of discharge characteristics caused by repetitive discharges is reliably prevented. The ESD protection device includes an insulating substrate, a cavity provided in the insulating substrate, at least a pair of discharge electrodes including exposed portions arranged to face each other and to be exposed in the cavity, external electrodes provided on a surface of the insulating substrate and connected to the discharge electrodes, and a conductive material dispersed along at least a portion of an inner circumferential surface which defines the cavity between the exposed portions of the discharge electrodes, the conductive material including an anchor portion embedded in the insulating substrate.
US08437108B1
The present invention is directed to a protective wiring device for use in an electrical distribution system. The device includes a test facility includes a testing circuit configured to periodically generate at least one first test signal without execution of software instructions. A test monitoring circuit operates without execution of software instructions and is configured to effect an end-of-life detection state if the circuit interrupter fails to effect the tripped state in response to the electronics test failure state or in response to detecting a failure in the actuator assembly. An end-of-life circuit assembly is coupled to the test monitoring circuit, the end-of-life circuit assembly being configured to permanently decouple the plurality of line terminals from the plurality of load terminals in response to the end-of-life detection state.
US08437093B2
A projection lens system has first, second and third lens groups. The first lens group with combined focal length f1 has, in order from a screen side, a first negative meniscus lens, a second negative meniscus lens with focal length f12, refractive index n12 and screen side surface radius of curvature R12a, and a negative biconcave lens with focal length f13. A second lens group consists of a positive biconvex lens with a radius of curvature R21b of a surface on a light modulator side of the positive biconvex lens. The system satisfies the following conditions: 1.0<|f12/f1|<4.0; 5.0<|f13/f1|<9.0; 1.75
US08437089B2
A zoom lens system including, in an order from an object to an image: a first lens group including at least one lens, and a refraction member for bending an optical axis, and having positive refractive power; a second lens group having negative refractive power; a third lens group; and a fourth lens group, wherein zooming is performed by changing at least one interval between the first through fourth lens groups.
US08437086B2
The invention relates to sources of optical radiation wherein polarized radiation from first and second rows of light emitters is first collimated and combined into two combined beam using first and second rows of collimating and beam re-directing elements, respectively, and then polarization multiplexed to form a polarization-multiplexed output beam. In order to reduce the footprint, emitters of the first and second emitter rows are disposed in an interleaved, staggered arrangement, and the second row of collimating and beam re-directing elements is disposed in a space between the first emitter row and the first row of collimating and beam re-directing elements.
US08437083B2
An optical element includes a substrate, and an antireflection film provided on a surface of the substrate. The antireflection film is a graded layer having a refractive index that is progressively decreased from the substrate side towards an outer surface of the antireflection film. The graded layer has a reflectivity characteristic occupying ⅔ of a usable wavelength range around the center of the usable wavelength range. Reflectivity of the graded layer at a maximum value of the reflectivity characteristic is a peak value equal to or less than 0.4% The graded layer does not have a maximal value not corresponding to the peak value. At least one of reflectivities at both ends of the usable wavelength range is equal to or less than half the reflectivity at the peak value.
US08437082B2
A leaky travelling wave array of optical elements provide a solar wavelength rectenna.
US08437075B2
A metamaterial structure is provided, including a substrate and a plurality of resonators that are provided on different surfaces of the substrate or different layers of the substrate. The resonators have resonance characteristics different from each other, and the metamaterial structure has a permittivity, a permeability, and a refractive index respectively different from those of the substrate in a predetermined frequency bandwidth.
US08437074B2
A Raman amplifier according to the present invention comprises a plurality of pumping means using semiconductor lasers of Fabry-Perot, DFB, or DBR type or MOPAs, and pumping lights outputted from the pumping means have different central wavelengths, and interval between the adjacent central wavelength is greater than 6 nm and smaller than 35 nm. An optical repeater according to the present invention comprises the above-mentioned Raman amplifier and adapted to compensate loss in an optical fiber transmission line by the Raman amplifier. In a Raman amplification method according to the present invention, the shorter the central wavelength of the pumping light the higher light power of said pumping light. In the Raman amplifier according to the present invention, when a certain pumping wavelength is defined as a first channel, and second to n-th channels are defined to be arranged with an interval of about 1 THz toward a longer wavelength side, the pumping lights having wavelengths corresponding to the first to n-th channels are multiplexed, and an pumping light having a wavelength spaced apart from the n-th channel by 2 THz or more toward the longer wavelength side is combined with the multiplexed light, thereby forming the pumping light source. The pumping lights having wavelengths corresponding to the channels other than (n-1)-th and (n-2)-th channels may be multiplexed, thereby forming the pumping light source. The pumping lights having wavelengths corresponding to the channels other than (n-2)-th and (n-3)-th channels may be multiplexed, thereby forming the pumping light source.
US08437072B2
An addressable nano-scale mechanical actuator is formed at the intersection of two nanowires. The actuator has an active region disposed between the two nanowires, which form the electrodes of the actuator. The active region contains an electrolytically decomposable material. When an activation voltage is applied to the electrodes, the material releases a gas that forms a bubble at one electrode, causing a bulging of a top surface of the actuator. The bulging may be used, via mechanical coupling, to provide mechanical actuation on a nanometer scale. The nanowires may be arranged in a two-dimensional array to provide an array of individually addressable actuators.
US08437069B2
The present invention is directed to luminance enhancement structure for reflective display devices. The luminance enhancement structure comprises grooves and columns, wherein said grooves have a triangular cross-section and a top angle, and said grooves and columns are in alternating order and in a continuous form in one direction. The luminance enhancement structure not only can reduce the total internal reflection, but also especially can enhance the on-axis brightness of a display device.
US08437065B2
Briefly, in accordance with one or more embodiments, a scanning platform to scan a beam as a projected image comprises a frame and a scanning mirror supported by a flexure coupled to the frame of the scanning platform. The flexure has an asymmetric structure comprising a longer flexure arm and a shorter flexure arm to locate the scanning mirror at a position offset from a center of the frame. The resonant frequency of oscillation of the scanning mirror may be maintained or otherwise determined by selecting an appropriate cross-sectional area of the longer flexure arm or the shorter flexure arm, or combinations thereof.
US08437043B2
A method and system are provided for reducing the bit depth of grayscale imagery using multi-bit halftoning. The halftoned image data may be lossy or losslessly compressed and stored in memory or transmitted over a communication channel. At the time of printing, the images are decompressed and reconstructed to a grayscale image data using Sigma filtering to preserve edges. Preferably, different Sigma filters may be applied based on contrast information within a local neighborhood region. Fuzzy edge detection may also be used to preserve edge features and prevent smearing.
US08437039B2
An image processing device, an image processing method, and a program enable easily acquiring for each profile information related to the amount of ink that is required to record image data after the image data is converted using a particular profile. A host computer 1 transforms reference image data 27 based on an ICC profile 23 for transforming image data to image data in a different color space, and outputs transformed reference image data 28. Based on a lookup table 25 for transforming the coordinate values of a color space to ink volume information in an ink color space rendered by plural different types of ink, the transformed reference image data 28 is converted to ink volume information, and based on this ink volume information and the reference image data 27 before the transformation, ink information correlating the ink volume information to the colors contained in the reference image data 27 before transformation is produced.
US08437035B2
A user can easily tell whether image position adjustment is being appropriately performed for accommodating units in which printing media is accommodated. A printing method for controlling a printing apparatus so as to cause a printing unit to print on a sheet fed from a sheet accommodation unit, includes: accepting input of an adjustment value for image adjustment for a sheet accommodated in the sheet accommodation unit; causing the printing unit to print an image adjusted according to the accepted adjustment value; and in a case where adjustment is necessary for a sheet accommodated in the sheet accommodation unit, prompting input of the adjustment value.
US08437030B2
An automated rule-based system for facilitating delivery of a fax document from a source to a destination over a network where an initial delivery attempt has been unsuccessful. Actions to be taken are based upon a time-variable set of input conditions which may be determined from one or more of the destination, the source, a database of past delivery attempts, and a human analyst. The actions may include one or more of resubmitting the fax document to the network for a next delivery attempt, cancelling the document, sending a request to the source or destination for additional delivery information, and identifying the destination as a technical problem. The input conditions may include an identification of non-business days and non-business hours.
US08437029B2
A method of choosing jobs to run in a stream based distributed computer system includes determining jobs to be run in a distributed stream-oriented system by deciding a priority threshold above which jobs will be accepted, below which jobs will be rejected. Overall importance is maximized relative to the priority threshold based on importance values assigned to all jobs. System constraints are applied to ensure jobs meet set criteria.
US08437018B2
There is provided an image formation device, comprising: at least two connection units including a first connection unit and a second connection unit configured such that first and second external storage devices are detachably connectable to the first and second connection units, respectively; a judgment unit configured to make a judgment as to whether user information concerning a user of a file stored in the first external storage device connected to the first connection unit matches user information concerning a user of a file stored in the second external storage device connected to the second connection unit; and a permission unit configured to permit a direct print operation for a file for which the judgment unit judges that the user information of the file stored in the first external storage device matches the user information of the file stored in the second external storage device.
US08437014B2
A printed sheet handling system and method for use with lazy-portrait narrow-end to narrow-end (LPEE) formatted pages web printed pages to produce document sets includes: a printer to print LPEE formatted paired document pages on a continuous web; a slitter that divides the LPEE formatted printed web into two streams of sheets; collecting each stream in separate rolls of continuous sheets; withdrawing the stream of continuous sheets from a top of one roll, rotating the second roll 180°, and withdrawing the stream of continuous sheets from a bottom of the second roll; transferring each of the unwound streams of continuous sheets to a cutter that cuts each stream into individual pages; and collating the individual pages into correctly aligned and page number-sequenced document sets.
US08437012B2
When a maintenance agreement has been made based on a contract printing rate and the contract number of printed sheets, an image forming apparatus can determine before an image is actually formed, whether or not terms and conditions will be exceeded. When a user instructs to copy, after all images of original documents are scanned, it can be determined whether or not the number of remaining printable sheets exceeds a certain number, e.g., 100. When the number of remaining printable sheets is not more than 100, after calculating an average per/page printing rate of the scanned image data, the converted number of sheets, which is converted using the contract printing rate, is calculated from the average printing rate, the contract printing rate, and the number of printed sheets for one copy job, and a screen used in inquiring whether or not to print is displayed.
US08437003B2
An information processing apparatus includes an obtaining unit configured to obtain first information regarding a distribution of reflected light from a target to be measured and second information regarding geometrical-optics components of the reflected light, a calculating unit configured to calculate third information on the basis of the first information and the second information, the third information indicating an approximation of the distribution of reflected light, and an output unit configured to output information regarding wave-optics components of the reflected light on the basis of the third information.
US08437001B2
A method for forming a nanostructure penetrating a layer and the device made thereof is disclosed. In one aspect, the device has a substrate, a layer present thereon, and a nanostructure penetrating the layer. The nanostructure defines a nanoscale passageway through which a molecule to be analyzed can pass through. The nanostructure has, in cross-sectional view, a substantially triangular shape. This shape is particularly achieved by growth of an epitaxial layer having crystal facets defining tilted sidewalls of the nanostructure. It is highly suitably for use for optical characterization of molecular structure, particularly with surface plasmon enhanced transmission spectroscopy.
US08436992B2
An imaging assembly for a spectrometer includes a substrate with first and second modules thereon containing respective arrays of detector elements positioned so the arrays are elongated along a first axis with a gap therebetween. A third module including a third array of detector elements is also thereon, spaced from the first axis, at least as long as the gap, and smaller than the elongation of either of the first or second arrays. Further thereon are first and second slits elongated along a second axis spaced from and generally parallel to the first axis, each being at least as long as the respective arrays. A third slit at least as long as the gap is also therein, spaced from the first axis, second axis, and third array such that the gap, third slit, and third array are generally along a third axis generally perpendicular to the first and second axis.
US08436991B2
A device for analyzing materials by plasma spectroscopy is of the portable and independent type, comprising a housing (10) containing a laser generator (18) that emits laser pulses that are focused on the surface of a material to be analyzed by means of a parabolic mirror (32) that is movable in translation inside the housing in order to perform a series of spot measurements along a scan line on the surface of the material to be analyzed and in order to take a measurement from a calibration sample (50) mounted in the measurement endpiece (22) of the housing (10).
US08436983B2
An optical system is able to achieve a substantially azimuthal polarization state in a lens aperture while suppressing loss of light quantity, based on a simple configuration. The optical system of the present invention is provided with a birefringent element for achieving a substantially circumferential distribution or a substantially radial distribution as a fast axis distribution in a lens aperture, and an optical rotator located behind the birefringent element and adapted to rotate a polarization state in the lens aperture. The birefringent element has an optically transparent member which is made of a uniaxial crystal material and a crystallographic axis of which is arranged substantially in parallel with an optical axis of the optical system. A light beam of substantially spherical waves in a substantially circular polarization state is incident to the optically transparent member.
US08436980B2
An illumination optical apparatus guides to an illumination object a light beam emitted from a light source. The illumination optical apparatus includes an enlarging optical system, disposed between the light source and the illumination object, and a reduction optical system, disposed between the enlarging optical system and the illumination object. The enlarging optical system is formed so that an image plane is disposed between the light source and the illumination object.
US08436975B2
A roll stocker includes a plurality of roll fixing units for fixing a plurality of rubbing rolls; shaft connection parts having a plurality of radially extended end portions connected with each roll fixing unit; and a rotational shaft for fixing the center of the shaft connection parts and rotating the shaft connection parts. A plurality of rubbing rolls can be rotated, and by keeping the plurality of rubbing rolls in storage in the closed roll stocker, contamination of a rubbing cloth due to external particles can be prevented, space utilization can be enhanced, and deviation of eccentricity of the rubbing rolls kept in storage can be prevented.
US08436972B2
A liquid crystal display device comprises a pair of substrates subjected to an aligning treatment in mutually parallel but opposite directions, a liquid crystal layer interposed between the pair of substrates, a first electrode bent into a “<” shape, and a second electrode formed via an insulating film with the first electrode. The first electrode comprises one linear section and another linear section that extend in directions that intersect the alignment treatment direction at different angles, a bent section that is provided at each end where the one linear section and the other linear section adjacent to each other and that extends in a direction that intersects the alignment treatment direction at an angle that is greater than each of the intersecting angles of the one linear section and the other linear section and the alignment treatment direction with respect to the alignment treatment directions.
US08436964B2
A backlight unit for a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) device includes a light emitting diode (“LED”) light source and a light conversion layer disposed separate from and above from the LED light source. The light conversion layer includes a semiconductor nano crystal, converts light emitted from the LED light source to white light and provides the white light to a liquid crystal panel of the LCD.
US08436961B2
A backlight unit including holding members capable of preventing occurrence of a noise caused when the members are brought into contact with an optical member such as a diffusion plate. A backlight unit (4) includes a chassis (14) including a surface (14a) housing light sources (12), an optical member (11) having a flat plate shape and disposed above the light sources, and members (25) holding the optical member and attached to the housing surface, wherein each of the holding members includes a portion (25a) holding the optical member, and paired leg portions (25b and 25c) extending from the holding portion, elastically deformable in a direction in which the leg portions approach/leave each other and including paired foot portions (25d) disposed at lower ends of the leg portions, at least one of the paired foot portions being placed in a manner slidable on the housing surface in the approaching/leaving direction.
US08436959B2
A liquid crystal display and a fabrication method thereof are provided. The liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal display panel having a plurality of pixels. A backlight module is disposed under the liquid crystal display panel. A lens is disposed between the liquid crystal display panel and the backlight module, having a plurality of optical structures formed on an upper surface and a lower surface thereof. The lens can disperse lights from the backlight module to form a plurality of chromatic light sources, wherein each chromatic light source is composed of colored lights with a continuous spectrum formed from a red light to a violet light and corresponds to each pixel.
US08436958B2
An electronic device having an impact resistance property is provided. The electronic device includes an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device and a housing receiving the OLED display device. The OLED display device includes a panel assembly on which a plurality of OLEDs are formed and a printed circuit board electrically connected to the panel assembly. The housing includes a reinforcing housing having an impact absorption ability and defining first and second spaces, an upper housing disposed within the first space and physically coupled to the reinforcing housing, and a lower housing disposed within the second space and physically coupled to the reinforcing housing. The panel assembly is located in the first space.
US08436957B2
Disclosed is a liquid crystal display (LCD) device having a good heat radiating function. Surface areas of a lower cover, an upper cover, and a guide panel are increased by forming grooves at the lower cover, the upper cover, and the guide panel. Heat generated from an optical source is rapidly radiated through the lower cover, the upper cover, and the guide panel having increased surface areas. This may prevent temperature increment of a backlight unit.
US08436955B2
A liquid crystal display wherein a first power source supply line and a second power source supply line are respectively applied with a first voltage and a second voltage having a predetermined magnitude, and a first power source supply line and a second power source supply line are disposed as a pair between a first pixel electrode and a second pixel electrode. The first voltage and the second voltage may have different polarities.
US08436950B2
A control key unit for a television receiver includes a rectangular wiring board, a key switch and a frame. The frame is configured to be attached to a cabinet of the television receiver and supports the wiring board. The frame is integrally formed as a one-piece, unitary member. The frame includes a front panel, a clamping section, a lengthwise positioning section and a lateral positioning section. The front panel has a push operated key top overlying the key switch. The clamping section clamps the wiring board in a thickness direction of the wiring board. The clamping section positions the wiring board in the thickness direction. The lengthwise positioning section positions the wiring board in a lengthwise direction of the wiring board. The lateral positioning section positions the wiring board in a width direction of the wiring board.
US08436945B2
In a digital broadcast reception apparatus, a presetting operation is carried out and, when the presetting operation is carried out, a normal reception of a broadcast signal on a channel, which can be received in an area in which the apparatus is installed, and the normal reception of which cannot be found in the event that a gain in a gain switching amplifier is of an initial value, is made possible by a switching and setting of a gain in each VGA 3, 5a and 5b being carried out by means of a control circuit 9 or an operating unit 11.
US08436944B2
In a wireless communication adapter device, in order to reduce connection time to a destination when another sink device is selected as the destination, a control unit included in the wireless communications adaptor device determines whether a device ID of an adapter device for a sink device and EDID information corresponding to the device ID are registered in an EDID managing table. The device ID and the EDID information are obtained through authentication processing with the adapter device for the sink device. When the device ID is registered, the control unit copies the EDID information corresponding to the device ID to the EDID table. When the device ID is not registered, the control unit obtains the EDID information from the authenticated adapter device for the sink device, associates the EDID information with the device ID, and stores the EDID information and the device ID in the EDID managing table.
US08436943B2
A system and method are provided for automating control of a plurality of video displays coupled to a plurality of video sources through a switchable network. The method includes the operation of mapping a signal path for each signal between the plurality of video sources and the plurality of video displays to form a binding map. The binding map can be stored in a controllable device. In addition, a graphical user interface on a navigator can be generated. The graphical user interface is configured to represent the plurality of video displays. A further operation is connecting the plurality of video displays to the plurality of video sources through the switchable network based on the binding map and a user selection made with the graphical user interface in the controllable device.
US08436941B2
An information presenting device includes: a first image generating unit configured to extract, from video data input by way of an input unit, a portion of the video data, and generate multiple main images; a second image generating unit configured to generate multiple sub-images from information correlated to the video data; and an image output unit configured to generate a display image, wherein the plurality of main images are placed in time sequence, and each of the plurality of sub-images are displayed in time sequence corresponding to the main images.
US08436935B2
In an image pickup device of the present invention, in the case where a mode switch 116 selects a finder mode, a focusing lens is driven at a first speed when a focusing operation is performed in a focus control unit 203. In the case where the mode switch 116 selects a live view mode, the driving speed of the focusing lens is switched in a range lower than the first speed in accordance with brightness of an object detected by a photometric unit 114 when the focusing operation is performed in the focus control unit 203. With such a configuration, a lens driving control method is changed by AF control of a phase difference detection system and AF control of a hill climbing system, and a driving system suitable for each AF system is performed, whereby the focusing operation can be performed normally at a high speed.
US08436934B2
A method for assisting in focal length detection is applicable to a digital camera having the flash. The method includes the following steps. First, the flash of the digital camera is actuated and a first image is captured. Afterwards, a characteristic exposure value of the first image is calculated. A focus range comparison table is looked up according to the characteristic exposure value to obtain an initial focus position. Then, a focus procedure is performed according to the initial focus position to obtain a target focal length.
US08436928B2
An image sensing apparatus includes an image sensing unit that performs image sensing by converting incoming light into electrical signals, a control unit that controls driving of the image sensing unit so as to read out the electrical signals by each area of a plurality of areas of the image sensing unit, and a signal processing unit that processes the electrical signals read out by each of the plurality of areas. The control unit varies a horizontal cycle that drives the image sensing unit for each of the plurality of areas.
US08436921B2
A picture signal processing system includes a playback apparatus and a display apparatus connected via first and second communication units. The playback apparatus receives a video signal made up of source data generated by moving giant image data in a constant direction at a constant speed, wherein the giant image data has a number of pixels far greater than the number of pixels in a display region. The playback apparatus reads source data speed information stored in the video signal header, and transmits the video signal and the speed information to the display apparatus. The display apparatus references a table to determine how to process the video signal on the basis of the speed information, processes the video signal, and then displays the processed video signal.
US08436909B2
In one embodiment, a light sensor includes four cell arrays, one for each color of the Bayer pattern, and four lenses each focusing the light coming from the scene to be captured on a respective cell array. The lenses are oriented such that at least a second green image, commonly provided by the fourth cell array, is both horizontally and vertically shifted (spaced) apart by half a pixel pitch from a first (reference) green image. In a second embodiment, the four lenses are oriented such that the red and blue images are respectively shifted (spaced) apart by half a pixel pitch from the first or reference green image, one horizontally and the other vertically, and the second green image is shifted (spaced) apart by half a pixel pitch from the reference green image both horizontally and vertically.
US08436906B2
An image processing apparatus including a motion detecting unit for detecting the motion quantity of an image on the basis of plural frame images photographed by a CMOS image capturing device; a motion predicting unit for predicting a traveling speed of the image capturing apparatus when capturing an image on the basis of the motion quantity; a correction value calculating unit for calculating a correction value for correcting the motion quantity of the image so that, the larger the traveling speed is, the longer the traveling motion of the image capturing apparatus intended by a user remains; and a motion compensating unit for performing compensation that allows only the traveling motion of the image capturing apparatus intended by the user to remain in the image with the use of the correction value.
US08436902B2
A method for image-based weather condition detection, using image processing methods in moving vehicles, is described. The method includes detecting road weather conditions by identifying a group of bright pixels in video images produced by an image-based road characterization, and determining whether the bright pixels are caused by reflections due to one of rainfall, snowfall, a wet surface, or a snowy surface, where a driving assistant system includes a lane-keeping system.
US08436899B2
A tilted illumination observation method and observation device with easy adjustment, high speed, good reproducibility and low cost is provided. A high resolution tilt image of a specimen is obtained by extracting the blurring on the scanning spot occurring during beam tilt from the image (step 6) captured by the tilted beam, and the image (step 4) captured from directly above the standard specimen; and then deconvoluting (step 11, 12) the tilted image of the target specimen (step 10) using the extracted scanning spot from the oblique beam.
US08436892B2
An image data obtaining method and apparatus therefore, where the image data obtaining method involves determining an image-capturing mode from among a first image-capturing mode for capturing an image of a target subject by using a filter having a first area for transmitting light and a second area for blocking light, and a second image-capturing mode for capturing the image of the target subject without using the filter; capturing the image of the target subject by selectively using the filter according to the determined image-capturing mode; and processing captured image data.
US08436885B2
A light from a laser light source (11) is collected at a position of a slit (125a) in a vertical direction by a first optical system (12a) to form an intermediate image which is long in a horizontal direction corresponding to an arrangement direction of light modulator elements. An undesired light such as side lobes which appear on the both sides of the intermediate image in the vertical direction is blocked by a slit (125a) and the intermediate image is reformed by a second optical system (12b), to direct a liner illumination light onto the spatial light modulator (13). Thus, in a state where moving ribbons are sagged and first order diffracted lights are emitted in a light modulator element, it is possible to prevent a zeroth order light from being emitted from both end portions of ribbons, to thereby enhance contrast of the signal light.
US08436881B2
An image recording medium transfer apparatus includes: a capstan that transfers a recording medium for an image; a pinch roller provided opposite the capstan to pass the recording medium between the pinch roller and the capstan; and a pressing force application unit configured to exert a pressing force to press the capstan and the pinch roller against each other via the recording medium. The capstan includes a plurality of projections on a pressing surface of the capstan that presses the recording medium. When a height of each of the projections from the pressing surface is defined as H, the height H is in a range of 20 mm
US08436880B2
A thermal printer in which papers in a plurality of different widths are usable is configured of a platen roller unit including a platen roller; a thermal printhead unit including a thermal printhead and an exothermic element array; and a plurality of bias elements arranged on the thermal printhead in a width direction to press the thermal printhead onto the platen roller, in which the number of the bias elements is a value obtained by dividing a maximum width of the different widths by a highest common factor of the different widths; the bias elements are arranged with an equal interval which is the highest common factor of the different widths; and among the bias elements, a bias element arranged outside of the width of a paper in use is configured not to apply a load to the thermal printhead to press the platen roller.
US08436877B2
Based on information recorded on and read out from a card, a card printer erasably writes information on the card or erases information recorded on the card. The card printer comprises transport means T for transporting card 70 along a passageway 5 having an inlet 4, reading means R provided in the vicinity of passageway 5 for reading out information recorded on a surface of card 70 transported along passageway 5, printing means P for recording information on and erasing information from the surface of card 70, and control means IC electrically connected to transport means T, reading means R and printing means P for determining whether to record information on or to erase information from surface of card 70 and for controlling operation of transport means T and printing means P depending on information forwarded from reading means R.
US08436873B2
The invention relates to a method of manipulating the visibility of image elements on the screens of a multi-screen display. In particular, methods of maximising the visibility of selected target image elements are identified.
US08436869B2
Method for the representation of image data from several image data volumes in at least one common image representation on an image display unit connected to a computer, in particular for the representation of medical image data, whereby in the or at least one image representation image data from at least one data volume which are to be assigned or have been assigned to different areas of the image representation are represented by the computer, at least in part, with reciprocally different opacity.
US08436856B1
A shader can include a series of instructions, among which are horizontal instructions and vertical instructions. Executing such shader for rendering animation information may mean many redundant computations on millions of graphic data points. Thus, vertical instructions are separated out from horizontal instructions and executed in a vertical manner, thereby reducing rendering time and cache space used during the process. That is, a block of instructions is recursively subdivided until a number of instructions that are to be executed in a horizontal manner are approximately minimized in each sub-block. All of the identified vertical sub-blocks can process each data point individually and independently from other data points, thereby achieving various advantages, including, but not limited to, temporary processing, index processing, efficient caching and the like.
US08436852B2
Image editing which is consistent with geometry of a scene depicted in the image is described. In an embodiment a graphical user interface (GUI) is provided to enable a user to simply and quickly specify four corners of a rectangular frame drawn onto a source image using the GUI. In embodiments, the four corners are used to compute parameters of a virtual camera assumed to capture the image of the drawn frame. Embodiments of an image processing system are described which use the virtual camera parameters to control editing of the source image in ways consistent with the 3D geometry of the scene depicted in that image. In some embodiments out of bounds images are formed and/or realistic-looking shadows are synthesized. In examples, users are able to edit images and the virtual camera parameters are dynamically recomputed and used to update the edited image.
US08436845B2
In a method of driving a display panel which includes a unit pixel including a first liquid crystal capacitor and a second liquid crystal capacitor, the first liquid crystal capacitor and the second liquid crystal capacitor are respectively charged with a high voltage and a low voltage which is less than the high voltage, during a first interval of a frame. The first liquid crystal capacitor and the second liquid crystal capacitor are both charged with a voltage between the high voltage and the low voltage, during a second interval of the frame after the first interval of the frame.
US08436842B2
Provided is a display apparatus capable of reducing the scale of a drive circuit and decreasing the frame. A display area in which pixels are provided in matrix, a scanning line drive circuit for driving scanning lines, and a signal line drive circuit for driving signal lines are provided on a support substrate. The pixel within the display area is constituted with a plurality of dots. Each dot corresponds to a color filter of a certain color. The dot is in a laterally long shape, i.e. in a shape extending in a direction along the scanning lines. In other words, each dot is in a shape extending in parallel with the longitudinal direction of the signal line drive circuit. The color filters are of lateral stripe type, for example.
US08436839B2
A haptic function-provided input device performs a touch operation to slide on an input detection plane. The device includes an input detection unit, which has the input detection plane, that detects a touching position of an operation body and a sliding speed of the operation body. The device also includes a computation unit that computes a vibration pattern based on the sliding speed detected by the input detection unit. Further, the device includes a vibration unit that vibrates the input detection plane based on the vibration pattern computed by the computation unit. The computation unit computes the vibration pattern further based on a shift in an excitation timing between two actuators of the vibration unit.
US08436833B2
Methods and apparatus provide for a touch sensitive display, in which a transparent layer is disposed over a display layer; light is directed to propagate into and/or through the transparent layer; scattered light is measured in response to an object touching a surface the transparent layer and disturbing the propagation of the light therethrough; and one or more positions at which the object touches the transparent layer are computed based on signals obtained by the step of measuring the scattered light.
US08436826B2
Embodiments of the disclosure generally set forth a two-way touch screen based communication system. One example method may include receiving an order for a food item submitted by the first touch screen device via a first network, wherein the order is associated with a first identification for a merchant, a second identification for the customer, and a negotiable parameter reflective of a preference of the customer. The method may also include making available the order for a second touch screen device of the merchant to retrieve via a second network and to display and prior to completing processing of the order, transmitting a first response to the preference of the customer to the first touch screen device via the first network, wherein the first response is submitted by the second touch screen device.
US08436824B2
An example method includes measuring a capacitance variation of a first conductive element and a capacitance variation of a second conductive element. The example method includes calculating a centroid position through the measured capacitance variation of the first conductive element and the measured capacitance variation of the second conductive element. A conductive sub-element of the first conductive element may be interleaved with a conductive sub-element of the second conductive element. The conductive sub-element of the first conductive element and the conductive sub-element of the second conductive element may each have a varying width.
US08436823B2
A sensor apparatus includes a first capacitance element, a second capacitance element, a ground circuit, and a signal processing circuit. The first capacitance element has a first capacitance. The second capacitance element includes a first electrode and a second electrode that form a second capacitance larger than the first capacitance. The ground circuit includes a third electrode arranged adjacently to the first electrode, and converts the second capacitance into a third capacitance smaller than the second capacitance by connecting the third electrode to a ground potential. The signal processing circuit processes a first signal output from the first capacitance element based on a change of the first capacitance, and a second signal output from the second capacitance element based on a change of the third capacitance.
US08436822B2
A touch panel has a panel capacitor, a first capacitor, and a second capacitor. The panel capacitor and the first capacitor are charged and discharged cyclically according to a first phase signal and a second phase signal, such that an input voltage associated with the panel capacitor and the first capacitor is applied to a control circuit. The control circuit charges and discharges a second capacitor based on the input voltage and a reference voltage to compensate the difference between the input voltage and the reference voltage. The capacitance of the panel capacitor could be calculated based on the frequency of charging and discharging the second capacitor.
US08436820B2
There are provided a touchpad using resistive electro-conductive fibers and an input device having the same, which can be used for controlling a personal terminal such as a computer by receiving a user's input using a signal representing a motion of the user detected by the resistive electro-conductive fiber in contact with the user's body part such as a finger, instead of using a separate input device such as a mouse. The touchpad includes a plurality of motion detectors and a signal analyzer. The motion detectors each include a resistive electro-conductive fiber having a resistance value varied according to a change in length caused by contact with a human body part, and a signal generator outputting a signal corresponding to the varied resistance value. The signal analyzer analyzes the signal from each of the motion detectors, and generates a motion signal representing a motion of the human body part in contact with the touchpad.
US08436818B2
A portable terminal including a touch screen and method for displaying a cursor thereof are provided. The method includes determining whether a capacitance is equal to or greater than a first critical value and is less than a second critical value, if the change of the capacitance is sensed in the touch screen, displaying a cursor in an area where the change of the capacitance is sensed, if the capacitance is equal to or greater than the first critical value and is less than the second critical value, and performing a function corresponding to the area where the cursor is displayed, if the capacitance sensed in the area where the cursor is displayed is equal to or greater than the second critical value.
US08436798B2
A method for driving an electro-optic device includes a first and second electrode and a pair of substrates sandwiching an electro-optic layer driven by the first electrode. The method involves shifting one of two potentials input to at least one of the electrodes such that a potential difference between the first and second electrode where the potential input to the first electrode is higher than the potential input to the second electrode is larger than a potential difference between the first and second electrode where the potential input to the first electrode is lower than the potential input to the second electrode, when a gray-scale level where potential input to the first electrode is higher than potential input to the second electrode is equivalent to the gray-scale level where potential input to the first electrode is lower than potential input to the second electrode.
US08436794B2
A device and a method of optimizing brightness of a liquid crystal display panel includes a plate to mount a target liquid crystal display panel, a back light to provide light to the liquid crystal display panel, a connecting unit to connect to a pad unit of the liquid crystal display panel, a detecting unit to produce a brightness signal by detecting a brightness of a predetermined region of the liquid crystal display panel, a converting unit to convert the brightness signal into a brightness data, a comparative unit to store a standard data and to compare the brightness data with the standard data, and a processing unit to produce an operation voltage according to a result signal provided by the comparative unit and to provide the operation voltage to the connecting unit, wherein the detecting unit detects the brightness by concentrating light of sight angle range is ±10° or below.
US08436790B2
In an EL display device in which color purity of each of red, blue and green is different, the EL display device displaying an image of a desired balance of red, blue and green is provided. A video signal supplied to each EL element is gamma (γ)-corrected by a correction circuit, the color purity of each of blue luminescence, green luminescence, and red luminescence is suitably controlled in accordance with the voltage and current of the corrected video signal.
US08436788B2
Aspects of the disclosure provide a display system. The display system can include a display module having a configurable optical characteristic that varies from substantially transmissive to substantially reflective, at least one data capturing device configured to capture data to form a display image, and at least a first projector configured to project the display image to the display module. Therefore, the display image can be overlaid with a real image according to an optical configuration of the display module.
US08436779B2
The present invention is an apparatus operable to align an antenna and to retain the antenna in a reference position during alignment of the antenna. The apparatus may include a bracket having an arm attached thereto, and the arm conforms to the back wall of an antenna. An engagement means and/or securing means may be incorporated in the apparatus to retain the position of the antenna in a fixed or removeable connection with the apparatus. An alignment device being operable to align the antenna may be attached to the bracket. The apparatus of the present invention may be arranged or otherwise positioned in accordance with a reference position. Said reference position may be defined as a position that is selected in reference to a reference point, line, or plane of the antenna. The apparatus may retain the antenna in a reference position during alignment of the antenna.
US08436772B2
A device for estimating a current orientation of a mobile terminal device at a current geographical position, wherein, at the current geographical position, a current measurement package may be determined which has a transmitter identification and an electromagnetic signal characteristic of a radio transmitter which may be received at the current geographical position with the current orientation of the mobile terminal device at a current measurement time, with a determiner for determining an accordance measure between the current measurement package and a reference measurement package, which has a transmitter identification, a reference orientation and an electromagnetic signal characteristic of a reference radio transmitter which was receivable at a geographical reference position allocated to the reference measurement package with the reference orientation at a reference time lying before the current measurement time, a selector for selecting at least one reference measurement package which has an accordance measure, and a determiner for determining an estimate for the current orientation of the mobile terminal device based on the reference orientation of the at least one selected reference measurement package.
US08436761B2
An analog-to-digital converter including a comparator, a control module, a voltage adjusting module, and an evaluating module is provided. The comparator compares an analog input voltage with a feedback voltage and generates a comparison result. Based on the comparison result, the control module generates a control signal. The voltage adjusting module increases or decreases the feedback voltage toward the analog input voltage according to the control signal. The voltage increase amount and decrease amount provided by the voltage adjusting module are corresponding to a first digital value and a second digital value, respectively. The evaluating module generates the first digital value and the second digital value based on the control signal. According to the first digital value and the second digital value, a digital signal corresponding to the analog input voltage is generated.
US08436760B1
The present disclosure includes systems and techniques relating to low power current-voltage mixed ADC architecture. In some implementations, an apparatus includes sample and hold circuitry, at least one ADC module configured to generate a first digital output based on a first analog input provided to the sample and hold circuitry, and current generation circuitry configured to modulate an analog output of the sample and hold circuitry to generate a residue output corresponding to the first analog input absent at least a portion corresponding to the first digital output, and to provide the residue output as a second analog input to further circuitry to generate a second digital output.
US08436758B2
In an ultra-wideband communication system, a 1-trit ternary analog-to-digital converter (“ADC”) having dynamic threshold adaption and providing an output in ternary form [+1, 0, −1]. The ternary ADC includes a pair of 1-bit binary ADCs, one being configured in a non-inverting form, and one being configured in an inverting form. Each binary ADC includes an feedback network mechanism, thereby allowing for simultaneous and independent adaptation of the pair of thresholds, compensating for the effects of any DC offset that may be present. The use of a trit-based ternary encoding scheme improves system entropy.
US08436743B2
A system for measuring a parameter within a well comprises a first and second apparatus. The first apparatus comprises a first reel of first wound optic fiber line (or fiber) able to be unwound from the first reel and at least a first sensor able to measure the parameter of the well, wherein information on the parameter can be transmitted through the first optic fiber. The second apparatus comprises a second reel of second wound optic fiber line able to be unwound from the second reel, an extremity of the second optic fiber being fixed to a reference point. A light transmitter or receiver device is linked to the reference point and able to generate or detect a light pulse through the second optic fiber line. Means to exchange the light pulse between first and second optic fiber line are also provided.
US08436731B2
A device and method for protecting personal property. The device includes an angular rotation detection system utilizing a gyroscope and an alarm adapted to signal when the device has tilted or rotated beyond a predetermined position from a reference position.
US08436709B2
Disclosed herein are various embodiments of coil transducers and galvanic isolators configured to provide high voltage isolation and high voltage breakdown performance characteristics in small packages. A coil transducer is provided across which data or power signals may be transmitted and received by primary and secondary coils disposed on opposing sides thereof without high voltage breakdowns occurring therebetween. At least portions of the coil transducer are formed of an electrically insulating, non-metallic, non-semiconductor, low dielectric loss material. Circuits are disclosed herein that permit high speed data signals to be transmitted through the coil transducer and faithfully and accurately reconstructed on the opposing side thereof. The coil transducer may be formed in a small package using, by way of example, printed circuit board, CMOS and other fabrication and packaging processes.
US08436694B2
According to the general concept disclosed herein, a circuit for adaptive matching of a load impedance to a predetermined load-line impedance of a load-line connected to a power amplifier output includes a fixed matching network between the power transistor and an adaptive matching network, whereby the fixed matching network acts as an impedance inverter which results in a relatively low insertion loss at high power. Results indicate that the impedance-inverting network can be used over more than a factor of 10 in impedance variation. Further, the usage of the fixed matching network, close to the power transistor, allows for the implementation of transmission zeros and/or for a well defined load impedance at a predetermined harmonic frequency, independent of the (variable) load impedance at the fundamental frequency.
US08436692B2
In one example embodiment, a transmitter comprises a first component coupled to receive a signal for transmission and a second component communicatively coupled to the first component to transmit the signal over a transmission medium. The transmitter further comprises a planar transmission line formed on a substrate and disposed between the first and second components to couple the signal from the first component to the second component. The planar transmission line includes a first transmission line element formed on the substrate and configured to suppress radiation of EMI at a predetermined frequency.
US08436689B2
A voltage controlled oscillator includes a resonant circuit including one or more transformers and a plurality of variable capacitor circuits connected in parallel to the one or more transformers and generating a plurality of oscillation signals having multiple phases, and a negative resistance circuit including a plurality of transistors cross-coupled via the one or more transformers and generating negative resistance for maintaining the oscillation of the resonant circuit.
US08436684B2
Embodiments provide an amplifier and a method for using and manufacturing said amplifier that incorporate an impedance matching stage, a feedback circuit, and a gain stage. The impedance matching stage is coupled to the feedback circuit wherein the feedback circuit provides a compensated second bias voltage for the impedance matching stage. The output of the impedance matching stage is used to set an input bias voltage for both the impedance matching stage and the gain stage. The output of the impedance matching stage is also used, together with the output of the gain stage, to produce an output of the amplifier. A signal reuse stage may be provided between the output of the impedance matching stage and the output of the amplifier.
US08436683B2
An audio amplifier circuit is described which comprises an operational amplifier. The operational amplifier receives an audio input signal and provides an output suitable for connecting a headphone, or a loudspeaker. A step-up converter is provided which supplies the operational amplifier. The audio amplifier is configured to operate in one of multiple operating modes, each of which uses a distinct supply voltage Vcc of the operational amplifier in the audio amplifier. Comparators are used to compare the output voltage of the operational amplifier with a first reference voltage to raise the supply voltage of the operational amplifier, if clipping is imminent. A second comparator is used to compare the output voltage of the operational amplifier with a second reference voltage, indicating that the supply voltage of the operational amplifier can be lowered without the risk of clipping.
US08436680B2
Provided is a multi-layered semiconductor apparatus with improved heat diffusion and improved heat release. The multi-layered semiconductor apparatus (100) includes a plurality of layered semiconductor chips (20-1, 20-2) that each include at least one circuit region, and the circuit regions are arranged such that heat generated by the circuit regions as a result of the circuit regions being driven is spread out. The multi-layered semiconductor apparatus (100) further comprises a heat releasing section (50) that releases the heat generated by the circuit regions, and the circuit regions are arranged such that there is less thermal resistance between the heat releasing section and circuit regions that generate a greater amount of heat per unit area.
US08436669B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for capturing and storing a level of an input signal using a single-trigger low-energy flip-flop circuit that is fully-static and insensitive to fabrication process variations. The single-trigger low-energy flip-flop circuit presents only three transistor gate loads to the clock signal and none of the internal nodes toggle when the input signal remains constant. The output signal Q is set or reset at the rising clock edge using a single-trigger sub-circuit. A set or reset may be armed while the clock signal is low, and the set or reset is triggered at the rising edge of the clock.
US08436664B2
A first switch is switched to short a multi-functional pin of an integrated circuit to a ground terminal or let a current supplied to the multi-functional pin to flow to a second switch connected to the multi-functional pin. Before the integrated circuit is ready, the second switch is closed circuit and is detected its current to determine a first signal to enable or disable the integrated circuit. After the integrated circuit is ready, the second switch is open circuit, the voltage at the multi-functional pin is detected to determine a second signal to enable or disable the integrated circuit, and when the voltage at the multi-functional pin is higher than a threshold, a power good signal is triggered.
US08436660B2
A voltage-mode differential driver may include a first nominal path that selectively couples a first supply or a second supply to a first output terminal in response to an input data. The voltage-mode differential driver may further include a first capacitive boost path that selectively couples the first supply or the second supply to the first output terminal responsive to the input data. The first capacitive boost path may be selectively enabled to provide a boost current to be added to a current from the first nominal path resulting in an output current to be provided to the first output terminal.
US08436656B2
Some embodiments provide an integrated circuit (‘IC’) that includes at least first and second circuits operating at a first voltage. The IC includes, between the first and second circuits, a direct connection comprising a third circuit for transmitting a signal from the first circuit to the second circuit at a second voltage that is lower than the first voltage. At least one of the first and second circuits is a configurable circuit for configurably performing operations.
US08436651B2
A command control circuit of a semiconductor integrated device includes a plurality of latches sequentially connected and receiving a command signal, and a plurality of selection switches configured to pass or to interrupt the command signal inputted to each one of the plurality of latches.
US08436649B2
Disclosed is a semiconductor device including a circuit information supply unit that supplies circuit information acquired from an outside of the semiconductor device; circuit configuration units that configure respective circuits based on the circuit information supplied from the circuit information supply unit; a specification unit that specifies whether to execute circuit configuration with respect to the circuit configuration unit; and a signal fixation unit that fixes values of signals outputted from the circuit configuration units to a designated value during a period at which the specified circuit configuration unit configures corresponding circuits based on the circuit information.
US08436648B1
A sequential voltage output circuit is connected between a power supply and a number of loads. The voltage sequence output circuit includes a complex programmable logic device (CPLD) and a number of switching circuits. When the CPLD receives a power on signal, the CPLD outputs a number of control signals sequentially through a number of outputs. When a switching circuit receives a control signal from the CPLD, the switching circuit allows the power supply to supply power to a corresponding load.
US08436638B2
Structures and methods are provided for performing non-destructive and secure disablement of integrated circuit (IC) functionality. A structure for enabling non-destructive and secure disablement and re-enablement of the IC includes a micro-electrical mechanical structure (MEMS) initially set to a chip enable state. The structure also includes an activation circuit operable to set the MEMS device to an error state based on a detected predetermined condition of the IC. The IC is disabled when the MEMS device is in the error state.
US08436631B2
A wafer stage and a method of supporting a wafer for inspection. the wafer stage comprises a platform for supporting a wafer such that a backside of the wafer is suspended above a cavity of the platform; and a support structure disposed substantially within the cavity for supporting a portion of the wafer; wherein the wafer stage is adapted for relative movement of the platform with respect to the support structure for alignment of the wafer with respect to a probe.
