US10657760B2

A method of conducting a wagering game includes: conducting a base game on an electronic gaming machine; detecting a first trigger condition in the base game; initiating a feature game in response to the first trigger condition; detecting a second trigger condition in the feature game; granting access to a plurality of bonus feature game levels in response to the second trigger condition; and determining an outcome of the feature game.
US10657749B2

Methods and systems are described for automatic system access using facial recognition. According to at least one embodiment, an apparatus for automatic system access using facial recognition includes a processor, a memory in electronic communication with the processor, and instructions stored in the memory which are executable by a processor to identify faces of a plurality of persons relative to a premises, and determine, based at least in part on the identifying, a first person from the plurality of persons satisfies a frequent occupant threshold. The instructions are executable recognize the first person at the premises after determining the first person from the plurality of persons satisfies the frequent occupant threshold and initiate a change of state of a security and/or automation system based at least in part on the recognizing.
US10657743B2

A method for locking and unlocking a receptacle for a mobile telecommunications terminal device, such as a smartphone. The receptacle is arranged in a holding device. A token is assigned to the holding device and secured against removal in an insertion opening. The token is released when a telecommunications terminal device is locked in the receptacle. When the token is inserted, an authorisation check is carried out for checking an assignment of the token. If the assignment is confirmed, the lock is unlocked. A signal is thereby generated when locking the telecommunications terminal device in the receptacle or upon successful authorization. The signal is transmitted to a blocking element that blocks the movement of a first control element. The signal activates the blocking element to end the block of the control element movement. There is also described a holding device for a mobile telecommunications terminal device.
US10657738B2

A method for identifying a trajectory for each vehicle involved in an accident. The method begins by plotting on a Cartesian Coordinate Plane GNSS locations corresponding to a vehicle involved in the accident. Next, the method identifies GNSS locations on the Cartesian Coordinate Plane where the vehicle was speeding. Next, the method marks those GNSS locations on the Cartesian Coordinate Plane where the vehicle involved in the accident was skidding. The process of plotting and identifying speeding as well as skidding is repeated for all vehicles involved in the accident. The Cartesian Coordinate plane then having all vehicle trajectories residing therein is sent to an output device.
US10657731B1

A 3D image processing system includes voxel adjustments based on radiodensity, filtering and segmentation, each of which may be selected, configured, and applied in response to controller-entered commands. Voxel adjustments based on radiodensity may include changes to grayscale values and color, e.g. to enhance selected tissues or to emphasize differences between tissues of similar radiodensity. Voxel adjustments based on radiodensity may include demarcation, and changes to voxel size, shape, and orientation. Filtering may include removing a portion of voxels of a selected radiodensity from a presented image. Segmentation may characterize voxels based on nearest neighbors, and grow features or fill gaps. Multiple images may be generated with different configuration settings and be combined into a composite image.
US10657723B2

An image processing apparatus that embeds additional information relating to an object that is displayed in a superimposing manner on a captured image, in an original image. The image processing apparatus includes a determining unit configured to determine whether a direction of the original image is a landscape or a portrait, and an embedment unit configured to embed the additional information in the original image. The additional information is information capable of at least specifying a type of the object and a display direction, of the object with respect to a display screen, in a case of displaying the object in a superimposing manner on the captured image. The embedment unit embeds the additional information based on the determination by the determining unit, such that the display direction changes in accordance with whether the direction of the original image is the landscape or the portrait.
US10657722B2

A transmissive display device includes a display section having a light transmissive property, and adapted to display a target image as a display target and a pointer image so as to be superimposed on an external world visually recognized through the display section, a display control section adapted to control a display configuration of the pointer image, and an imaging section adapted to take an image of the external world, and the display control section sets either one of an external world image obtained by the imaging, the target image, and a composite image of the external world image and the target image as a reference image, and displays the pointer image with the display configuration changed in accordance with a feature quantity of an area including a display position of the pointer image in the reference image.
US10657709B2

Measurements or models of a human body are generated. An image of the human body may be identified and a fiducial map may be generated. The fiducial map may be compared to pre-processed fiducial maps stored in a data store. A plurality of pre-processed fiducial maps of human bodies may be identified when a correlation between the fiducial map and the pre-processed fiducial maps exceeds a defined threshold. A silhouette image of the human body may be generated based on the image and may be compared to pre-processed silhouette images associated with the plurality of pre-processed fiducial maps. One of the pre-processed silhouette images may be identified when a correlation value between the silhouette image and the pre-processed silhouette images exceeds a defined threshold. Measurements or a model of the human body may be identified based on the one of the pre-processed silhouette images.
US10657707B1

A method and system may use photo deformation techniques for vehicle repair analysis to determine a repair time for repairing a damaged vehicle part. A user's client device may generate a three-dimensional (3D) image or model of a damaged vehicle part by capturing several two-dimensional images of the damaged vehicle part. One or several characteristics of the damaged vehicle part may be extracted from the 3D model and the characteristics may be compared to characteristics for previously damaged vehicle part, where the actual repair times were measured. A repair time for the damaged vehicle part may be determined based on the comparison and displayed on the client device.
US10657703B2

An image processing apparatus generating geometric data of an object includes an obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of images of the object, each image captured from different viewpoints, a generating unit configured to generate geometric data of the object from the images obtained by the obtaining unit, and a correcting unit configured to correct the geometric data based on a reliability of at least a part of the geometric data generated by the generating unit.
US10657701B2

Systems and methods for processing operations for head mounted display (HMD) users to join virtual reality (VR) scenes are provided. A computer-implemented method includes providing a first perspective of a VR scene to a first HMD of a first user and receiving an indication that a second user is requesting to join the VR scene provided to the first HMD. The method further includes obtaining real-world position and orientation data of the second HMD relative to the first HMD and then providing, based on said data, a second perspective of the VR scene. The method also provides that the first and second perspectives are each controlled by respective position and orientation changes while viewing the VR scene.
US10657695B2

The present invention relates to a method for generating and causing display of a communication interface that facilitates the sharing of emotions through the creation of 3D avatars, and more particularly with the creation of such interfaces for displaying 3D avatars for use with mobile devices, cloud based systems and the like.
US10657692B2

Image description specificity determination is provided by a method that obtains digital content to be presented on a device to a user. The digital content includes a digital image, of which a description is to be provided to the user, and text. The method further analyzes the digital content and ascertains a context under which the description of the digital image is to be provided to the user. The method determines, based at least in part on the context, a level of specificity for describing the digital image to the user. The method presents the digital content, including the digital image, to the user in accordance with the determined level of specificity for describing the digital image.
US10657688B2

Resource visualization, evaluation, and selection is often a difficult, complex, technically challenging endeavor. This is particularly true when there the resource set is extensive, the resources have widely varying attributes and capabilities, and the resources are also widely disbursed geographically. A multi-dimensional resource evaluation and visualization system implements technical solutions to these technical challenges.
US10657685B2

A method is performed at an electronic device. The process displays a line chart, which includes a first plurality of data marks and a first plurality of line segments connecting adjacent data marks. The process detects a touch input, and expands the line chart horizontally, including expanding a first line segment. The process adds a second plurality of data marks on the first line segment, thereby subdividing the first line segment into a second plurality of line segments, which are initially collinear. After expanding the chart and adding the second plurality of marks, the process determines an ordinate value for each of the second plurality of marks, and animatedly moves each of the second plurality of marks from the first line segment to a respective vertical location defined by the respective determined ordinate value. The process concurrently moves each of the second plurality of line segments according to its endpoints.
US10657681B2

A scene to be rendered is divided into plural individual sub-regions or tiles. The individual sub-regions 51 are also grouped into differing groups of sets of plural sub-regions. There is a top level layer comprising a set of 8×8 sub-regions which encompasses the entire scene area. There is then a group of four 4×4 sets of sub-regions, then a group of sixteen 2×2 sets of sub-regions, and finally a layer comprising the 64 single sub-regions. A primitive list building processor takes each primitive in turn, determines a location for that primitive, compares the primitive's location with the locations of the sub-regions and the locations of the sets of sub-regions, and allocates the primitive to respective primitive lists for the sub-regions and sets of sub-regions accordingly.
US10657678B2

A method, device, and system for rending images. The method includes obtaining, by one or more processors, image data comprised in a data frame to be rendered, determining, by the one or more processors, one or more dimensions for a texture atlas based at least in part on the dimensions of the obtained image data, creating, by the one or more processors, the texture atlas based at least in part on the determined dimensions, and rendering, by the one or more processors, the data frame based at least in part on the texture atlas.
US10657675B2

An encoder includes a processor and a memory. The encoder generates a first plurality of levels of detail (LODs) and associated first type of vertex split records, each of the first type of vertex split records associated with an LOD of the first plurality of LODs is generated using a first type of collapse operator. The encoder initiates a switch from using the first type of collapse operator to a second type of collapse operator in response to a switching condition being satisfied. The encode further a second plurality of LODs and associated second type of vertex split records, each of the second type of vertex split records associated with a LOD of the second plurality of LODs is generated using the second type of collapse operator.
US10657674B2

A method of compressing image data from one or more images forming part of digital reality content, the method including obtaining pixel data from the image data, the pixel data representing an array of pixels within the one or more images; determining a position of the array of pixels within the one or more images relative to a defined position, the defined position being at least partially indicative of a point of gaze of the user; and compressing the pixel data at least partially in accordance the determined position so that a degree of compression depends on the determined position of the array of pixels.
US10657664B2

A method and system for capturing images and depth for image-based rendering. Capture is made by a multi-camera configuration using a combination of image and depth cameras. Rendering utilizes scene geometry derived from image and depth data.
US10657659B1

A system and method for the visual simultaneous localization and mapping can quickly and accurately localize an object in space and map the surrounding environment. This is accomplished using at least one camera and a synthetic gradient field for tracking the pose of the camera and optimizing the 3D point map. More specifically, a sequence of image frames taken from the camera is used to compute the relative transformation between camera poses and generate a map of the surrounding environment.
US10657655B2

A VR content sickness evaluating apparatus using a deep learning analysis of a motion mismatch and a method thereof are provided. The VR content sickness evaluating apparatus analyzes a motion mismatch phenomenon between visual recognition information and posture recognition information, which occurs when a user views VR content, using deep learning and predicts and evaluates a degree of VR sickness from a difference between motion features.
US10657651B2

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for electronically assessing a visual significance of pixels or regions in an electronic image are disclosed. A method includes receiving the electronic image, performing a composition analysis on the electronic image, the composition analysis includes partitioning the electronic image into a plurality of segments or a plurality of parts, constructing an attributed composition graph having a plurality of nodes, where each node corresponds to a segment or a part and where each node includes one or more attributes, modeling the visual significance of the electronic image based on the attributed composition graph using a statistical modeling process or a computational modeling process to obtain a plurality of values, and constructing a composition significance map having a significance score for each segment or each part according to the values obtained from the statistical modeling process or the computational modeling process.
US10657648B2

A method for scanning for borders in an image represented by pixels, the method including a first operation comprising: estimating an attribute for each of a first set of two adjacent pixel positions in the image; assessing whether a predetermined binary condition differs in respect of the two pixel positions, and if so determining that a border is present in the part of the image represented by pixels at those positions; and if a border is determined to be present in that part of the image, estimating the direction of the border as being perpendicular to a line joining the positions of the two pixels; and initiating tracing the border in that direction.
US10657641B2

An illumination source is optimized by changing the intensity and shape of the illumination source to form an image in the image plane that maximizes the minimum ILS at user selected fragmentation points while forcing the intensity at the fragmentation points to be within a small intensity range. An optimum mask may be determined by changing the magnitude and phase of the diffraction orders to form an image in the image plane that maximizes the minimum ILS at user selected fragmentation points while forcing the intensity at the fragmentation points to be within a small intensity range. Primitive rectangles having a size set to a minimum feature size of a mask maker are assigned to the located minimum and maximum transmission areas ad centered at a desired location. The edges of the primitive rectangle are varied to match optimal diffraction orders O(m,n). The optimal CPL mask OCPL(x,y) is then formed.
US10657638B2

Various aspects of the disclosed technology relate to training and applying a machine learning model for defect pattern detection. Defect pattern variants of one or more defect patterns are generated. The one or more defect patterns are extracted from wafer maps of wafers having at least systematic defects. Each of the generated defect pattern variants is superimposed on wafer maps of wafers having no systematic defects to generate positive training data of wafer maps, which are included in a training dataset. Based on the training dataset, a trained machine-learning model for recognizing known defect patterns on wafer maps is derived.
US10657634B2

Methods for processing an image comprising assigning values to a plurality of pixels of an image, placing the values of the plurality of pixels in an array, determining a method to reference the array values with indices, determining a method to rank or sort the values, sorting the array of values and storing the indices that would sort the array, sorting the array of indices and storing the indices that would sort the array in an array of values, recursively applying these methods, changing methods configurations and/or reusing them during processing, and altering an array based on a sorted array's values and/or indices are disclosed.
US10657626B2

The disclosure provides an image processing apparatus, an image processing system, and recording medium capable of achieving both reduction of the amount of data and securement of reproducibility. An image processing apparatus generates compressed image data by compressing raw image data acquired by imaging an object into a JPEG format, restores the compressed image data to restored image data of a bmp format, and then acquires a first result by executing an image measurement processing on the restored image data. The image processing apparatus stores the compressed image data and the first result in association with each other.
US10657620B2

Described herein is a pooling method, device, and system, computer-readable storage medium. The pooling method, comprising: acquiring pixel data of each row where a pooling window is located row by row, each time after the pooling window is moved vertically, wherein the size of the pooling window is N×N, N is a positive integer; writing the acquired pixel data of the first N−1 rows or a pre-pooling result thereof into a cache; and performing a pooling operation on the pixel data of last row where the pooling window being located and pixel data in the cache, when the pixel data of last row being acquired; outputting a pooling result of the pooling operation. The technical solution of the invention may improve the pooling efficiency and the system performance.
US10657616B2

A system and method for monitoring, analyzing, and reporting cell phone usage. Multiple sensors provide inputs related to the interaction between a cell phone user and a cell phone. The inputs from the sensors are compared to normative data, and an output indicative of the operating environment of the cell phone is provided.
US10657610B2

In one implementation, a computer-implemented method includes receiving information that describes an issue with a building; accessing data that identifies (i) a plurality of components that are included in the building and (ii) features of the plurality of components; identifying one or more candidate components that have at least a threshold likelihood of being a cause of the issue; selecting a candidate service provider from among a plurality of service providers based on a comparison of (i) the one or more candidate components and (ii) information identifying technical qualifications for the plurality of service providers; transmitting a service request for the issue to the candidate service provider; receiving a response from the candidate service provider; and scheduling, based on the response, a service appointment with the candidate service provider to resolve the issue.
US10657601B1

A method and apparatus for determining the amount of premium, policies, or quotations needed to improve market share in various geographic locations based on user selected criteria. The method comprises calculating a total estimated expenditure on insurance by zip code, an estimated market share for an insurance provider by zip code, a year-to-date sale-to-quote ratio by zip code, and finally the amount of premiums, policies, or quotations needed to achieve a market share in a zip code. The method and apparatus will also display or output demographic data, market data, insurance provider information, and calculated amounts of premiums, policies, or quotations needed to achieve a market share in a given zip code.
US10657597B1

In an example, an insurance premium for a driverless vehicle is calculated by monitoring an amount of time a first occupant is in active control of the driverless vehicle during a period and modifying an insurance rate for a subsequent period based on the amount of time the first occupant is in active control of the driverless vehicle. In another example, an insurance premium for an intelligent vehicle is calculated by receiving at a computerized insurance system, from the intelligent vehicle, an indication of the intelligent vehicle's condition and calculating the insurance premium for an insurance policy that covers the intelligent vehicle based at least in part on the indication of the intelligent vehicle's condition.
US10657592B2

Systems and apparatus for processing a trade order include a computer configured for receiving market data for a financial asset, receiving pricing parameters and receiving proposed order quantity and price data. The computer is further configured for constructing proposed trades based on the proposed order quantity and price data, and for calculating a theoretical price for the financial asset based on the market data, pricing parameters as well as the proposed order price data. In addition, the computer is configured for comparing the constructed trades with the theoretical price, and displaying market data indicators relative to the theoretical price indicators based on the comparison.
US10657582B2

A service terminal, which is communicatively coupled to a remote server, communicates with an offline mobile phone located nearby via a short-range wireless communication protocol to complete a service request initiated by the mobile phone. The service terminal repeatedly broadcasts, via a short-range wireless transceiver, a service message to neighboring mobile terminals until after receiving a service purchase request message from one of the mobile terminals. The service terminal then suspends the broadcast of the service message and submits the service purchase request to the remote server and then receives a purchase confirmation message from the remote server. Next, the service terminal transmits, via the short-range wireless transceiver, the purchase confirmation message back to the user terminal.
US10657581B2

The present disclosure discloses an order allocation method. The method may include: receiving orders and extracting order information; extracting service provider information and obtaining features of service providers; determining whether the order information matches the features of the service providers, or determining whether the features of the service providers satisfy a preset condition to generate a determination result; ranking the service providers based on the determination result; generating orders to be allocated; and allocating the orders to be allocated to the service providers based on the ranking. The present disclosure also discloses an order allocation system that can perform the method above.
US10657580B2

A system and method includes receiving a plurality of orders having one or more items, separating the orders by load number and due times, batching the separate orders into different commodities, generate optimized rebatched orders according to an optimization algorithm that generates the optimized rebatched orders based on at least one of distance and volume of the items of the one or more items within the batched orders of the different commodities, sorting the one or more items within the rebatched orders by sequence numbers, and transmitting the sorted one or more items to a user device.
US10657579B2

A system includes a client terminal capable of ordering merchandise of an online store service from a service providing system of a plurality of service providing systems and process an order of merchandise of the online store service, and an information processing apparatus capable of communicating with the client terminal. The information processing apparatus receives data created by the client terminal using a predetermined application and used to order the merchandise of the online store service, transmits access information used to make the client terminal access a service providing system, of the plurality of service providing systems, corresponding to the predetermined application, and receives a request of the received data from the service providing system that has accepted access based on the transmitted access information. Data received by the first reception unit is transmitted to the service providing system that has transmitted the request.
US10657575B2

A method including generating a weighting vector for a first user. The weighting vector can track a weight corresponding to each feature of a plurality of features. The plurality of features can represent purchasing criteria that are common to each item in a category of items. The method also can include, in response to receiving a request from the first user to view details for a selected item, recommending to the first user, in real-time after receiving the request, one or more other items that are different from the selected item. The selected item and the one or more other items can be in a category of items that is the same. The plurality of features can be in common for each item in the category of items. Sentiment data can include a sentiment score for each feature for each item in the category of items. The one or more other items can be recommended based on the sentiment score of one or more first features of the plurality of features for each of the one or more other items exceeding the sentiment score of a corresponding one of the one or more first features for the selected item. The method additionally can include receiving a new request from the first user to view details for a new selected item that is selected from among the one or more other items. The method further can include updating the weight that corresponds to each of the one or more first features for the new selected item in the weighting vector for the first user. Other embodiments of related systems and methods are disclosed.
US10657562B2

Systems and methods for providing a merchant-customer engagement system include a physical merchant location in which a customer may be tracked to determine products within the physical merchant location that the customer is interested in. A merchant may use a wearable merchant device that is configured to identify the customer via a camera that captures an image of the customer, and that image may be used to retrieve customer account information for that customer. Using the customer account information and the products that the customer is showing interest in, the wearable merchant device may be used to display merchant-customer engagement information next to a view of the customer to allow the merchant to help the customer while utilizing a variety of displayed information about the customer including, for example, past purchases, products browsed in-store and previously browsed online, time spent in an area of the physical merchant location, etc.
US10657554B2

Handling electronic coupons includes accessing information indicating association of an electronic coupon with an account of a user that identifies multiple retail entities associated with the user. Information indicating association of electronic coupons with the user's account may be transmitted to respective computer systems associated with the multiple retail entities. The computer systems may associate electronic coupons with the user such that the user may redeem the electronic coupons at a retail store upon presentation of a user identifier. When the user redeems an electronic coupon, cancellation information for the electronic coupon may be transmitted to the computer systems of other retail entities associated with the user. Receipt of the cancellation information may cause the respective computer systems to cancel the redeemability of the electronic coupon such that the user is prevented from redeeming the electronic coupon at a retail store associated with the corresponding retail entity.
US10657550B2

Methods and systems are provided for electronically managing coupons. The user no longer has to clip and organize coupons. The need for hand processing of coupons is substantially reduced. Rebates or payments for coupons can be substantially hastened and can be deposited directly into a user's bank, credit card, or payment provider account. Merchants and manufactures no longer have to be concerned with receiving bad (e.g., invalid, expired, or counterfeit) coupons. Thus, the electronic coupon management system benefits the users, merchants, and manufactures.
US10657549B2

Systems and methods for prompting follow-up actions in response to a survey are disclosed. According to some implementations, a computer-implemented method may include conducting an automated survey on a customer associated with a customer location regarding a service performed by a servicer for a customer associated with the customer location, the automated survey being configured by a computer utilizing a processing device to automatically prompt the customer for survey result information regarding the quality of the service performed by the servicer for the customer associated with the customer location, wherein the customer location is the location of the customer from which the servicer leaves upon completion of the service performed by the servicer for the customer. The method may also include automatically receiving, by the computer, the survey result information regarding the service performed by the servicer for the customer associated with the customer location. Additionally, the method may include analyzing, by an automated survey result analyzing module, the survey result information to determine whether the at least one follow-up action is warranted based in part on an analysis of the automated survey result information received from the customer in response to the automated survey. Further, in response to determining that the at least one follow-up action is warranted, the method may include providing a notification, by the computer, to the at least one individual responsible for performing the at least one follow-up action.
US10657539B2

Techniques for providing third party incentivized communications sessions are described. In some embodiments, a Voice over IP (VoIP) conversation is sampled for audio information such as a word, phrase, utterance, or phoneme that may be associated with an advertisement in a database. The database may be searched for the audio information, or in some embodiments a text equivalent of the audio information, and the associated advertisement may be served to a participant in the VoIP communication session. In some implementations, data from or about the conversation may be compiled for analysis.
US10657534B2

A data attack detection system that includes a record host and an orchestration host. The record host stores account information for card holders. The orchestration host includes a switch interface configured to receive transaction information for a card from a network. The orchestration host further includes a velocity trap engine that stores received transaction information for the card in a cardholder file. The velocity trap engine creates entries in a velocity transaction timestamp record for the card when the number of transactions for the card in the cardholder record within a first predetermined time interval exceeds a first activity level threshold. The velocity trap engine discontinues a transaction flow between the orchestration host and the record host for the card when the number of transactions for the card in the velocity transaction timestamp record within a second predetermined time interval exceeds a second activity level threshold.
US10657522B2

An electronic device and method are disclosed herein. The electronic device includes a communication unit to communicate with an external payment device, a display unit configured to display information for a payment process to the external payment device, and a control unit including an application process module and a secure element module. The secure element module includes one or more electronic cards for performing the payment process through the communication unit, and is configured to update information for the one or more electronic cards in response to an applet update request and generate and transmit an updated applet event to the application process module after updating the information. The application process module is configured to control the display unit to display information for the one or more electronic cards, detect and transmit the applet update request to the secure element module, and update an application in response to receiving the transmitted updated applet event.
US10657517B2

Methods and systems for a transportation vehicle are provided. For example, one method includes initializing a transaction mode for using a transaction card having a front portion and a rear portion from a seat device of a transportation vehicle; adjusting lighting from the seat device to capture an image of the transaction card; capturing the image of the transaction card using a camera of the seat device; and processing the image of the transaction card and extracting information from the image of the transaction card.
US10657509B2

An event monitoring processor includes a processor and at least one memory. The memory stores a cohort member database, and a database of cohort definitions. Each cohort definition defines a respective cohort. The processor is configured to receive a notification identifying a member action initiated by a member of one of the cohorts. The processor is configured to determine, from the cohort definition of the one cohort, a correlation outcome value from a correlation between the member action and an action associated with the one cohort, and to update at least one of the cohort definitions by saving in the cohort definitions database particulars of the member action in association with the at least one of the cohort definition. The processor is configured to save in the cohort member database a member database record identifying the correlation outcome value. The cohort member database is associated with the cohort member.
US10657508B2

A product storage device includes: a main gate that is swingably provided to advance and move away from a product storage column, that advances to an advanced position, and that allows a downstream-most product to be taken out; a sub-gate that is swingably provided in association with the main gate; a sliding member that regulates the main gate from moving away and retracting from the product storage column; and a lever that allows the sliding member to be present at a regulation position, that switches to a regulation posture which regulates the sliding member from returning to the regulation position, and that then, when the main gate moves away from the product storage column in response to a take-out operation, switches to a standby posture when the main gate advances to the product storage column to allow the sliding member to return to the regulation position.
US10657502B2

Systems, methods and computer-readable media for initiating, facilitating and/or performing financial transactions are disclosed. A request associated with a financial transaction may be received on behalf of a requestor. At least one financial account to be debited and at least one financial account to be credited in connection with the financial transaction may be identified based on information included or provided in association with the request. Respective payment networks that provide access to the financial accounts may be identified. One or more of the financial accounts may be accessible in real-time via a respective payment network. A respective debit or credit instruction may be transmitted to each of the identified payment networks to post a debit or credit to a corresponding financial account. Corresponding debit and/or credit status information may be received, and various status indications may be generated and transmitted, potentially for presentation to the requestor.
US10657500B2

A method performed by a communication node in a communication network operative for facilitating participation in telemeetings comprises receiving, from an organizer communication device, a message for invitation to a telemeeting comprising a meeting agenda with a number of agenda items and a time schedule for each of the number of agenda items, and making the meeting agenda available on the communication network for a number of candidate participant communication devices. The method further comprises receiving a message from a first of the candidate participant communication devices comprising information of a selection of individual agenda items out of the number of agenda items, and, during the telemeeting, receiving a message comprising information from the organizer communication device about the number of agenda items that are currently treated.
US10657499B1

A system and method to manage employee time at a set of job sites. A time management system comprises a server in communications with a database in which a set of job site data is stored. An employee device application is installed on a set of employee devices. The set of employee devices are in communication with the server through the employee device application. The set of employee devices collect a set of time punch data and a set of photos from the set of employees at check-in events and check-out events. The set of time punch data and the set of photos are sent to the server and stored in the database with the set of job site data. A supervisor management application is installed on a set of supervisor devices to monitor the set of job site data, validate photos and activate employee devices.
US10657485B2

Drone-based systems and methods for conducting a modified inspection of a delivery vehicle are described. A system has a delivery vehicle transceiver and an inspection drone paired to the vehicle that aerially inspects the vehicle. The delivery vehicle transceiver has a user interface and a wireless radio, while the paired inspection drone has a housing, onboard controller, memory storage, lifting engines, and a communication interface. The drone's onboard controller is operative to identify different existing delivery vehicle inspection points from an inspection profile record; receive an inspection update message from the communication interface; update the existing delivery vehicle inspection points with additional inspection points to yield a targeted inspection points corresponding to respective parts of the delivery vehicle; and conduct the modified inspection of the delivery vehicle by gathering the detected sensor-based inspection information related to each of the targeted inspection points.
US10657482B2

A method and apparatus model multiple relationship dimensions among a set of entities is presented. A computer system identifies a configuration for the structure. The configuration comprises metadata about supported relationship aspects for the set of entities within a structure context. The computer system identifies aspects for an entity according to the structure context. The entity aspects comprise metadata about relationships for the entity within the structure context. The computer system compares the entity aspects to the configuration for the structure to determine a relationship of the entity to the set of entities. The computer system dynamically attaches the entity to the set of entities according to the determined relationship to form the structure.
US10657477B2

There is provided a work data management system which includes a detailed step classification unit that classifies work performed by a worker at a work site into a plurality of time-series detailed steps based on work data including image data of the work site and a data visualization unit that causes a result display unit to display at least the image data and the plurality of time-series detailed steps.
US10657475B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, system, and computer program product for cost effective data storage. A computer stores and arranges data in data storage resources in compressed or uncompressed arrangements. The computer determines what percentage of data is stored per tier for an uncompressed arrangement of data. The computer further determines both a compression factor as well as the percentage of data stored per tier for data stored in the compressed arrangement. The computer accesses data defining the cost per tier of both the compressed and uncompressed arrangement of data, then calculates the cost of both a compressed and uncompressed arrangement of the data. The computer then moves the data to the less expensive of the compressed or uncompressed arrangement of the data.
US10657466B2

A cloud management system can track the usage of the virtual machines in order to determine the fees associated with the user's subscription to the cloud computing environment. The usage can include the resources consumed to support the virtual machines and can include the utilization of the virtual machines by the user or third parties. The cloud management system can determine the fees charged to the user for utilizing the cloud computing environment based on the tracked usage.
US10657461B2

The present disclosure provides efficient communication techniques for transmission of model updates within a machine learning framework, such as, for example, a federated learning framework in which a high-quality centralized model is trained on training data distributed overt a large number of clients each with unreliable network connections and low computational power. In an example federated learning setting, in each of a plurality of rounds, each client independently updates the model based on its local data and communicates the updated model back to the server, where all the client-side updates are used to update a global model. The present disclosure provides systems and methods that reduce communication costs. In particular, the present disclosure provides at least: structured update approaches in which the model update is restricted to be small and sketched update approaches in which the model update is compressed before sending to the server.
US10657453B2

Predicting a malfunction of a component of a unit includes providing a transition matrix of a parameter of the component, wherein the transition matrix includes for a number of discrete value states of the parameter probabilities to switch from one discrete value state to another within a certain time period; providing the conditional probability distribution for the malfunction given the discrete value states; providing a current discrete value state of the parameter; determining a conditional probability distribution of the discrete value states given the current discrete value state for a future point in time based on the current discrete value state and on the transition matrix by use of a Markov chain; and determining a probability for the malfunction for the future point in time based on the conditional probability distribution of the discrete value states for the future point in time and the conditional probability distribution for the malfunction.
US10657439B2

The application provides an operation method and device. Quantized data is looked up to realize an operation, which simplifies the structure and reduces the computation energy consumption of the data, meanwhile, a plurality of operations are realized.
US10657435B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for processing an input sequence using a recurrent neural network to generate an output for the input sequence. One of the methods includes receiving the input sequence; generating a doubled sequence comprising a first instance of the input sequence followed by a second instance of the input sequence; and processing the doubled sequence using the recurrent neural network to generate the output for the input sequence.
US10657433B2

A bale identification assembly has a binding material with identification tags at spaced intervals is used by a knotter system to bind a formed bale. A read module with an antenna transmits interrogator signals and also receives authentication replies from identification tags. The bale identification assembly has a bale drop sensor with a paddle. As a completed bale passes through the discharge chute, the completed bale interacts with the paddle causing the bale drop sensor to activate. Activation of the bale drop sensor activates the antenna for a specified active cycle, and during its active cycle, the read module assigns any identification tag that is sensed to the completed bale that is leaving the discharge chute. A controller receives information from at least one crop sensor and/or bale sensor and associates the information about the completed bale with the identification tag on the completed bale.
US10657432B1

An RFID tag having an initial range may be modified to have a reduced or increased range by printing a modification element over the antenna of the RFID tag. The modification element may function as an extension of the antenna or may function to shield the antenna. To allow for cost-efficient modification of RFID tags, multiple RFID tags may be secured on a substrate and modified together.
US10657425B2

Light-field data is masked to identify regions of interest, before applying to deep learning models. In one approach, a light-field camera captures a light-field image of an object to be classified. The light-field image includes a plurality of views of the object taken simultaneously from different viewpoints. The light-field image is pre-processed, with the resulting data provided as input to a deep learning model. The pre-processing includes determining and then applying masks to select regions of interest within the light-field data. In this way, less relevant data can be excluded from the deep learning model. Based on the masked data, the deep learning model produces a decision classifying the object.
US10657419B2

Machine vision methods and systems determine if an object within a work field has one or more predetermined features. Methods comprise capturing image data of the work field, applying a filter to the image data, in which the filter comprises an aspect corresponding to a specific feature, and based at least in part on the applying, determining if the object has the specific feature. Systems comprise a camera system configured to capture image data of the work field, and a controller communicatively coupled to the camera system and comprising non-transitory computer readable media having computer-readable instructions that, when executed, cause the controller to apply a filter to the image data, and based at least in part on applying the filter, determine if the object has the specific feature. Robotic installation methods and systems that utilize machine vision methods and systems also are disclosed.
US10657417B2

The invention includes: a characteristic extraction unit for extracting facial characteristics of persons from moving image data; correspondence information extraction unit for extracting characteristic information corresponding to facial characteristics extracted by characteristic extraction unit from pre-stored characteristic information on faces of multiple persons; exclusion candidate setting unit for setting, to an exclusion candidate, characteristic information selected in accordance with an input of a user or a predetermined criterion among analogous characteristic information if multiple characteristic information extracted by the correspondence information extraction unit is analogous; and a person information output unit for displaying, on a display unit, information indicating a person corresponding to characteristic information extracted by the correspondence information extraction unit and set to the exclusion candidate by the exclusion candidate setting unit, as well as information indicating a person corresponding to the characteristic information extracted by the correspondence information extraction unit and not set to the exclusion candidate.
US10657412B2

An image processing apparatus includes: a first circuit which calculates values f(RPi), f(GPi) and f(BPi) by applying a function f(x) to an R grayscale value RPi, a G grayscale value GPi and a B grayscale value BPi of each pixel i of a first image; a second circuit which calculates values f(RQi), f(GQi) and f(BQi) by applying the function f(x) to an R grayscale value RQi, a G grayscale value GQi and a B grayscale value BQi of each pixel i of a second image; and a similarity calculation circuit which calculates a degree of similarity between the first and second images depending on |f(RPi)−f(RQi)|, |f(GPi)−f(GQi)| and |f(BPi)−f(BQi)| associated with each pixel i of the first and second images. The function f(x) is a convex function monotonically non-decreasing in the domain of definition.
US10657411B1

This disclosure describes a system for utilizing multiple image processing techniques to identify an item represented in an image. In some implementations, one or more image processing algorithms may be utilized to process a received image to generate item image information and compare the item image information with stored item image information to identify the item. When a similarity score identifying the similarity between the item image information and at least one of the stored item image information is returned, a determination may be made as to whether the similarity score is high enough to confidently identify the item. If it is determined that the similarity score is high enough to confidently identify the item, the other algorithms may be terminated and the determined identity of the item returned.
US10657399B2

A biometric imaging device is provided with: placement unit that supports a biological object, imaging unit that takes images of the biological object, and determining unit that determines whether or not the biological object is placed on the placement unit, based on whether or not a feature of the biological object has changed at a place where the placement unit and the biological object are in contact, in the image(s).
US10657383B1

This application describes techniques for providing computer vision for manual services. In some instances, a remote system may determine that a current time is within a threshold period of time of a scheduled service and, based on the determination, send a first message requesting image data to a camera apparatus located within an environment. After sending the first message, the remote system may receive image data associated with the environment from the camera apparatus and use the image to detect an object within the environment. The remote system can then send a second message to a device of a guest and a third message to a device of a user, where each of the second message and the third message indicates that the object is within the environment. In some instances, the object can include an animal while in some instances, the object can include a person.
US10657370B2

An approach for processing an image is presented. A category specifying characteristics of a shape of a license plate of a vehicle is determined. Characteristics of objects in the image are determined to match the characteristics of the shape. The image is determined to include the license plate and an identifier. A category specifying characteristics of an order of alphanumeric characters in the identifier is determined. Characteristics of the objects in the image are determined to not match the characteristics of the order of the alphanumeric characters in the identifier and based on the lack of a match, the image is determined to not include an identifiable license plate. Responsive to determining the image does not include the identifiable license plate, the image is determined to be invalid and a manual character recognition process for determining identifiers on license plates is bypassed.
US10657368B1

Automatic processing of documents often generates results far different from those obtained by manual human processing. For a given document processing task, many different techniques can be tried but it is often not known which will best emulate manual, human processing. This application discloses data processing equipment and methods specially adapted for a specific application: analysis of the breadth of documents. The processing may include context-dependent pre-processing of documents and sub-portions of the documents. The sub-portions may be analyzed based on word count and commonality of words in the respective sub-portions. The equipment and methods disclosed herein improve upon other automated techniques to provide document processing by achieving a result that is quantitatively closer to manual, human processing.
US10657363B2

An electronic device includes a two-dimensional imager, a three-dimensional imager, and a thermal sensor. One or more processors determine whether at least one image captured by the two-dimensional imager matches a first predefined criterion, whether at least one facial depth scan captured by the three-dimensional imager matches a second predefined criterion, and whether thermal energy detected by the thermal sensor matches a third predefined criterion. Touchless authentication of a person as an authorized user of the electronic device occurs when the at least one image matches the first predefined criterion, the at least one facial depth scan matches the second predefined criterion, and the thermal energy matches the third predefined criterion. Additional security factors, such as the expression of a predefined mien, can be used as well.
US10657358B2

An information processing apparatus includes a memory configured to store first information of a first fingerprint image, and a processor coupled to the memory and configured to obtain second information of a second fingerprint image, generate third information of a third fingerprint image by enlarging or reducing the second fingerprint image, specify an enlargement rate or a reduction rate based on a first similarity between the second information and the first information and a second similarity between the third information and the first information, and execute a first matching process of the first information and fourth information of a fourth fingerprint image, the fourth fingerprint image being generated by enlarging or reducing the first fingerprint image by the enlargement rate or the reduction rate.
US10657348B2

A fingerprint sensor according to an exemplary embodiment of the present inventive concept includes a sensor substrate; a plurality of sensor pixels sensing a capacitance change corresponding to a touch of a user, wherein each of the sensor pixels includes a sensor electrode; and a sensor protection layer disposed on the sensor substrate and the plurality of sensor pixels, wherein the sensor protection layer may include a first region having a first permittivity and a second region having a second permittivity less than the first permittivity.
US10657347B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for capturing a fingerprint and associated products. The method includes determining a first luminance based on a currently running application and controlling light-emitting units for a first area to emit light with the first luminance. The method further includes capturing the fingerprint when the light with the first luminance illuminates the first area.
US10657345B1

A verification apparatus securable to a media destruction device to document sanitization processes. The apparatus includes a SSD disk inlet, an SSD disk outlet constructed and arranged to align with an opening to the media destruction device, and a SSD disk ejection outlet. A carrier drum having a receptacle for holding the SSD disk in a first position, rotatable to a second position for placement of the SSD disk in front of a scanner camera, rotatable to a third position for aligning the SSD disk to a media destruction device inlet if the media disk was properly scanned, and rotatable to a fourth position for aligning the SSD disk to the ejection outlet if the media disk was not properly scanned. Pseudo random codes are transmitted and received during a sanitization procedure to assure the SSD disk has sanitized without interruption.
US10657343B1

There are provided systems and methods for location-based embedded patterns for vehicle detection and data processing. A user's device, which may be connected to or associated with a vehicle may include a directional camera capable of capturing images in a direction for a directional perspective of the vehicle, such as a front, side, or back. The image captured may have an embedded pattern or code that is associated with data that may decoded or retrievable using the embedded pattern. The vehicle's device may utilize the code to determine the data and may activate a process for an application based on the data. In some embodiments, the data may also be loaded to the process or may cause the process to load or retrieve other data. The vehicle's device may utilize the process based on a location of the vehicle, as well as services provided at the location.
US10657342B2

A portable wireless communication terminal installed on a shopping cart includes a reader, a wireless communication interface, a display, and a processor. The processor is configured to control the reader to read a commodity code that identifies a commodity to be purchased by a customer in a store, determine whether or not the commodity code read by the reader is associated with the store, determine a retrieval code based on a result of the determination about the commodity code, wirelessly retrieve from a database through the wireless communication interface, one or more pieces of information for promotion using the determined retrieval code, and control the display to display one of the retrieved pieces of information about a commodity available for sale in the store.
US10657333B2

Various embodiments described herein facilitate multi-lingual communications. The systems and methods of some embodiments enable multi-lingual communications through different modes of communication including, for example, Internet-based chat, e-mail, text-based mobile phone communications, postings to online forums, postings to online social media services, and the like. Certain embodiments implement communication systems and methods that translate text between two or more languages. Users of the systems and methods may be incentivized to submit corrections for inaccurate or erroneous translations, and may receive a reward for these submissions. Systems and methods for assessing the accuracy of translations are described.
US10657330B2

The present invention is related to an information extraction method. The information extraction method may comprise providing r semantic relationships, acquiring entity pairs corresponding to the semantic relationships, acquiring first instances based on the entity pairs, and eliminating instances that do not have the semantic relationships from the first instances to obtain second instances. r is a positive integer. Each of the entity pairs contains a pair of named entities. The first instances are sentences containing the entity pairs.
US10657318B2

A comment management system and process for facilitating navigation of discrete segments of electronic content in which users can remain informed as to the comment context for the electronic content as a whole. This can provide collaborative document users the ability to more clearly distinguish comments for a currently viewed content portion from indicators for comments on previous or subsequent segments of content. The indicators can transition between a low visibility mode and a high visibility mode in response to user inputs.
US10657316B2

A method includes selecting a database on a system and selecting a style format on the system. The database contains data information for the web application, and the style format is applied to the web application. The method also includes selecting a validation rule for the web application, selecting a business rule for the web application, dynamically rendering the web application from a database to a web browser, and dynamically editing the web application. The web application incorporates the selected database and the selected style format instantaneously upon dynamic rendering.
US10657314B2

A method for dynamic linking between graphic documents and comment databases is described and includes entering a base graphic representation of a project in a computer system. The base graphic representation may be the conversion of a user supplied format graphic to a web support format graphic. A coordinate overlay grid of a coordinate overlay program may be linked to the base graphic representation for overlay positioning and display on the base graphic representation. The coordinate overlay program may have a notation subprogram linked to the coordinate overlay grid for a user to designate notation with an identifier relative to a distinct location of the base graphic representation on the coordinate overlay grid. A text or graphic comment data record may be entered in a comment data record referenced to an identifier and displayed using a computer cursor device and display to activate an identifier.
US10657312B2

Techniques for performing font management on a client allowing the client to dynamically determine operating system support for new technology fonts, and upon an affirmative such determination perform installation and activation of those new technology fonts. At least one stub font and a new technology font test process facilitate activation/installation of selected fonts if the operating system supports them and graceful exception handling if the operating system does not. A stub font can be thought of as a simplified or otherwise light-weight representation of a real font (a stub font is a proxy for a real font). The stub font can be efficiently stored on a client machine, so that a new technology font test can attempt to activate the corresponding stub font in order to test whether a corresponding real font is supported by the operating system. Successful stub font activation means the selected real font is supported by the target machine and that the selected real font can therefore be provisioned to the client machine.
US10657300B1

A system and a method are disclosed for predicting design space quality for materials development and manufacture. In an embodiment, a processor receives input of a material property and a design space. The processor identifies a best data point. For each respective candidate material of the design space, the processor receives, as output from a model, a respective property value. The processor determines respective property values that exceed the property value of the best data point adds them to a subset of candidate materials. The processor determines a PFIC score for candidates in the subset. The processor generates a plurality of curves, each reflecting a respective probability distribution of property values. The processor determines a CMLI score based on the plurality of respective curves. The processor determines that the design space is high quality based on the PFIC and CMLI scores, and outputs a recommendation to proceed.
US10657299B2

A system for posterior estimation of variables. Receiving a set of data inputs. Determining a first model of the water distribution network based on the set of data inputs. Determining a second model of the water distribution network based on the set of data inputs, and the first model.
US10657295B2

A hardware encryption housing and a payment device using the hardware encryption housing includes a top shell, a bottom shell, a circuit board and a trigger switch configured to transmit a trigger signal when the top shell is separated from the bottom shell. A security chip, mounted on the circuit board, has a storage module configured to store key information and a detection module configured to clear the key information and lock the security chip after the trigger signal is detected. The trigger signal is transmitted when the top shell is separated from the bottom shell, and the detection module is provided in the security chip to detect whether the trigger switch transmits a trigger signal. When detected, the key information in the storage module is cleared and the security chip is locked.
US10657294B2

In accordance with a first aspect of the present disclosure, a non-volatile memory is provided, comprising: a plurality of storage elements; a plurality of access transistors, said access transistors being connected to one or more of said storage elements; a measurement unit, wherein said measurement unit is configured to measure a variation between electrical characteristics of said access transistors; a processing unit configured to use said variation between electric characteristics as a physical unclonable function. In accordance with a second aspect of the present disclosure, a corresponding method of manufacturing a non-volatile memory is conceived.
US10657289B2

Example embodiments relate to controlling secured access to electronically provided application functionality or content. An Internet browser executing on a first computing device initiates periodic polling of a paired second computing device associated with a user for measurements of short range communication protocol signal strength of the second computing device and determines that the second computing device is within an authentication distance of the first computing device. The secure Internet browser transmits an authentication request comprising a device identifier of the second computing device. Responsive to transmitting the authentication request, the secure Internet browser receives an authentication response indicating authentication confirmation, and responsive thereto, the secure Internet browser provides access to a controlled-access application by transmitting a request to a content server for a presentation of the controlled-access application, receiving from the content server a presentation associated with the user, and directing display of the presentation via a user interface.
US10657284B2

Systems and methods for retrieving a data object. An example method includes: receiving a query comprising a field identifier and a field value related to the field identifier; determining the field identifier corresponds to an entry of a data map, the data map comprising a plurality of entries generated in part based on a plurality of field identifiers; in response to the determination, obfuscating at least one of the field identifier, field value, and both the field identifier and the field value to generate a record locator; identifying one or more encrypted values within the data map based on the record locator, wherein the one or more encrypted values is associated with the entry having an corresponding record locator that matches the generated record locator; and decrypting and forwarding the one or more encrypted values as a response to the query.
US10657283B2

A method for storing a first data object includes: decomposing the first data object into a first fragment associated with a first original record locator and a second fragment associated with a second original record locator; obfuscating the first original record locator to generate a first obfuscated record locator and the second original record locator to generate a second obfuscated record locator; encrypting the first fragment using a first encryption key and the second fragment using a second encryption key; and storing, to at least a first of a plurality of storage locations, the first encrypted fragment with the corresponding first obfuscated record locator and the second encrypted fragment with the second obfuscated record locator.
US10657281B2

An information processing apparatus includes level setting unit configured to set a disclosure level of learning data used when a discriminator is generated, first specifying unit configured to specify, in accordance with the disclosure level, disclosure data to be disclosed to administrators other than a first administrator who manages the learning data in the learning data and association data which is associated with the learning data, second specifying unit configured to specify, in accordance with the disclosure level, reference data which is referred to by the first administrator in the learning data and the association data of the other administrators which are registered in a common storage apparatus, obtaining unit configured to obtain the reference data specified by the second specifying unit from the common storage apparatus, and generating unit configured to generate a discriminator using data obtained by the obtaining unit.
US10657272B2

A data exchange is stored between two parties as one or more data exchange records. A data exchange record locator for locating the one or more data exchange records is generated. The data exchange record locator is sent to at least one of the two parties. A request is received for at least one of the one or more data exchange records from a non-party not participating in the data exchange. The at least one of the one or more data exchange records is sent to the non-party.
US10657269B2

A management apparatus includes an assignment unit, a receiver, and a storage unit. The assignment unit assigns issuance privilege key information representing privilege to issue document IDs to one or more processing apparatuses. Each of the one or more processing apparatuses is located on one of local networks and is configured to execute a protection process to generate a protected document from a document. The receiver receives from the one or more processing apparatuses document IDs issued for protected documents by the one or more processing apparatuses. The storage unit stores the document IDs received by the receiver. Each of the document IDs includes the issuance privilege key information assigned by the assignment unit to the one or more processing apparatuses, and information indicating identity of a document ID issued by one of the one or more processing apparatuses.
US10657264B2

Methods, apparatus, and systems for characterizing vulnerabilities of an application source code are disclosed. Steps for characterizing vulnerabilities include traversing a representation of the application source code, generating a signature of a potential vulnerability of the application source code, and determining characteristics of the potential vulnerability based on a correlation between the generated signature of the potential vulnerability and previously stored signatures of potential vulnerabilities.
US10657263B2

Setting a budget of alerts for single or multiple risk score types, adjusting a working threshold based on the set budget, wherein adjusting the working threshold is done by defining an reference threshold for an alert, providing a history of recorded risk scores within a budget sliding interval window and adjusting the working threshold such that a number of alerts which would have been provided by the recorded risk scores is calculated to stay within the set budget, and using the adjusted working threshold to normalize and optionally combine incoming risk scores so as to determine whether an incoming risk score should receive an alert.
US10657260B2

Electronic device and methods supporting secure boot functionalities performed utilizing an unsecured System-on-Chip (SoC) are provided. In various embodiments, the electronic device contains an unsecured SoC, a locked off-chip Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) component, and an unlocked off-chip NVM component. An on-chip or first stage boot loader program is stored in a first on-chip memory area; and, when execute, causes an on-chip processor to loads an image of a cryptographic key, such as a public key, into a second on-chip memory area. The cryptographic key is stored in the locked off-chip NVM component, possibly in conjunction with a second stage boot loader program. The on-chip processor then utilizes the cryptographic key, alone or in combination with other data, as a root-of-trust to verify the authenticity of one or more software components, such as an operating system, stored in the unlocked off-chip NVM component prior to booting the software component(s).
US10657255B2

A computer-implemented method for detecting malware based on asymmetry includes receiving, via a processor, an application to be tested. The method includes computing, via the processor, a static call graph for the application. The method also includes generating, via the processor, an interprocedural control-flow graph (ICFG) based on the static call graph. The method further includes detecting, via the processor, symbolic path conditions and executable operations along different paths of conditional branches in the ICFG. The method further includes detecting, via the processor, asymmetries based on the symbolic path conditions and the executable operations. The method includes detecting, via the processor, a malicious block based on the detected asymmetries. The method further includes modifying, via the processor, the application based on the detected malicious block.
US10657253B2

A first set of code, for example source code, and a second code, for example binary code, are compared to find corresponding functions. A comparison of features can be used to find correspondences of functions. The comparison of functions can be iterated and can be refined and can be further used to carry out a further, stricter comparison of functions found to correspond to reduce the chance of falsely finding a function in the second code to be accountable in the first code.
US10657248B2

The present disclosure describes a system for saving metadata on files and using attribute data files inside a computing system to enhance the ability to provide user interfaces based on actions associated with non-executable attachments like text and document files from untrusted emails, to block execution of potentially harmful executable object downloads and files based on geographic location, and to a create a prompt for users to decide whether to continue execution of potentially harmful executable object downloads and files. The system also records user behavior on reactions to suspicious applications and documents by transmitting a set of attribute data in an attribute data file corresponding to suspicious applications or documents to a server. The system interrupts execution of actions related to untrusted phishing emails in order to give users a choice on whether to proceed with actions.
US10657244B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure disclose an identity authentication method performed at a computing device, the method including: obtaining a sequence of finger gestures on a touchpad of the computing device from a user, wherein each finger gesture has an associated pressure type on the touchpad; generating a corresponding character string according to the sequence of finger gestures; comparing the character string with a verification code of a user account associated with an application program; in accordance with a determination that the character string matches the verification code, granting the user access to the user account associated with the application program; and in accordance with a determination that the character string does not match the verification code, denying the user access to the user account associated with the application program.
US10657242B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for proximity-based access. In some implementations, a computing device detects an attempt to access the computing device while the computing device is in a secured state. In response to detecting the attempt to access the computing device, the computing device sends a first message to a server system over a network. After sending the message, the computing device receives a second message from the server system over the network, the second message comprising authentication data for the computing device. The computing device determines that a mobile device that was previously designated as an authentication factor for accessing the computing device is located within a predetermined level of proximity of the computing device, and the computing device grants access to the computing device.
US10657228B1

Systems and methods for integrating cloud-based and cloud-backed content items with a content management system are provided. In some examples, a method can include receiving a request to access a canonical content item stored at a content management system, the canonical content item representing a cloud-based content item or a cloud-backed content item having features designed for access through a native online application associated with a cloud content provider; in response to the canonical content item being invoked, sending, from a local application to the cloud content provider, a request for the features of the content item; receiving, at the local application and from the cloud content provider, metadata for enabling the features of the content item; and based on the metadata, providing, on the local application, the features and a content of the content item as part of a rendered instance of the canonical content item.
US10657225B2

Providing blockchain-based subscription-as-a-service management is disclosed. In one example, a node within a customer network begins execution of a subscription-as-a-service software instance. An activation agent of the node broadcasts an activation transaction, requesting activation of the subscription-as-a-service software instance, to other nodes of the customer network. A block-issuing node within the customer network, upon receiving the activation transaction, determines whether to activate the subscription-as-a-service software instance. If so, a block-issuing agent of the block-issuing node generates a blockchain block containing the activation transaction as part of a blockchain. The blockchain block is then broadcast back to the customer network, where it is eventually received by the node executing the subscription-as-a-service software instance. Based on the blockchain block, the node enables continued execution of the subscription-as-a-service software instance. At the end of a billing period, the blockchain may be used to generate an invoice to a subscribing customer.
US10657224B2

A device may receive lifestyle information corresponding to an individual with a medical condition. The device may create a lifestyle timeline, associated with the individual, that includes a plurality of items of lifestyle information, included in the lifestyle information, arranged in a chronological order. The device may generate, based on the lifestyle timeline, a recommendation or a prediction associated with a metric related to the medical condition. The recommendation may be generated based on one or more of the plurality of items of lifestyle information. The prediction may be generated using a prediction model that uses one or more of the plurality of items of lifestyle information as input, and generates the prediction using the prediction model. The device may provide information associated with the recommendation or the prediction to identify a dosage associated with treating or managing the medical condition.
US10657222B2

A real time medical communication system for sending Notifications of medical Alerts includes a data translation layer for receiving real time medical data from one or more sources via a network and an Alerts engine. The Alerts engine may include a message processing module including an entity extraction module configured to extract entities from the real time medical data; and a fragment generation module configured to define fragments comprising events of interest for defining one or more medical Alerts. The Alerts engine may further include an Alert generation module that may include fragment query and evaluation modules for analyzing received real time medical data for defined fragments and generating one or more medical Alerts therefrom. A Notification module may also be provided for sending Notifications of Alerts to users.
US10657221B2

The present invention is an improvement to a computer system for processing, storing and searching DICOM medical imaging objects and non-DICOM files. The improvement is the addition of a directory manager, a user interface and a search manager that allows users to define a hierarchy of directories that link to both DICOM and non-DICOM files. Contents of files are indexed, including metadata so they are searchable. The system automatically creates directories representing DICOM series and studies by analyzing metadata in DICOM image files DICOM devices can send DICOM data directly to directories in the file system using the DICOM protocol.
US10657209B2

Provided are a method of generating a functional coverage model from a hardware description language (HDL) code for a circuit design and performing verification of the circuit design by using the functional coverage model, and a computing system in which the method is performed.
US10657207B1

Failing test pattern simulations are performed to determine initial defect suspects based on injecting faults to defect candidate sites which are derived based on test responses. Initial inter-cell bridge suspects are then determined from cells in the initial defect suspects based on layout information and electrical information of the circuit. Passing test pattern simulations are performed to determine inter-cell bridge suspects from the initial inter-cell bridge suspects.
US10657205B2

An architecture and processes enable computer learning and developing an understanding of arbitrary natural language text through collaboration with humans in the context of joint problem solving. The architecture ingests the text and then syntactically and semantically processes the text to infer an initial understanding of the text. The initial understanding is captured in a story model of semantic and frame structures. The story model is then tested through computer generated questions that are posed to humans through interactive dialog sessions. The knowledge gleaned from the humans is used to update the story model as well as the computing system's current world model of understanding. The process is repeated for multiple stories over time, enabling the computing system to grow in knowledge and thereby understand stories of increasingly higher reading comprehension levels.
US10657196B2

A system may measure the virality of content items on a network. The virality may be measured for Internet content using indices. Indices may be generated that represent the share or news worthiness of content. An indexer may monitor the content items and generate a score which may be used to identify which content items are most likely to receive a user access request or referral from the remote server. A logic generator may display visual elements as graphical representations of the index score.
US10657191B2

Embodiments may include systems, apparatus, and methods for direct onscreen computer system or software navigation and guidance without the need for direct user computer access or control, or the download of any additional software, thereby enabling such navigation and guidance without the risk of exposure of sensitive information from the user device.
US10657188B2

Management of resources within a representational state transfer architecture comprising a plurality of service resources. A persisted collection resource is accessed, and the persisted collection resource includes a collection query with at least one query parameter defining a collection of resources. The collection query is processed with respect to the resources within the computer system to generate a list of resources associated with the at least one query parameter.
US10657184B2

Described are methods, systems and computer readable media for data source refreshing using an update propagation graph with feedback cyclicality.
US10657172B2

Methods and apparatus for processing images are provided. The image processing method includes obtaining an image using an electronic device; associating first metadata corresponding to the image with a first layer of a hierarchical data structure, wherein the hierarchical data structure includes a plurality of layers, including the first layer and a second layer; associating second metadata with the second layer, wherein the second metadata corresponds to one or more of a plurality of blocks into which the image is divided; and storing the hierarchical data structure in association with the image in a storage unit operatively coupled to the electronic device.
US10657171B2

An image search device searching an image from an image database storing a recorded image, one or more types of feature values, and propagation information that indicates a link between a same type of the feature values of the recorded image, the device acquires a first image and the one or more types of feature values of the first image, records the first image and the feature values in the image database, calculates a propagation intensity indicating similarity or sameness between the types of feature values of the recorded image and the types of feature values of the first image, and includes in the propagation information a link between the types of feature values of the first image and the types of feature values of the recorded image for which the propagation intensity between the types of feature values of the recorded image and the types of feature values of the first image is at a maximum value.
US10657169B2

Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for generating a playlist. An application programming interface (API) receives a request to generate a playlist, where the request includes a set of rule-primitives. A playlist engine evaluator evaluates a rule corresponding to each rule-primitive in the set of rule-primitives across a catalog of media content, calculates a cost associated with each item in the catalog of media content, and generates a playlist based on the items of the catalog having the lowest costs.
US10657168B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for providing devices capable of the reception and playback of one or more crafted media channels transmitted over an intermittent connection. The one or more channels may be customized by the end user to bias the programming towards individual tastes or moods. The channels may be delivered over an intermittent, unidirectional link, for example a Satellite Radio receiver in a home or car. Content may also be delivered over an intermittent, bidirectional link, for example to a portable media player via a wireless 802.11 or other networked connection.
US10657162B2

Method and system for visualizing documents. N-dimensional compact representations are obtained for a set of documents. A plurality of documents are then retrieved with the corresponding N-dimensional compact representations. Each of the retrieved documents is associated with at least one concept. Each of the retrieved documents is projected to a point on a K-dimensional map based on its N-dimensional compact representation so that projected document points in the K-dimensional map maintain the relative distances among the retrieved documents in the N-dimensional space. Regions in the K-dimensional map associated with a concept are identified. A label is generated for each concept in each identified region. Then generated labels are rendered on the K-dimensional map in a corresponding region identified.
US10657148B2

An IoT apparatus in use by a user, which is communicatively linked to a mobile device used by the user, is identified. A determination can be made as to whether documentation for the IoT apparatus is located on the IoT apparatus or on a mobile device. Responsive to determining that the documentation is located on the IoT apparatus or on the mobile device, a determination can be made as to whether the documentation located on the IoT apparatus or on the mobile device is a latest version of the documentation. Responsive to determining that the documentation located on the IoT apparatus or on the mobile device is not the latest version of the documentation, the latest version of the documentation can be automatically accessed from a resource external to the IoT apparatus and the mobile device. Presentation of the latest version of the documentation on a display can be initiated.
US10657141B2

Systems and methods include a processor; a memory comprising computer code executed using the processor, in which computer code implements a relational database to provide access to private user profile and private user data from a private data area and determines an access privilege; a custom response and notification generator configured to use the user profile data to retrieve historical user-related data; a compiling engine to select information from the retrieved historical user-related data to determine a public information source, wherein the retrieved historical user-related data are determined from prior stored user-related; a data handler to retrieve, from the public information source, some publicly-accessible information; and a video combination engine to combine information from the relational database and the publicly-available information and create a video using extracted publicly-accessible information, the private user data and create a publicly-accessible link to display a video.
US10657138B2

Techniques for managing continuous queries that include subqueries are provided. In some examples, a continuous query that includes at least a subquery may be identified. Additionally, the subquery may be processed to obtain a first result or generate a logical subquery plan. Further, in some instances, the continuous query may then be processed based at least in part on the first result from the subquery or by merging a logical continuous query plan with the logical subquery plan. This may result in obtaining a second result via querying a data source with the continuous query that is based at least in part on the first result from the subquery and/or the merged plans.
US10657133B2

A system includes storage of data of a hierarchy, where each node of the hierarchy is represented by a row, and each row includes a level of its respective node, a pointer to a lower bound entry of an order index structure associated with the hierarchy, and a pointer to an upper bound entry of the order index structure associated with the hierarchy, reception of a pointer l, and determination of an entry e of the order index structure to which the received pointer l points.
US10657127B2

In one respect, there is provided a distributed database system that includes hosts configured to store and/or manage data, a first query processing engine comprising a master node and an executor node, and a second query processing engine. The master node can be implemented on programmable processors and configured to perform operations. The operations can include: offloading, to the second query processing engine, a creation of a first and a second table such that the first and the second table are partitioned by the second query processing engine; generating an execution plan for a query on data in the distributed database system, the execution plan including a distributed join operation that combines data from the first and second table; determining to push down, to the second query processing engine, the distributed join operation; and dispatching, to the executor node, a portion of the execution plan including the distributed join operation.
US10657125B1

The methods and systems for providing real-time business intelligence using national language queries facilitate a user to search within a data warehouse using a natural language question. Such business intelligence platform may receive a natural language based question, extract one or more key words from the natural language based question, determine a first dependency graph of the one or more key words based on a relationship among the one or more key words, determine a second dependency graph of the one or more key words based on previously stored search indices, merge the first and the second dependency graphs to generate an integrated dependency graph, and generate a formatted search string based on the integrated dependency graph.
US10657119B1

A fleet node management system may include a metadata store, a plurality of fleet nodes, and one or more metadata mutation devices. The metadata store may be configured to store dynamic metadata. The plurality of fleet nodes may be configured to determine, based on a gossip protocol, whether to continue performance of a function that uses a local version of the metadata. The one or more metadata mutation devices may be configured to determine, based on a global state of the fleet nodes, whether to modify the dynamic metadata for the fleet nodes.
US10657117B2

In an approach for dynamically ranking SMEs, based on the SMEs' activities during a critical situation, a processor identifies SMEs to work in a collaboration channel. A processor monitors an activity of the SME within the collaboration channel. A processor receives information from the monitored activity. A processor analyzes the information from the monitored activity. A processor updates a database that contains details about a plurality of SMEs.
US10657113B2

An embodiment of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stores instructions which, when processed by a processor, cause the processor to implement a method of storing a data object. The method includes: storing as metadata a globally unique object identifier that identifies the object, and a version table having a relation to the globally unique object identifier, the object representing a data set; and storing the data set in a content table associated with the object, the content table having a relation to the version table, the data set configured to be transmitted from the content table to a node in a distributed network independent from the metadata, the content table including a globally unique content identifier that identifies the data set.
US10657110B2

The present invention is generally directed to systems and methods for performing energy disaggregation of appliances in a home. In accordance with some embodiments of the invention, a method may include receiving one or more parameters corresponding to plurality of the appliances installed in home through an energy disaggregation device. The one or more parameters may be associated with the home. The method may further include receiving localized energy consumption data of a region where the home environment is located, selecting a predefined energy disaggregation model from one or more predefined energy disaggregation models based on the localized energy consumption data, adjusting the predefined energy disaggregation model based on the one or more parameters, and/or applying the adjusted predefined energy disaggregation model to the energy consumption data to perform disaggregation of the energy consumption into a plurality of appliance categories.
US10657100B2

Systems and methods for providing a file management system include a system provider device that receives, through communication over a network with a user device, a request to create a file management account. The system provider device may then provide a DBMS layer that interfaces and mediates communication between a webmail file system and a UI application. In some cases, the webmail file system includes file storage for at least one webmail provider, and the at least one webmail provider includes a user webmail account. Thereafter, the system provider device may copy a file into the UI application by attaching the file to a draft email within the user webmail account, where the draft email including the attached file is saved in the file storage for the at least one webmail provider.
US10657088B2

An integrated circuit (IC) and a bus system are provided. The IC includes a first function module coupled to a first pin, a switch, a second function module coupled to a second pin, and a controller. The switch selectively couples the first pin to a pull-down resistor according to a control signal. When a specific condition is met, the controller turns on the switch to couple the first pin to a pull-down resistor, and detects a first input signal on the first pin, so as to determine whether there are slave devices coupled to a master device. When the controller determines that the IC is one of the slave devices or the single slave device connected to the master device, the controller turns off the switch to separate the first pin from the pull-down resistor, and assigns the second pin to the second function module.
US10657083B2

In an embodiment, a processor includes at least one execution unit to execute instructions, and an interrupt generation unit. The interrupt generation unit may be to: receive a plurality of values indicating thermal status values for a memory unit at multiple points in time across a first time window; determine a running average value based on the plurality of values indicating thermal status values in the memory unit; and in response to a determination that the running average value has exceeded a high thermal status threshold value, generate a thermal interrupt indicating a high thermal status event in the processor. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US10657079B1

Methods, systems and computer program products for operating an output processor a transaction processing system are provided. Aspects include receiving a request by an output processor to deliver an output message having a plurality of message segments and obtaining a target buffer size. Aspects also include allocating an output buffer for the output message, the output buffer having the target buffer size and iteratively obtaining a message segment of the plurality of message segments and storing the message segment in the output buffer. Based on a determination that all of the plurality of message segments have been stored, aspects include delivering the output message. Based on a determination that the output buffer is full and that all of the plurality of message segments have not been stored in the output buffer, aspects further include increasing the target buffer size to a maximum buffer size.
US10657074B2

Examples include connecting an external physical layer device to a media access control device by determining a mode of a communications link between the external physical layer device and the media access control device; and when the mode of the communications link is serial gigabit media independent interface (SGMII), enabling an inter-integrated circuit (I2) interface between the external physical layer device and the media access control device, and setting a destination for management data input/output (MDIO) transactions to the external physical layer device.
US10657063B2

The present invention discloses a data access device and method applicable to a processor. An embodiment of the data access device comprises: an instruction cache memory; a data cache memory; a processor circuit configured to read specific data from the instruction cache memory for the Nth time and read the specific data from the data cache memory for the Mth time, in which both N and M are positive integers and M is greater than N; a duplication circuit configured to copy the specific data from the instruction cache memory to the data cache memory when the processor circuit reads the specific data for the Nth time; and a decision circuit configured to determine whether data requested by a read request from the processor circuit are stored in the data cache memory according to the read request.
US10657059B2

Controlling a rate of prefetching based on bus bandwidth. A determination is made as to whether a rate of prefetching data from memory into a cache is to be changed. This determination is based on bus utilization. Based on determining that the rate is to be changed, the rate of prefetching is changed.
US10657057B2

A data processing system includes a processor, a cache memory, a speculative cache memory, and a control circuit. The processor is for executing instructions. The cache memory is coupled to the processor and is for storing the instructions and related data. A speculative cache is coupled to the processor and is for storing only speculative instructions and related data. The control circuit is coupled to the processor, to the cache memory, and to the speculative cache. The control circuit is for causing speculative instructions to be stored in the speculative cache in response to receiving an indication from the processor. Also, a method is provided for speculative execution in the data processing system.
US10657056B2

Technologies for demoting cache lines to a shared cache include a compute device with at least one processor having multiple cores, a cache memory with a core-local cache and a shared cache, and a cache line demote device. A processor core of a processor of the compute device is configured to retrieve at least a portion of data of a received network packet and move the data into one or more core-local cache lines of the core-local cache. The processor core is further configured to perform a processing operation on the data and transmit a cache line demotion command to the cache line demote device subsequent to having completed the processing operation. The cache line demote device is configured to perform a cache line demotion operation to demote the data from the core-local cache lines to shared cache lines of the shared cache. Other embodiments are described herein.
US10657055B1

An apparatus and method are provided for managing snoop operations. The apparatus has an interface for receiving access requests from any of N master devices that have associated cache storage, each access request specifying a memory address within memory associated with the apparatus. Snoop filter storage is provided that has a plurality of snoop filter entries, where each snoop filter entry identifies a memory portion and snoop control information indicative of the master devices that have accessed that memory portion. When an access request received at the interface specifies a memory address that is within the memory portion associated with a snoop filter entry, snoop control circuitry uses the snoop control information in that snoop filter entry to determine which master devices to subject to a snoop operation. The snoop control circuitry maintains master indication data used to identify a first subset of the plurality of master devices whose accesses to the memory are to be precisely tracked within the snoop filter storage. The first subset comprises up to M master devices, where M is less than N. Each snoop filter entry has a precise tracking field and an imprecise tracking field. When multiple master devices have accessed the memory portion associated with a snoop filter entry, then the precise tracking field is used to precisely identify each master device of those multiple master devices that is within the first subset. When the multiple master devices includes at least one master device that is not in the first subset, then a generic indication is set in the imprecise tracking field.
US10657046B2

A data storage device includes a nonvolatile memory device including memory block groups and map data blocks, each memory block group including a first page group storing data transmitted from a host device and a second page group storing address mapping information corresponding to the data; and a controller configured to determine whether the number of valid data stored in a first memory block group in which the second page group is damaged is equal to or smaller than a size of an available capacity of an open map data block which is being used, and control, when the number of the valid data is equal to or smaller than the available capacity, the nonvolatile memory device to store address mapping information corresponding to the valid data of the first memory block group, in the open map data block.
US10657040B2

A storage device including a flash memory, and circuitry that manages a logical address and a physical address so as to be converted using a conversion table, writes a logical address and old and new information indicating a timing when the data is written, into the physical address together with the data, writes at least latest old and new information of the old and new information written in the block into a predetermined page of the block, and reestablishes the conversion table by arranging the logical address recorded in each page included in the block and the physical address corresponding to the logical address in association with each other, in chronological order of the latest old and new information read out from each block of the flash memory, at a predetermined reestablishment timing for performing reestablishment of the conversion table.
US10657029B2

A system and method generates a contextual model for a source model. The system and method receives a designation of a component of interest in the source model. The system and method analyzes the source model and identifies those model elements within the source model that have an interaction behavior with the component of interest. The system and method includes the component of interest and the model elements having the interaction behavior with the component of interest in the contextual model. The system and method connects the model elements to the component of interest in the context model in a similar manner as in the source model. The context model may be run or evaluated.
US10657028B2

A method is described for diagnosing errors within a production environment software platform that is arranged to process transaction messages and to store transaction history data related to processed transactions in a production database. The stored transaction history data comprises transaction objects that have been generated as the production environment software platform processes transaction messages. The method comprises detecting an error in a series of transaction messages processed by the production environment software platform, receiving the transaction history from the production database, the transaction history comprising a plurality of transaction objects, and configuring a development environment software platform to match the configuration of the production environment software platform at the start of the transaction history. The method further comprises running the development environment software platform with the received transaction history, and running a log file module to determine a source for the detected error.
US10657027B2

A method for obtaining data to debug an issue that affects a software application. In an embodiment, the method includes at least one computer processor receiving a request to obtain data associated with an issue that affects an executing software application. The method further includes determining a set of memory spaces utilized by the executing software application and one or more processes supporting the executing software application. The method further includes initiating a dump function to obtain data within the memory spaces of the determined set of memory spaces. The method further includes storing the data related to the dumped set of memory spaces by (i) high-speed capture and aggregation of data to volatile memory and (ii) spooling data within volatile memory to persistent memory for storage.
US10657022B2

The disclosure provides an input and output recording device and method, CPU and data read and write operation method thereof. The input and output recording device is provided between a central processor CPU and a peripheral, and is configured to record data read and write operations between the CPU and the peripheral, wherein the data read and write operations comprise a data read and write operation initiated by the peripheral and a data read and write operation initiated by the CPU; the input and output recording device is further configured to request the CPU to process the data read and write operation initiated by the peripheral, and upon receiving an instruction sent by the CPU, send a data packet of the data read and write operation initiated by the peripheral to the CPU. The disclosure can accurately record the data read and write operation between the CPU and the peripheral, so as to eliminate the influence of uncertainty caused by the asynchronous data read and write operations initiated by the peripherals, and provide a basis for the input and output security checking of the CPU.
US10657019B1

According to some embodiment, a microservice architecture is instantiated in accordance with a predefined framework to perform monitoring services of a first system and a second system. The microservice architecture includes one or more microservices. The microservice architecture is segmented into groups of microservices. Each group of microservices is represented by a subset of the predefined framework. A first group of microservices is deployed to the first system. A second group of microservices is deployed to the second system.
US10657016B2

A node for a computing system may include a memory module, a main node processor and a management processor. The memory module may include a non-volatile memory, a module memory controller having a main bus interface for connection to a main bus and a management device providing access to the non-volatile memory through a sideband management bus. The main node processor is connected to the module memory controller and has a main bus interface for connection to a main bus. The management processor has a sideband interface for connection to the sideband management bus. The sideband management processor detects a failure of the node and, in response thereto, copies data from the non-volatile memory of the memory module to another node across the sideband management bus.
US10657014B2

The present disclosure is drawn to, among other things, a method of managing a memory device. In some aspects, the method includes scanning a first memory region for bit errors; in response to detecting one or more bit errors in the first memory region, incrementing a counter associated with the first memory region based on the number of bit errors detected; comparing a total number of bit errors against a threshold, wherein the total number of bit errors is identified from the first counter; and, if the total number of bit errors exceeds the threshold, restricting access to the first memory region by mapping an address corresponding to the first memory region to a second memory region.
US10657012B2

Systems, methods, and computer program products for managing a consensus group in a distributed computing cluster, by determining that an instance of an authority module executing on a first node, of a consensus group of nodes in the distributed computing cluster, has failed; and adding, by an instance of the authority module on a second node of the consensus group, a new node to the consensus group to replace the first node. The new node is a node in the computing cluster that was not a member of the consensus group at the time the instance of the authority module executing on the first node is determined to have failed.
US10657002B2

A method for correcting improper repair actions in a computer system includes assigning a first algorithm identifier to a first algorithm and storing the first algorithm identifier and a first input to the first algorithm. The method includes executing the first algorithm with the first input and storing one or more results of the first algorithm, where the one or more results includes a repair action. The method includes determining that the repair action is faulty and storing the algorithm identifier for the first algorithm in a blacklist. The method also includes assigning a second algorithm identifier to a second algorithm and storing the second algorithm identifier and a second input to the second algorithm. The method includes executing the second algorithm with the second input, where the second algorithm corrects the faulty repair action caused by the first algorithm, and storing a result of the second algorithm.
US10657000B2

A method for execution by a computing device of a dispersed storage network includes dispersed storage error encoding a data segment to produce a set of encoded data slices. Storage of more than a write threshold number of encoded data slices of the set of encoded data slices in a set of storage units is facilitated. A plurality of favorably stored encoded data slices is identified. A number of stored encoded data slices for deletion is determined, and the number of stored encoded data slices for deletion is selected from the plurality of favorably stored encoded data slices. Deletion of the selected number of stored encoded data slices for deletion is facilitated.
US10656995B2

Devices and techniques for performing copy-back operations in a memory device are disclosed herein. A trigger to perform a copy-back operation in relation to a section of data stored on the memory device can be detected. Circuitry of the memory device can then read the section of data at two voltage levels within a read window to obtain a first set of bits and a second set of bits respectively. The first and second sets of bits—which should be the same under normal circumstances—are compared to determine whether a difference between the sets of bits is beyond a threshold. If the difference is beyond a threshold, error correction is invoked prior to completion of the copy-back operation.
US10656991B2

Embodiments include method, systems and computer program products for redundantly storing product data for an electronic component on an external device. Aspects include determining that product data stored in a primary storage device is corrupted and determining whether the product data is available on the external device that is in communication with the electronic component. Based on a determination that the product data stored in the primary storage device is corrupted and that the product data is available on the external device, aspects include obtaining product data from the external device to continue operation of the electronic component.
US10656984B2

Techniques are disclosed for monitoring operation of and/or interaction with a website to detect events (“frustration events”). In at least one embodiment, a detection system is disclosed that can monitor a website for the same or unrelated interaction and operation to detect events that affect the performance of a website, while contributing to the frustration of user interaction with the website. The detection system can monitor interaction with and/or operation of one or more documents of a website. Interactions with a website, operations of the website, or a combination thereof, may be assessed with respect to a threshold defining an event. One or more criteria (e.g., a time period) of the event may be assessed for the interactions and operations. Event data may be generated for the event(s) that occur, and the event data may be sent to a host system to adjust operation of the website.
US10656983B2

Methods and apparatus to generate a shadow setup based on a cloud environment and upgrade the shadow setup to identify upgrade-related errors are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a topology deployment determiner to deploy a shadow setup corresponding to a replica version of a live cloud environment; an upgrade coordinator to upgrade one or more components of the shadow setup; and a reporter to generate a report corresponding to the upgrade.
US10656980B2

Disclosed herein is method and system for processing data in serverless computing environment. In an embodiment, information related to functions associated with plurality of serverless computing platforms and the data to be processed are received from data sources. Thereafter, processing operations required for processing the data are determined based on characteristics of data and domain related to data. Further, confidence scores for each function is determined by correlating processing operations and information related to functions. A target function for performing processing operations is identified based on evaluation of confidence scores, and the target function is deployed by forwarding data to serverless computing platform associated with the target function. Finally, the data is processed when an event is triggered for processing the data by target function. In an embodiment, present disclosure eliminates need to create and maintain servers by dynamically selecting an optimal serverless computing platform for processing the data.
US10656977B1

It is possible to make data for manufacturing devices available in a standard format using an adapter that would automatically interrogate the device and use the information gained from the machine to generate a data translation file. The data translation file could subsequently be used by an agent to interpret a data stream provided by the adapter for the manufacturing device.
US10656976B2

Systems and methods for managing user data across multiple apps are disclosed. An example method includes, determining that an installation of a first app on a user device is completed; identifying a second app in which a user has been authenticated and has been installed on the user device; obtaining a second set of user information associated with the user from the second app; and configuring a user account of the user in the first app using the second set of user information. In some implementations, identifying the second app is executed in response to determining that the installation of the first app on the user device is completed. In some other implementations, identifying the second app is executed in response to a user selection of the first app after the installation.
US10656973B2

A method of evaluating and selecting an application programming interface (API). The method includes accessing source-code in computer programming languages from an API repository. The method includes training a machine learning classifier using generalized, extracted API-calls to learn variations of API-call programming language syntaxes through usage of the API-call programming language syntaxes in the source-code. The method includes building API-call models suitable for the computer programming languages and building a parameter relations graph based on backtracking data-flow from API-calls that are extracted from public project repositories based on the API-call model. The method includes retrieving sample parameter values from the parameter relations graph. The method includes implementing the sample parameter values in an evaluation interface to evaluate functionality of an API in a software application.
US10656972B2

Managing idempotent operations is provided. A request to perform an operation on a system of record is received from a client via a network. An idempotency resolver is queried to determine whether a result corresponding to the operation is located in a mapping table of the idempotency resolver. In response to determining that the result corresponding to the operation is in the mapping table of the idempotency resolver, the result corresponding to the operation that is located in the mapping table of the idempotency resolver is sent to the client via the network.
US10656967B1

Techniques for actor and thread message dispatching are described herein. In some examples, a computing system may include multiple actors and multiple processing threads. Upon receiving an incoming message associated with one of the actors, a dispatching component may select one of the multiple processing threads within the computing system to which to dispatch the message for processing. If the associated actor is already assigned to one of the processing threads, then that processing thread may be selected for processing of the message. By contrast, if the associated actor is not already assigned to one of the processing threads, then a processing thread may be selected based on various factors, such as a set of priorities associated with the processing threads.
US10656960B2

Assignment of network addresses and estimations of flow sizes associated with network nodes can be enhanced. Assignment management component (AMC) partitions a set of network addresses into subsets of network addresses associated with respective classes. For respective virtual machines (VMs), an estimator component estimates a flow size associated with a VM based on parameters associated with the VM. AMC classifies VMs based on threshold flow-size values and respective estimated flow sizes of VMs, and assigns VMs to respective sub-groups of VMs associated with respective subsets of network addresses based on respective classifications of VMs. AMC assigns an available network address of a subset of network addresses associated with a class to a VM of a sub-group associated with that class. Estimated flow sizes and performance metrics also are utilized to make determinations regarding VM placement, traffic management, load balancing, resource allocation, and orchestration in cloud networks.
US10656950B2

A Spin Loop Delay instruction. The instruction has a field associated therewith that indicates one or more conditions to be checked. Dispatching of the instruction is initially delayed. The instruction is subsequently dispatched based on a timeout, provided the instruction has not been previously dispatched based on meeting at least one condition of the one or more conditions to be checked.
US10656947B2

Receiving an instruction indicating a source operand and a destination operand. Storing a result in the destination operand in response to the instruction. The result operand may have: (1) first range of bits having a first end explicitly specified by the instruction in which each bit is identical in value to a bit of the source operand in a corresponding position; and (2) second range of bits that all have a same value regardless of values of bits of the source operand in corresponding positions. Execution of instruction may complete without moving the first range of the result relative to the bits of identical value in the corresponding positions of the source operand, regardless of the location of the first range of bits in the result. Execution units to execute such instructions, computer systems having processors to execute such instructions, and machine-readable medium storing such an instruction are also disclosed.
US10656937B2

Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems, methods, and computer readable media for container based application reification. In a particular embodiment, an application reification system is provided including one or more computer readable storage media and a processing system operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media. The application reification system further includes program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when read and executed by the processing system, direct the processing system to preserve a version of application data at a first time and a configuration of an application at the first time. At a second time subsequent to the first time, the program instructions direct the processing system to create a template for a container containing the application in the configuration and a pointer to the version of the application data in a secondary storage repository.
US10656920B2

Implementations of the subject technology provide for receiving code associated with a representation of a user interface (UI) element, wherein the code is included in a project in an integrated development environment (IDE). The subject technology further provides for determining a set of dynamically generated editors for modifying the representation of the UI element based on an analysis of the code at least in part on contextual information related to the UI element, and querying for a set of actions associated with the selection, the set of dynamically generated editors being generated based at least in part on an analysis of the code. In addition, the subject technology displays a tool for graphically modifying the representation of the UI element, the tool including a set of graphical elements corresponding to the determined set of dynamically generated editors, where the graphically modifying transforms code associated with the representation of the UI element.
US10656915B2

In some example embodiments a logical block comprising twelve inputs and two six-input lookup tables (LUTs) is provided, wherein four of the twelve inputs are provided as inputs to both of the six-input lookup tables. This configuration supports efficient field programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of multipliers. Each six-input LUT comprises two five-input lookup tables (LUT5s) that are used to form Booth encoding multiplier building blocks. The five inputs to each LUT5 are two bits from a multiplier and three Booth-encoded bits from a multiplicand. By assembling building blocks, multipliers of arbitrary size may be formed.
US10656914B2

Instructions for 32-bit arithmetic support using 16-bit multiply and 32-bit addition without a barrel shifter. Illustrative instructions include operations that include receiving a first 32-bit operand, receiving a second 32-bit operand, shifting the second 32-bit operand right 16 or 15 bits to obtain a shifted second 32-bit operand, and adding the shifted second 32-bit operand and the first 32-bit operand to generate a 32-bit sum.
US10656913B2

Techniques for operating on and calculating binary floating-point numbers using an enhanced floating-point number format are presented. The enhanced format can comprise a single sign bit, six bits for the exponent, and nine bits for the fraction. Using six bits for the exponent can provide an enhanced exponent range that facilitates desirably fast convergence of computing-intensive algorithms and low error rates for computing-intensive applications. The enhanced format can employ a specified definition for the lowest binade that enables the lowest binade to be used for zero and normal numbers; and a specified definition for the highest binade that enables it to be structured to have one data point used for a merged Not-a-Number (NaN)/infinity symbol and remaining data points used for finite numbers. The signs of zero and merged NaN/infinity can be “don't care” terms. The enhanced format employs only one rounding mode, which is for rounding toward nearest up.
US10656903B1

Technology is described for providing audio for digital content. The digital content may be provided to a plurality of devices. The devices may be represented as environment objects in the digital content. A location may be identified within the digital content that corresponds to environment objects representing the devices. Audio may be received from the devices. The audio may be transmitted to the devices for directional audio playback. The audio may be directed to correspond with the virtual location of the environment objects in the digital content.
US10656900B2

A device and method capable of performing image following type audio control or image non-following type audio control are implemented. Images in different directions are selectively displayed on the display unit, and an output audio is controlled in accordance with an image display. A data processing unit executes image following type audio control of moving an audio source direction in accordance with movement of the display image of the display unit and image non-following type audio control of not moving the audio source direction in accordance with the movement of an image in units of individual controllable audio elements. The data processing unit acquires audio control information from an MP4 file or a media presentation description (MPD) file and executes either the image following type audio control or the image non-following type audio control in accordance with the acquired audio control information in units of individual controllable audio elements.
US10656893B2

A display device includes a screen, first and second projectors, a detector, and a controller. The screen has first and second surfaces. The first projector projects a first horizontally non-inverted image as viewed from the first surface. The second projector projects a second horizontally non-inverted image as viewed from the second surface. The detector detects a person at least viewing one of the first and second surfaces. The controller controls switching of an operation between the first and second projectors in accordance with a detection result of the detector.
US10656889B2

A multifunction peripheral (MFP) transmits, if the number of cases of accumulated non-transmitted history information has reached a predetermined number of cases or a designated transmission time has been reached, a communication management report (i.e., history information). When the MFP transmits the communication management report, the MFP inputs a transmission job in which deletion prevention information has been set on. Further, when performing a transmission process for processing the input transmission job, the MFP determines whether an error job clear function is executable on the job based on the deletion prevention information. If the error job clear function is not executable on the job, the MFP stands by for retransmission to be instructed by a user.
US10656885B2

The present disclosure is directed to a method of creating an object flow integrity (OFI) library module, capable of redirecting an object-like programmatic call, by initiating a multi-pass, recursive process to analyze a module's interfaces, function parameters, and data types. In another aspect, a method is disclosed to modify the binary code of an untrusted module to enable its usage of the OFI library module. In another aspect, during runtime operations of an untrusted module, the OFI library module can receive an object from a caller module, substitute a proxy object, stored in a secure location, and continue the programmatic call using the proxy object.
US10656879B2

A printing apparatus includes a conversion section that retrieves a printing data stored into a storage section on a first-in first-out basis, and converts, for each set of n lines, n being a predetermined number larger than or equal to 1, the retrieved printing data into image data in accordance with a printing setting in order in which the printing data is retrieved; a deletion controller that, at timing when printing of the image data is started, deletes, from the storage section, converted printing data corresponding to the image data; and a printing setting controller that, when the printing setting is changed during the printing of the image data, causes the conversion section to convert converted printing data stored in the storage section, in accordance with the changed printing setting.
US10656869B1

A movement system of a block-level data storage service obtains usage information for a data storage volume. The movement system processes the usage information to identify a placement strategy for the data storage volume that is associated with a second operational state for the data storage volume. Based on the placement strategy, the movement system causes a set of servers to perform an operation to implement the second operational state for the data storage volume. As a result of the operation being successfully performed, the movement system provides access to the data storage volume in accordance with the second operational state.
US10656867B2

In a computer system 10 that includes multiple nodes 100 capable of storing data, and a management computer 410 that manages the nodes 100, a first volume of a first node and a second volume of a second node 100 constitute an HA (High Availability) pair for managing identical data in a duplicated manner. the CPU 120 of the second node is configured to, When the first node becomes offline, write data that is to be written into the second volume of the second node thereafter is written into the second volume and into a third volume of a third node that is different from the first node and the second node.
US10656866B2

A computing device includes an interface configured to interface and communicate with a dispersed storage network (DSN), a memory that stores operational instructions, and processing circuitry operably coupled to the interface and to the memory. The processing circuitry is configured to execute the operational instructions to perform various operations and functions. The computing device selects storage parameters for a multi-vault synchronization process from a first storage vault to a second storage vault. The computing device synchronizes storage of the set(s) of ingestion encoded data slices (EDSs) between the vaults and maintains storage of a portion of an ingestion data stream within the second storage vault. The computing device facilitates deletion of the set(s) of ingestion EDSs corresponding to the portion of an ingestion data stream from the first storage vault. the computing device performs additional multi-vault synchronization process(es) for any other portion(s) of the ingestion data stream.
US10656863B1

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for lifecycle management of multiple storage clusters are disclosed. A first set of data is loaded into a first storage cluster. The first storage cluster is selected for loading the first set of data based at least in part on the first set of data and the first storage cluster being associated with a first period of time. The first storage cluster is placed into a read-only state. A second set of data is loaded into a second storage cluster. The second storage cluster is selected for loading the second set of data based at least in part on the second set of data and the second storage cluster being associated with a second period of time.
US10656861B1

An apparatus in one embodiment comprises at least one processing device having a processor coupled to a memory. The processing device is configured to distribute in-memory computations across at least first and second nodes of respective distinct data processing clusters of a plurality of data processing clusters over at least one network, and to aggregate results of the distributed in-memory computations for delivery to a requesting client device. The data processing clusters are associated with respective distinct data zones, and the first and second nodes of the respective distinct data processing clusters are configured to perform corresponding portions of the distributed in-memory computations utilizing respective ones of first and second in-memory datasets locally accessible within their respective data zones. The in-memory computations in some embodiments illustratively comprise Spark computations, such as Spark Core batch computations. The in-memory datasets in such an arrangement may comprise respective Spark resilient distributed datasets.
US10656860B2

A method and system for improving tape drive memory storage is provided. The method includes receiving, by a storage tape drive hardware device, a data stream. Duplicate data chunks of the data stream are identified and deleted such that a group of data chunks remain in a non-volatile memory device (NVS2) of the storage tape drive. The group of data chunks is written to a data storage tape cartridge. Pointers are generated and stored within the data storage tape cartridge. The pointers are associated with a location within an NVS1 for storing de-duplication hashes identifying each data chunk of the group of data chunks stored within data storage tape cartridge. The de-duplication hashes are written from the NVS1 to a manager non-volatile memory device (MNVS) of a storage tape drive hardware library system. The MNVS is updated.
US10656854B1

Highly secure portable storage device includes a physical input device, a memory and a controller, all of which reside within or on the device itself. The controller may determine whether the device is in an exclusive or nonexclusive mode, whether the device is in a privileged mode, a locked mode or a protected mode, and whether a request is made to self-transform to a renewed mode. When the request is made and the device is in the nonexclusive mode, the device self-transforms to the renewed mode without requiring communication with the host and without requiring access code verification. When the request is made and the device is in the exclusive mode, the device self-transforms to the renewed mode only when a privileged security access code is verified. Transforming to a renewed mode sets all access codes to null and sets a new encryption key. Other methods and implementations are described.
US10656853B2

In one aspect of the present invention, an apparatus includes a head configured to write data to a tape, and a hardware controller coupled to the head. The controller is configured to cause the apparatus to copy a second data area on the tape as a third data area, the second data area corresponding to data in a first data area that has changed. The controller is also configured to cause the apparatus to store, on the tape, index information for identifying the third data area, and copy the first data area to the tape as a fourth data area separate from the third data area. The controller is also configured to cause the apparatus to store, on the tape, index information for identifying the fourth data area.
US10656852B2

A location of a log file is determined, wherein data corresponding to writes is written sequentially starting from a starting block of the log file. A determination is made in the log file of a range of blocks in which data corresponding to a next write is anticipated to be written. Preprocessing operations are performed corresponding to the range of blocks of the log file in which the data corresponding to the next write is anticipated to be written.
US10656851B2

A system includes a memory controller and a memory device having a command interface and a plurality of memory banks, each with a plurality of rows of memory cells. The memory controller transmits an auto-refresh command to the memory device. Responsive to the auto-refresh command, during a first time interval, the memory device performs refresh operations to refresh the memory cells and the command interface of the memory device is placed into a calibration mode for the duration of the first time interval. Concurrently, during at least a portion of the first time interval, the memory controller performs a calibration of the command interface of the memory device. The auto-refresh command may specify an order in which memory banks of the memory device are to be refreshed, such that the memory device sequentially refreshes a respective row in the plurality of memory banks in the specified bank order.
US10656849B2

With omission of a duplication process of compressed data, a cache access frequency is reduced to improve throughput. A storage system includes first and second control units and a storage drive. Upon receiving a data write command, the first control unit stores data to be subjected to the write command in a first cache area of the first control unit, and stores the data in a second cache area of the second control unit to perform duplication, and upon completion of the duplication, the first control unit transmits a response indicating an end of write, performs a predetermined process on the data to be subjected to the write command, stores the data in a buffer area, reads the data stored in the buffer area, and transmits the read data to the storage drive.
US10656845B2

Provided are a system and a method for managing a container image. The container image managing system includes a remote storage configured to store and manage a container image, a container engine configured to mount a storage area of the container image stored in the remote storage and read the container image from the mounted storage area to generate a container, and a local storage configured to store a read-write layer of the generated container.
US10656843B2

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a system may include a processor and a storage interface configured to sequentially select, one at a time, member storage resources of a virtual storage resource as a source storage resource for redirection of write input/output (I/O) and for each member storage resource, when selected as the source storage resource, in response to write I/O, redirect the write I/O to a spare storage resource available to the virtual storage resource.
US10656835B2

A method, computer system, and computer program product for determining whether data compression should be performed at a storage virtualization layer or a backend layer, within a storage area network, including assessing a volume of data to decide whether the volume of data should be compressed or is already compressed, and in response to deciding that the volume of data should be compressed: checking whether a restriction exists on the volume of data, and in response to deciding that the volume of data is already compressed: determining that the volume of data already compressed should be uncompressed based on at least one metric.
US10656834B2

An interface superpipe is implemented in a filesystem. A filesystem in a kernel, receives a command to open a file, the command issued in the execution of a process in an application. The file is determined to be on an interface disk. It is determined that a context does not exist for the process and, in response, an adapter queue is allocated for the process in a kernel memory and mapped into a process address space associated with the process. The context information of the process is saved in the kernel memory. The filesystem may be part of a system further comprising a processor, a storage, an interface adapter in communication with the storage and sharing a memory space with the processor, and an application in communication with the filesystem.
US10656833B2

A multi-mode hybrid memory drive comprises a bulk memory device and a removable cache memory device. A controller of the bulk memory device may be configured to operate the bulk memory device in either a stand-alone mode or a hybrid mode responsive to detecting the removable cache memory device being coupled with a cache port of the bulk memory device. A method of operating a multi-mode hybrid drive may also comprise monitoring a cache port of a bulk memory device to determine a presence of a removable cache memory device, operating the bulk memory device as a stand-alone drive responsive to determining the removable cache memory device is not present, and operating the bulk memory device as a hybrid drive using the removable cache memory device as a data cache responsive to determining the removable cache memory device is present. Additional hybrid memory drives and computer systems are also described.
US10656832B2

A memory system comprises a memory device including a plurality of memory blocks, a write operation check unit configured to count the number of write operations performed on the respective memory blocks, a write count distribution management module configured to manage a distribution of the memory blocks based on the counted number of the write operations, and a wear leveling module configured to detect hot and cold memory blocks from the plurality of memory blocks based on the counted number of the write operation and the distribution, wherein the wear leveling module manages a history of the hot memory block and swaps the hot memory block with the cold memory block according to the managed history.
US10656831B2

A display input device includes a display panel, a touch panel, and a controller. The controller displays a cursor which indicates an input position in an input result display field. When a specific key is touched first, and while the touch is kept, the touched position moves to a character key, and then the touch ceases, the controller makes the cursor move to the position of the character corresponding to a touch-end key, which is the character key on which the touch ceases.
US10656827B2

A method for performing navigation (NAV) operations using a sensor device comprising a plurality of transmitter electrodes includes: receiving, at an input sensing region of the sensor device, an input object; scanning, by the sensor device, the input object, wherein the scanning comprises driving a first subset of transmitter electrodes for low-resolution scanning and driving a second subset of transmitter electrodes for high-resolution scanning; and determining, by the sensor device, an input object motion based at least in part on the scanning.
US10656823B2

A method for managing operations of applications includes identifying a first application which is active on the electronic device and an event; and displaying an action element associated with a non-active second application on the first application based on the event. The action element of the second application is dynamically driven based on at least one among a context of the first application and a content of the first application.
US10656821B2

A contact state of a finger with respect to a first displayed object is detected. In response to detecting a double-click operation on the first displayed object at a first position in a depthwise direction, the first displayed object is moved onto a surface of a display screen of a three-dimensional (3-D) display. In response to detecting that the finger has moved from the contact state to a proximity state with respect to the first displayed object, a display position of the first displayed object is changed from the surface of the display screen to a depth position at which a second object is displayed at a nearest side in the depthwise direction among displayed objects. The second object remains displayed at the depth position beside the first object.
US10656819B2

The present disclosure relates to techniques of configuring a layout of graphical objects for display. In one example process, the device detects a scroll request and determines whether the scroll request meets predetermined criteria. If the scroll request meets the criteria, the device configures the layout of graphical objects that are to be displayed once the display is scrolled so that the graphical objects are arranged on the display differently than the arrangement in which the graphical objects would have been displayed, had the layout not been configured. If the scroll request does not meet the criteria, the device forgoes the configuration of the layout of graphical objects.
US10656809B2

A displaying method of a user terminal device including displaying a first screen on a display of the user terminal device, detecting a user interaction by the user terminal device, and rotating the at least two screens based on the first user interaction, changing a display orientation of the at least two screens.
US10656799B2

To provide a display device having an input means using a bending action. A display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a display part, a first sensor element, and a second sensor element. The display part is provided between the first substrate and the second substrate. The first sensor element and the second sensor element are provided in their respective regions overlapping with the display part between the first substrate and the second substrate. The region where the second sensor element is provided overlaps with the region where the first sensor element is provided. The first substrate and the second substrate have flexibility. The first sensor element has a function of detecting the presence or absence of an object touching the first substrate or the second substrate. The second sensor element has a function of detecting the distortion of the first substrate or the second substrate.
US10656789B2

Locating an event on a timeline is provided. A calendar application may locate an event on a timeline by detecting a selection action on the event on a calendar. A context menu is displayed on the calendar, where the context menu includes a search control. An activation of the search control is detected. The event is located on the timeline of the calendar. The event is displayed on the timeline.
US10656779B1

A computing device displays a graphical user interface on a display. The graphical user interface has a data visualization region that displays a primary data visualization, which includes a plurality of visual marks. The primary data visualization represents a first set of data fields of a plurality of data fields from a dataset. The device receives user input in the graphical user interface to select one of the visual marks. In response to the user input, the device generates a secondary data visualization, filtered according to one or more data values. The data values correspond to the first set of data fields and are associated with the selected visual mark. The secondary data visualization represents a second set of data fields from the dataset. The device then displays the generated secondary data visualization in a tooltip for the selected data mark, overlaying a portion of the primary data visualization.
US10656777B1

One method includes receiving inputs from one or more input devices, and determining a user interest in use of the interface device based on the inputs. In response to the user interest, changing a state of the first interface device from a deactivated state in which the first interface device is concealed behind a surface to an activated state in which the first interface device emits light through the surface.
US10656769B2

A touch display device and a method for forming the same are provided. The touch display device includes a touch panel and a display panel arranged opposite to the touch panel to form a cell, where a deformable layer is arranged between the touch panel and the display panel and configured to be deformed in response to a pressure applied to the touch panel; a plurality of first electrodes is arranged at a side of the touch panel adjacent to the display panel; a plurality of second electrodes is arranged at a side of the display panel adjacent to the touch panel; the first electrodes and the second electrodes are arranged in a one-to-one correspondence manner, and each second electrode and the corresponding first electrode form a pressure sensing capacitor; where the touch display device further includes a pressure sensing module configured to detect a capacitance change of the pressure sensing capacitor and determine a value of the pressure applied to the touch panel based on the capacitance change.
US10656768B2

A touch display panel and a manufacturing method thereof are provided. The touch display panel includes a substrate, a conductor, a first pressure sensing electrode and a second pressure sensing electrode. The conductor is stacked under the substrate, and the conductor is not connected to a bias. The first pressure sensing electrode is disposed on the substrate and disposed above the conductor. A compression zone exists between the first pressure sensing electrode and the conductor, so as to form a first pressure sensing capacitor. The second pressure sensing electrode is disposed on the substrate and disposed above the conductor. The compression zone exists between the second pressure sensing electrode and the conductor, so as to form a second pressure sensing capacitor connected in series with the first pressure sensing capacitor.
US10656764B2

Disclosed are a touch device and a display device, where the touch device includes: an array substrate, a plurality of sensing elements arranged on the array substrate to recognize a fingerprint, and a plurality of filter structures arranged on a side of the plurality of sensing elements; the side is away from the array substrate: each of the plurality of filter structures comprises a plurality of filter layers arranged in a stack, each of the plurality of filter layers comprises light-transmitting areas and light-shielding areas on a periphery of the light-transmitting areas, orthographic projections of any two of the light-transmitting areas of the plurality of filter layers onto the array substrate have an overlapping area; the overlapping area is smaller than an area of an orthographic projection of any one of the light-transmitting areas of the plurality of filter layers onto the array substrate.
US10656761B2

Touch sensitive input devices and routing trace configurations designed to reduce border dimensions of such devices are provided herein. The touch sensitive input devices include a touch panel having a plurality of transmit lines and a plurality of receive lines, which are arranged with the plurality of transmit lines in a grid pattern, such that a sense node is disposed on the touch panel at each intersection of the transmit and receive lines. More specifically, the touch panel includes a first subset of the transmit lines coupled to routing traces on only a first side of the touch panel, a second subset of the transmit lines coupled to routing traces on only a second side of the touch panel, and a third subset of the transmit lines coupled to routing traces on both the first side and the second side of the touch panel. Methods are provided herein for compensating for differences in routing trace path lengths, so as to provide accurate detection of touch event locations on the touch panel.
US10656760B2

In aspects of replay of recorded touch input data, a computing device can store recorded touch input data that has been previously recorded based on multiple instances of user inadvertent contact on touch-enabled devices. A replay test application is implemented to test one or more user devices for inadvertent contact rejection using the recorded touch input data, such as to test a palm rejection algorithm of a user device. The replay test application is implemented to communicate the recorded touch input data to a screen overlay device that generates touch inputs on a touchscreen of the user device to test the palm rejection algorithm of the user device. The replay test application also monitors the user device for an action responsive to a touch input that is not filtered as an inadvertent contact with the touchscreen of the user device.
US10656758B1

In one embodiment, an electronic device is provided, comprising: a display; a touch-sensitive surface; one or more processors; memory; and one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for: displaying, on the display, an application launching user interface that includes a plurality of application icons for launching corresponding applications; while displaying the application launching user interface, detecting a first single-finger touch input that includes detecting the first single-finger touch input at a location on the touch-sensitive surface that corresponds to a first application icon of the plurality of application icons, wherein the first application icon is for launching a first application that is associated with one or more corresponding quick actions; and in response to detecting the first single-finger touch input, determining a response to the first single-finger touch input based on evaluating the first single-finger touch input against at least one of a plurality of criteria, including evaluating a duration of the first single-finger touch input against at least one of: one or more application-launch criteria or one or more quick-action-display criteria, for: in accordance with a determination that the first single-finger touch input meets the one or more application-launch criteria that is met when the duration of the first single-finger touch input is below a time threshold, launching the first application; and in accordance with a determination that the first single-finger touch input meets the one or more quick-action-display criteria that is met when the duration of the first single-finger touch input is greater than the time threshold, displaying one or more quick action objects associated with the first application without launching the first application.
US10656753B1

In one embodiment, a system, method, and computer program product are provided to: display a textual word; detect a gesture via the touch screen on the textual word; in a first touch state, perform a first function in connection with the textual word; in a second touch state, perform a second function in connection with the textual word, the second function including selecting the textual word so as to display a selection of the textual word in a separate virtual display layer that is at least partially transparent or translucent for viewing an insertion point of the textual word.
US10656752B1

An electronic device is provided for displaying, on a display, a first user interface that includes one or more selectable user interface objects; detecting that an input on a touch-sensitive surface, which is at a location on the touch-sensitive surface that corresponds to a respective user interface object of the one or more selectable user interface objects, is in a first touch state; in response to detecting a cessation of the input while the input is in the first touch state, displaying information associated with the respective user interface object; detecting that the input on the touch-sensitive surface, which is at the location on the touch-sensitive surface that corresponds to the respective user interface object of the one or more selectable user interface objects, is in a second touch state; in response to detecting that the input is in the second touch state, blurring or shading at least a portion of the first user interface; and in response to detecting that the input is in the second touch state, displaying the information associated with the respective user interface object via a second user interface that appears closer than the first user interface.
US10656749B2

Disclosed is a method of forming an identification pattern for a touchscreen. The method comprising: (a) defining a touch region by touching a region forming point on a touchscreen; and (b) forming an identification pattern by touching an identification pattern point in the touch region.
US10656748B2

The disclosure provides a force sensor and a method of manufacturing the same, a touch panel and a touch display panel. The force sensor includes opposite first and second substrates, and a sensing electrode and a directional electrode arranged on the first and second substrates respectively, the first substrate is movable relative to the second substrate when being applied by a touch action with a force tending to incur a horizontal movement, to enable a relative movement between the sensing electrode and the directional electrode corresponding to at least one of a direction and a magnitude of the force and changing a relative position of the sensing electrode relative to the directional electrode, and the sensing electrode is configured to generate a sensing signal associated with the relative position and for determining a touch position and at least one of the direction and the magnitude of the force applied at the touch position.
US10656734B2

A wireless computer keyboard assembly having a slidable user wrist support controllably extendable upwardly and selectively set to a user-defined height above a main keyboard body to support the wrist of a user during the use of said wireless computer keyboard.
US10656723B2

An apparatus for extracorporeal blood treatment comprising a control unit and a display device, wherein the apparatus for extracorporeal blood treatment is equipped with a person locating and identifying device and the person locating and identifying device and the display device are in contact of information exchange with each other via the control unit and the person locating and identifying device is adapted to obtain and to process information about the position of a person being located in the environment of the apparatus for extracorporeal blood treatment, and the display device is adapted to display on a display information in response to the position of the person so that it is visible from the position of the person.
US10656721B2

An interactive 3D display apparatus and method are provided. The interactive 3D display apparatus includes a hand sensing module configured to acquire a hand image by detecting a hand of a user and a user interaction module configured to generate a virtual object adjustment parameter by analyzing user-intended information about the hand based on the hand image acquired by the hand sensing module and comparing an analysis result with predefined user scenarios, an image rendering module configured to set a scene according to the generated virtual object adjustment parameter, generate image data by rendering the set scene, and convert the generated image data into display data, and a 3D display configured to display a 3D image including a virtual object in which a change intended by the user has been reflected according to the display data.
US10656720B1

The technology disclosed relates to user interfaces for controlling augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) environments. Real and virtual objects can be seamlessly integrated to form an augmented reality by tracking motion of one or more real objects within view of a wearable sensor system. Switching the AR/VR presentation on or off to interact with the real world surrounding them, for example to drink some soda, can be addressed with a convenient mode switching gesture associated with switching between operational modes in a VR/AR enabled device.
US10656712B2

This patent relates to a mobile terminal and a method of controlling an operation of the same. The method of controlling an operation of a mobile terminal includes displaying a file list and scroll arrows for scrolling the file list on a touch screen. When the scroll arrow is touched and entered, the file list is scrolled at a scroll speed previously set in response to a time when the scroll arrow is touched and entered. A vibration signal to identify at least one of a scroll speed and a current scrolling position of the file list is provided. Accordingly, when a file list is scrolled, a scroll speed or a current scrolling position can be easily identified by a tactile sense.
US10656700B2

A power management controller is disclosed. Broadly speaking, the controller may, in response to detecting a timing signal, determine a total power consumption for a plurality of processor clusters, each of which includes a plurality of processor cores. The controller may determine a performance metric using the total power consumption and compare the performance metric to a limit. Based on a result of the comparison, the controller may select a new power state for at least one of the processor clusters.
US10656699B2

A computer-implemented method enables rack-level predictive power capping and power budget allocation to processing nodes in a rack-based IHS. A rack-level management controller receives node-level power-usage data and settings from several block controllers, including current power consumption and an initial power budget for each node. A power consumption profile is generated based on the power-usage data for each node. A total available system power of the IHS is identified. A system power cap is determined based on the power consumption profiles and the total available system power. A current power budget is determined for each node based on an analysis of at least one of the power consumption profile, the initial power budget, the current power consumption, the system power cap, and the total available system power. A power subsystem regulates power budgeted and supplied to each node based on the power consumption profiles and the system power cap.
US10656687B2

Provided is an adapter adapted for a specific single board computer. The adapter is readily usable without taking time and effort to wire and arrange accessories. The adapter includes an adapter body adapted to a specific single board computer selected from a plurality of different single board computers. The adapter body is detachably mountable, in a configuration being fitted with the specific single board computer, on a docking station mounted with one or more accessories. The adapter further includes: one or more receptacle connector components mounted on the adapter body, and being attachable to the main connector components; one or more connector components mounted on the adapter body, and being attachable to receptacle connector components electrically connected to the accessories of the docking station; and one or more wires arranged in the adapter body and electrically connecting the receptacle connector components respectively to the connector components.
US10656686B2

A multiple mode display apparatus and methods of use. An apparatus includes a display surface with a first and a second display area. A housing pivotally attached with the display proximate a first edge of the housing is displaceable from a coplanar position with the surface of the display device to a position wherein an angle of at least 90 degrees between the surface of the display and the housing is formed along said first edge. In the first position, the first display area is visible and activated to receive user input or to display output. The second display area is covered by the housing and placed in a mode of reduced power consumption. In the second position, the second display area is visible and activated to display output.
US10656684B2

A method, electronic device, and computer program product for countering a semi-permanent deformation at an area of a foldable display. The method includes detecting when a display-having at least one hinge area that bends or folds, is placed in an angled position, and in response to the display being placed in the angled position, monitoring a time duration during which the display is in the angled position. The method further includes, in response to the display being placed in a fully-opened position after being in the angled position, calculating a degree of semi-permanent deformation associated with the at least one area of the display, in part based on the time duration, and triggering an increase in temperature at the at least one area of the display to counter the degree of semi-permanent deformation.
US10656683B2

A device may include a dynamic function row (DFR) comprising a touchscreen. A device processor may operate a DFR agent controlling the DFR. The DFR agent may generate and/or select images to display on the DFR based on rules and/or contexts, and the DFR may display the images.
US10656678B2

A portable information device has a configuration in which a body chassis and a display chassis are turnably coupled by hinge mechanisms. The portable information device is provided with an operation portion operable from the outside and a power transmission portion provided between the operation portion and the hinge mechanism and transmitting an operating force to the operation portion to the hinge mechanisms to turn the body chassis and the display chassis.
US10656675B2

A virtual reality helmet (300) and a virtual reality system (500) are disclosed. The virtual reality helmet comprises a helmet body (100) and an optical system (110), and the optical system is provided within the helmet body. The helmet body is provided with a detachable display screen (200). In operation, the display screen is snap-fitted to the helmet body, connects to an external video playing device (400) via a video transmission line, and displays the video data played by the video playing device. The optical system is configured to image a light emitted by the display screen. The video playing device is not attached to the helmet body, which reduces the weight worn on the head, and long-term usage does not easily cause neck fatigue.
US10656674B2

An electronic device having a housing structure that is configured to receive at least one glass cover is disclosed. The glass cover serves to cover a display assembly provided within the electronic device. The glass cover can be secured to the housing structure so as to facilitate providing a narrow border between an active display area and an outer edge of the housing structure. The enclosure for the electronic device can be thin yet be sufficiently strong to be suitable for use in electronic devices, such as portable electronic devices.
US10656673B1

A keyboard device for a computing device is provided. The computing device includes a first system module and a second system module. The keyboard device includes a keyboard module and at least two conductive sliding mechanisms. The keyboard module is installed on the first system module. The keyboard module includes a power supply unit. The power supply unit provides electric power for powering the keyboard module. The keyboard module is movable relative to the first system module through the conductive sliding mechanisms. Each conductive sliding mechanism includes a sliding base and a conductive member. The sliding base is installed on the keyboard module. The conductive member is electrically connected with the first system module and the keyboard module. When the sliding base is moved relative to the conductive member, the keyboard module is moved relative to the first system module.
US10656666B2

A bias output apparatus includes: a plurality of voltage output circuits, each configured to output a bias voltage to be supplied to a load and a determination voltage generated based on the bias voltage; a determination circuit configured to output a binary determination signal based on the determination voltage output by each of the plurality of voltage output circuits; and a controller configured to control the plurality of voltage output circuits and determine whether or not the plurality of voltage output circuits are operating normally based on the determination signal output by the determination circuit. The controller is further configured to determine that the plurality of voltage output circuits are operating normally if an output pattern of the determination signal is a predetermined first pattern while the controller is controlling the plurality of voltage output circuits to output bias voltages in order.
US10656654B2

The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for localization and mapping based on color block tags, applicable for real-time mapping of an area to be localized in which at least one color block tag is arranged, the method comprises: taking a location of a first color block tag as a coordinate origin of a coordinate system when information of the first color block tag is obtained by a mobile electronic device; moving the mobile electronic device to start to traverse the entire area to be localized from the coordinate origin, calculating coordinates of an obstacle detected by the mobile electronic device based on a location of the mobile electronic device relative to the coordinate origin; constructing a map based on recorded information of the color block tags and coordinates thereof and the coordinates of each obstacle when the traversal has been finished.
US10656653B2

A work area determination system for an autonomous traveling work vehicle includes a photographing device for photographing a predetermined area including a work area and acquiring a photographic image thereof, a positioning device for obtaining position information indicative of a position at which the photographic image has been acquired, a map generation section for generating a map based on the photographic image and the position information, a displaying section for displaying the map, and a work area determination section for determining the work area in which the autonomous traveling work vehicle is to work, based on an area designation for the map displayed in the displaying section.
US10656649B1

A monitoring system for automated detection of egress or ingress of a drive unit between first and second spaces in an inventory system includes a path for conveying the drive unit between the first and second spaces that defines an intermediate space between the two spaces. A sensor is configured to detect passage of the drive unit between the first space and the intermediate space, and an identification sensor is arranged to read an identifier of the drive unit. In combination with an inventory management system, the monitoring system can be used to update and maintain accuracy of a virtual representation of a physical inventory space that employs automated drive units or shuttles.
US10656645B1

A method for determining a canonical route includes receiving trip data associated with one or more traversals of a plurality of roadways in a geographic location by one or more autonomous vehicles. The method includes generating at least one canonical route based on the trip data, wherein the at least one canonical route includes at least one roadway connected with another roadway in the plurality of roadways. The method includes providing canonical route data associated with the at least one canonical route to an autonomous vehicle for controlling travel of the autonomous vehicle on the at least one canonical route.
US10656638B1

A frequency spectrum is computed using a Fourier transform a predefined plurality of times with successive windows of observation vectors, wherein each window of the successive windows includes a subset of observation vectors, wherein the successive windows include successive subsets selected sequentially in time. An average frequency spectrum is computed. A plurality of segmented average frequency spectra is computed, wherein each segmented average frequency spectrum is computed for a frequency band of predefined frequency bands. A distance value is computed using a trained support vector data description model with the segmented average frequency spectra. When an event has occurred is determined based on a comparison between the distance value and a predefined threshold. A vector is computed from the segmented average frequency spectra using t-stochastic neighbor embedding. When an event has occurred based on the comparison, an event indicator is presented on a graph using the vector.
US10656636B2

An evaluation system includes an acquisition module that acquires a safety program, an instruction extraction module that extracts an instruction directed to processing for causing a target device to operate with safety maintained, a signal extraction module that extracts an input signal and an output signal related to the instruction, a setting module that displays the extracted input signal and the extracted output signal in association with each other, and receives a setting of an expected output value for the displayed output signal, the expected output value being a value for causing the target device to operate with safety maintained, and an evaluation module that changes a value of the extracted input signal and determines whether a value of the output signal calculated by an operation in accordance with the safety program, in response to change of the value of the input signal, is identical to the expected output value.
US10656632B2

A machining program management apparatus is used for managing an alteration made to a machining program stored in a plurality of machine tools. The machining program management apparatus acquires, at predetermined intervals set in advance, a piece of machining program updating information including a last update date and time of the machining program stored in each machine tool, identifies a machining program to which an alteration is made, on the basis of the piece of machining program updating information, creates a piece of information on the alteration, and updates a piece of machining program information corresponding to the machining program to which the alteration is made.
US10656630B2

An industrial control system may receive data associated with at least one component within an industrial automation system. The industrial control system may then determine whether the data is associated with at least one of a plurality of data tags, such that the at least one of the plurality of data tags describes at least one characteristic of the data. The industrial control system may then broadcast the data and the at least one of the plurality of data tags in a data feed channel when the data is associated with the at least one of the plurality of data tags.
US10656607B2

Aspects of the disclosure relate to systems and methods related to intelligent automation control of an environment based at least on intelligence associated with the behavior of an operator and/or equipment. For example, a system access one or more information streams from a group of agents associated with an operational environment. The system may determine based on at least one of the one or more information streams, intelligence associated with the behavior of an agent of the group of agents or in proximity to the operational environment. The system may determine a control operation based at least on the determined intelligence, the control operation being associated with an automation control asset configured to regulate at least one agent of the group of agents.
US10656598B2

A holographic light field imaging device and method of using the same. The holographic light field imaging device may optically compress the light field into a lower-dimensional, coded representation for algorithmic reconstruction by transforming the light field in a known, calculable way. The resulting wavefront may be optically compressed before capture, wherein the compression may later be reversed via software algorithm, recovering a representation of the original light field.
US10656593B2

A cartridge that can be inserted in an apparatus main body of an image forming apparatus by moving along an axial direction of an image bearing member includes the image bearing member, a frame configured to support the image bearing member, a storage member configured to store therein information on the cartridge, and include an electrical contact, and a first pressed section and a second pressed portion configured to be pressed by the apparatus main body. The electrical contact is disposed between the first pressed section and the second pressed section, and is configured to be in contact with the main body contact on a lower side in a state where the cartridge is attached to the apparatus main body.
US10656591B2

An image forming apparatus includes: a housing having an opening; a drum cartridge mountable and demountable through the opening; a toner cartridge mountable and demountable to and from the drum cartridge; a first cover; a second cover, wherein, when the first cover is at the opened position and the second cover is at the closed position, the toner cartridge is allowed to be mounted and demounted to and from the drum cartridge through a part of the opening while the drum cartridge is remained to be mounted to the housing, and wherein, when the first cover is at the opened position and the second cover is at the closed position, a part of the second cover contacts with the drum cartridge and prevents the drum cartridge to be mounted and demounted to and from the housing through a part of the opening.
US10656589B2

There is provided a manufacturing method of manufacturing a cartridge by using a cartridge having a rotator, a frame that supports the rotator, an elastic member that is provided in a concave portion formed in the frame along a rotation axis direction of the rotator, and a sheet member that has one end fixed to the elastic member and the other end abutting on the rotator along the rotation axis direction of the rotator, and the manufacturing method includes: detaching the rotator from the frame; detaching the sheet member from the frame; detaching the elastic member from the frame; and attaching another sheet member to the frame via an adhesive member that is attached to an adhesive member attachment portion formed in the concave portion of the frame.
US10656586B2

An image forming apparatus, having feeder tray, a multipurpose tray arranged on a first side surface, a first conveyer path, a second conveyer path, a third conveyer path, and a fourth conveyer path, is provided. A nip position between paired registration rollers is located to be lower than a nip position between a separation roller and a separator member. A tangent that contacts circumferential surfaces of the paired registration rollers at the nip position between paired registration rollers inclines to be lower toward a second side surface opposite from the multipurpose tray. The second conveyer path inclines to be lower toward the second side surface in a range between a merging point merging with the fourth conveyer path and the nip position between the paired registration rollers.
US10656585B2

According to an embodiment, a consumable management apparatus includes a detecting unit, a storage unit, an analyzing circuit, a predicting circuit, and a notifying circuit. The detecting unit detects a use condition of a consumable. The storage unit stores therein a use history of the consumable. The analyzing circuit is configured to analyze a consumption speed of the consumable based on a degree of use frequency of the consumable, the degree of use frequency being obtained from the use history of the consumable stored in the storage unit. The predicting circuit is configured to predict a replacement time of the consumable from the use condition of the consumable detected by the detecting unit and the consumption speed of the consumable analyzed by the analyzing circuit. The notifying circuit is configured to give a notice of the replacement time of the consumable predicted by the predicting circuit.
US10656581B2

An image forming apparatus has a changing portion configured to change, based on a detection result of a temperature sensor, response sensitivity in starting of power supply by a determination portion based on a detection result of a human body detection sensor in a case where a human body approaches the human body detection sensor. The changing portion increases the sensitivity in a case where a temperature detected by the temperature sensor is a second temperature lower than a first temperature than in a case where the temperature detected by the temperature sensor is the first temperature.
US10656576B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit configured to form an image based on image data, a fixing unit configured to fix the image formed by the image forming unit on a recording material, a conversion unit configured to convert image data into conversion data including a plurality of areas having a first resolution in a main scanning direction perpendicular to a conveyance direction of the recording material, and a second resolution higher than the first resolution in a sub-scanning direction, which is the conveyance direction of the recording material, an analysis unit configured to analyze values related to the areas of the plurality of areas of the conversion data obtained by the conversion unit, and a temperature control unit configured to control a fixing temperature of the fixing unit according to a result of the analysis performed by the analysis unit.
US10656573B2

An image heating apparatus includes a plurality of heat generating elements, a plurality of temperature detecting elements, and an energization controlling portion for selectively controlling, based on the temperature detected by each of the plurality of temperature detecting elements, electrical power to be supplied to the plurality of heat generating elements. The plurality of temperature detecting elements are arranged in each of the plurality of heat generating elements, and the energization controlling portion controls electrical power supply to the plurality of heat generating elements for the purpose of heating a non-sheet-passing heating region, through which a recording material does not pass, among the plurality of heating regions, based on a temperature detected by a temperature detecting element that is farthest from a conveyance reference position of the recording material, among the plurality of temperature detecting elements arranged in the non-sheet-passing heating region.
US10656572B2

A fixing device including a heated endless belt, a first member, a second member, a pressure roller, a guide member, a sliding member, and a lubricant application member. The first member is a non-rotating body inside of the belt and together with the second member tensions the belt. The pressure roller is outside the belt and presses against the first member via the belt, thereby forming the fixing nip. The guide member is inside of the belt and has a guide surface that guides the belt in circulation and a recess opening into the guide surface. The sliding member is between the belt and the first member. The lubricant application member is fitted in the recess and applies lubricant to the belt. The guide surface has an arc shape that is interrupted by the recess in a cross section perpendicular to an axis of rotation of the pressure roller.
US10656562B2

An image forming apparatus includes an apparatus body, an image bearing member, a developing unit, a power supply, and a contact portion. The developing unit includes a developing container configured to store developer, a developer bearing member configured to rotate while bearing the developer stored in the developing container, and a developing magnet provided within the developer bearing member and comprising a plurality of magnetic poles in a circumferential direction. The developing unit is removably provided to the apparatus body. The contact portion electrically is connected with the power supply. The developing unit comprises a conductive member which is made of a conductive resin comprising a fixing portion fixing the developing magnet so that the magnetic poles of the developing magnet are fixed unrotatably with respect to the developing container. The conductive member is provided to electrically connect the contact portion with the developer bearing member.
US10656560B2

A developer container includes a casing having a developer accommodating chamber and a waste-developer accommodating chamber, conveying member, a conveying-member accommodating unit, and a supporting member. The conveying member conveys waste developer in a longitudinal direction of the waste-developer accommodating chamber. The conveying-member accommodating unit accommodates the conveying member therein and has a first opening and a second opening. The first opening is provided in an upstream end portion and allows the waste developer to move from outside of the conveying-member accommodating unit to the inside of the conveying-member accommodating unit. The second opening allows the waste-developer to move from the inside of the conveying-member accommodating unit to the waste-developer accommodating chamber. The supporting member is provided on the casing. The supporting member supports the conveying-member accommodating unit such that the conveying-member accommodating unit is movable in directions perpendicular to the longitudinal direction relative to the casing.
US10656559B2

A toner cartridge according to one example embodiment includes a housing having a toner reservoir. An outlet port faces downward on a front of the housing near a first side of the housing. A linkage is positioned on the first side of the housing and has an engagement surface that is accessible at the rear of the housing. A projection is positioned on the first side of the housing and is movable between a first position and a second position. The projection is operatively connected to the linkage such that the projection moves upward from the first position to the second position when the engagement surface receives a forward force that is toward the front of the housing. The projection extends outward sideways from the first side when the projection is in the second position.
US10656556B2

A developing device includes a developing frame including a developing chamber, an accommodating chamber accommodating toner, and a partition wall provided with an opening connecting the developing chamber and the accommodating chamber. The developing device further includes an agitating member agitating the developer in the accommodating chamber, a shaft member including an attachment portion to which the agitating member is attached, and a conveying sheet conveying the toner. The conveying sheet includes a fixed portion fixed to the inner wall of the developing frame forming the accommodating chamber, and a displacement portion that is movable toward the opening by coming into contact with the agitating member. The rotation center of the shaft member is provided within an imaginary circle centered at the boundary point between the fixed portion and the displacement portion and passing through the distal end of the displacement portion.
US10656549B2

An image forming apparatus includes a photosensitive member; a scan unit configured to scan the photosensitive member with light based on image data, and form a latent image on the photosensitive member; a developing unit configured to form an image on the photosensitive member by attaching toner to the latent image formed on the photosensitive member; and a correction unit configured to correct an exposure amount of the photosensitive member such that a density change of the image in a main scanning direction due to a configuration of the scan unit and a density of the image to be formed is reduced.
US10656547B2

Provided is an image forming apparatus, including an apparatus main body, an image bearing member unit having at least an image bearing member and a charging member, and a developing unit having at least a developer bearing member. The apparatus main body has a controller, the image bearing member unit further has a first storage unit that stores first correction information corresponding to life information of the developing unit, the developing unit further has a second storage unit that stores second correction information corresponding to life information of the developing unit, and the controller acquires the first correction information and the second correction information, uses the acquired first correction information and the acquired second correction information to correct a charging bias to be applied to the charging member, and applies the corrected charging bias to the charging member.
US10656543B2

An electrophotographic photosensitive member (1) includes a conductive substrate (2) and a photosensitive layer (3). The photosensitive layer (3) is a single-layer photosensitive layer (3c) containing a charge generating material and an electron transport material. The electron transport material includes a compound represented by general formula (1) shown below. An amount of charge of calcium carbonate as measured by charging the calcium carbonate through friction with the photosensitive layer (3) is at least +7.0 μC/g. In general formula (1), R1 and R2 each represent, independently of each other, a halogen atom, for example. Further, m, n, and Y are as described in the description.
US10656542B2

An electrophotographic photosensitive member includes an undercoat layer, a charge generation layer, and a charge transport layer in this order. The undercoat layer contains a cured product of a composition containing an electron transport material, a particle having an average primary particle size of 10 nm or more, and a silicone oil. A content of the particle in the undercoat layer is 3% by mass or more and 20% by mass or less. A content of the silicone oil in the undercoat layer is 0.01% by mass or more and 10% by mass or less relative to the content of the particle.
US10656541B2

The present invention provides a measurement apparatus including a first filter unit including a plurality of first filters, and each configured to allow light having a different wavelength band to pass, a second filter unit including a plurality of second filters, and each configured to reduce light intensity of light and allow the light to pass, an obtaining unit configured to obtain data representing a transmittance of each of the plurality of second filters for a wavelength band of light having passed through each of the plurality of first filters, and a selection unit configured to select, based on the data obtained by the obtaining unit, from the plurality of second filters, one second filter arranged on an optical path together with one first filter among the plurality of first filters.
US10656536B2

A substrate support, includes: a substrate support location configured to support a substrate, and a vacuum clamping device configured to clamp the substrate on the substrate support location, wherein the vacuum clamping device includes at least one reduced pressure source to create a reduced pressure, at least one vacuum section connected to the at least one reduced pressure source, wherein the at least one vacuum section is configured to attract the substrate towards the substrate support location, and a control device configured to control a spatial pressure profile along the at least one vacuum section with which the substrate is attracted by the vacuum clamping device, wherein the control device includes a substrate shape data input to receive substrate shape data representing shape data of the substrate to be clamped, and wherein the control device is configured to adapt the spatial pressure profile in dependency of the substrate shape data.
US10656534B2

Methods and apparatuses for measuring a plurality of structures formed on a substrate are disclosed. In one arrangement, a method includes obtaining data from a first measurement process. The first measurement process including individually measuring each of the plurality of structures to measure a first property of the structure. A second measurement process is used to measure a second property of each of the plurality of structures. The second measurement process includes illuminating each structure with radiation having a radiation property that is individually selected for that structure using the measured first property for the structure.
US10656532B2

Systems and methods are disclosed that remove noise from roughness measurements to determine roughness of a feature in a pattern structure. In one embodiment, a method for determining roughness of a feature in a pattern structure includes generating, using an imaging device, a set of one or more images, each including measured linescan information that includes noise. The method also includes detecting edges of the features within the pattern structure of each image without filtering the images, generating a biased power spectral density (PSD) dataset representing feature geometry information corresponding to the edge detection measurements, evaluating a high-frequency portion of the biased PSD dataset to determine a noise model for predicting noise over all frequencies of the biased PSD dataset, and subtracting the noise predicted by the determined noise model from a biased roughness measure to obtain an unbiased roughness measure.
US10656531B2

A process of characterizing a process window of a patterning process, the process including: obtaining a set of inspection locations for a pattern, the pattern defining features to be applied to a substrate with a patterning process, the set of inspection locations corresponding to a set of the features, the set of features being selected from among the features according to sensitivity of the respective features to variation in one or more process characteristics of the patterning process; patterning one or more substrates under varying process characteristics of the patterning process; and determining, for each of the variations in the process characteristics, whether at least some of the set of features yield unacceptable patterned structures on the one or more substrates at corresponding inspection locations.
US10656524B2

A substrate on which exposure processing has not been performed is carried into a placement cooling unit and cooled. The cooled substrate is held and carried out from the placement cooling unit by a transport device. In the case where an exposure device is able to receive the substrate, the substrate that has been carried out from the placement cooling unit is transported to the exposure device by the transport device. In the case where the exposure device is unable to receive the substrate, the substrate that has been carried out from the platform cooling unit is carried into a cooling buffer unit by the transport device. In the cooling buffer unit, a temperature of the substrate is maintained. After the exposure device becomes able to receive the substrate, the substrate is carried out from the cooling buffer unit and transported to the exposure device by the transport device.
US10656519B2

An object of the present invention is to provide a resist stripper for stripping resist from a substrate with a metallic line and/or a metal oxide film, which has excellent stripping properties and shows reduced reattachment of stripped resist, and which is also excellent in antifoaming properties. The resist stripper contains: (A) an amine; (B) an organic solvent; and (C) 5.0 wt % or less of a sulfonic or carboxylic acid having a weight average molecular weight of 5,000 to 1,000,000 or a salt thereof, and the resist stripper is free of (D) water, or contains (D) 60 wt % or less of water.
US10656506B2

A high-speed display device inputs first video information having a first frame rate and a gradation of first number of bits, generates a set of M (integer of 2 or more) variation gradation values having a second number of bits smaller than the first number of bits and having a sum corresponding to the respective gradation values of the gradations of the first number of bits, and distributes the values from the set of the M variation gradation values corresponding to the respective gradation values of the first video information obtained from a variation gradation value output to the corresponding M frames for each frame of the first video information to generate second video information having a second frame rate that is M times the first frame rate and display video based on the second video information.
US10656502B1

A portable surveillance system having a camera enclosure with a support plate with converging sides and a support bracket. The support bracket having a pair of spaced apart slots that accept the pair of converging sides of the support plate, so that the support plate becomes wedged in the support plate slots when inserted into the converging slots of the support bracket. The support bracket may be attached to a support clamp or a support or a support base, the support base allows mounting from various other support structures, such as the support bracket, a support post. The support post may be supported by a person or structure found on a vehicle, such as a receiver hitch on a vehicle.
US10656494B2

A display panel and manufacturing method thereof, a display device and a method of controlling brightness are disclosed. The display panel includes a first transparent electrode layer, a second transparent electrode layer, a dielectric layer and a plurality of charged particles. The first transparent electrode layer is disposed at a light-exiting side of the display panel; the second transparent electrode layer is disposed at a light-incident side of the display panel; the dielectric layer is disposed between the first transparent electrode layer and the second transparent electrode layer. A plurality of charged particles are disposed in the dielectric layer; the refractive index of the second transparent electrode layer is larger than the refractive index of the dielectric layer.
US10656490B2

According to one embodiment, a display device includes first and second substrates, a display function layer, a polarizer, and a connecting material. The first substrate includes a first conductive layer. The second substrate includes a basement having first and second surfaces. The display function layer is disposed between the substrates. The polarizer is disposed above the second surface and includes a second conductive layer. The connecting material electrically connects the first and second conductive layers. The basement has a first hole. The polarizer has a second hole. The connecting material contacts the first and second conductive layers via the first and second holes.
US10656485B2

A display device includes a first translucent substrate, a second translucent substrate that is disposed on a display surface side while opposed to the first translucent substrate, and a first light reduction unit that reduces a transmission amount of visible light while overlapping a bright point defect portion in planar view in at least one of the first translucent substrate and the second translucent substrate. The first light reduction unit has a circular shape including a first region disposed in a center and a second region disposed around the first region, and transmittance to the visible light in the first region is higher than transmittance to the visible light in the second region.
US10656484B2

A display panel includes a gate line, a data line, a switching element, a pixel electrode, and a conductive member. The switching element includes a gate electrode, a source electrode, and a drain electrode. The gate electrode is electrically connected to the gate line. The source electrode is electrically connected to the data line. The pixel electrode is electrically connected to the drain electrode, includes a bar portion, and includes a branch. The branch is oblique relative to the bar portion in a plan view of the display panel. The conductive member includes an extending portion and a maker. The marker protrudes from the extending portion in the plan view of the display panel and overlaps the branch.
US10656483B2

A semiconductor apparatus (100) is provided with: a substrate (1); and a thin-film transistor (10). The thin-film transistor has: an oxide semiconductor layer (11) that includes a channel region (11a) and first and second contact regions (11b, 11c); a gate insulating layer (12) that is provided so as to cover the oxide semiconductor layer; a gate electrode (13) that is provided on the gate insulating layer and that overlaps the channel region via the gate insulating layer; a source electrode (14) that is electrically connected to the first contact region; and a drain electrode (15) that is electrically connected to the second contact region. This semiconductor apparatus is further provided with a light-shielding layer (2) arranged between the oxide semiconductor layer and the substrate, and the channel region is aligned to the part of the light-shielding layer overlapping the oxide semiconductor layer.
US10656482B2

A channel layer is formed of an oxide semiconductor. A first insulating film is provided on the channel layer, a source line, and a drain electrode, and includes a drain contact hole which reaches the drain electrode. A pixel electrode is provided on the first insulating film, includes a connection conductive layer which is connected to the drain electrode by the drain contact hole, and is formed of a transparent conductive material. The pixel electrode is covered with a second insulating film. A common electrode is provided on the second insulating film, includes an opening which faces the pixel electrode in a thickness direction, and is formed of a transparent conductive material. A metal layer, in conjunction with a part of the common electrode, forms a laminated structure, and includes a light-shield part which overlaps the channel layer at least partially in plan view.
US10656479B2

In an IPS-mode liquid crystal display device, the area of a terminal portion is decreased. A liquid crystal display device includes a TFT substrate and a counter substrate attached to the TFT substrate with a sealing material, and includes a display region and a terminal portion formed on the TFT substrate. A shielding transparent conductive film is formed on the outer side of the counter substrate. On the terminal portion, an earth pad formed with a transparent conductive film is formed on an organic passivation film. The shielding transparent conductive film is connected to the earth pad through a conductor. Below organic passivation film of the terminal portion, a wire is formed.
US10656474B2

Disclosed is a display panel with a robust structure to external static electricity. A sealant is disposed on a side surface and an upper surface of a signal line portion disposed on the outermost circumferential portion of the display panel to increase the distance between the signal line and the outside, and blocks external static elasticity. The signal line portion on the outermost circumferential portion of the display panel is in the form of a bulk electrode or in a mesh pattern comprised of horizontal lines and vertical lines having different structures. Externally introduced static elasticity is easily discharged, and signal lines are prevented from being damaged.
US10656471B2

The present disclosure discloses a liquid crystal display panel, its method of manufacture and a liquid crystal display device. The panel includes an array substrate, a color filter substrate, a sealant connecting the two substrates, and a liquid crystal between the two substrates; a photoluminescent material is disposed on at least one of the array substrate and the color film substrate corresponding to the sealant, the photoluminescent material is used to emit a second light under the excitation of a first light, the second light is used to solidify the sealant, the photoluminescent material is at least partially disposed on a light passage of the first light. By the above methods, the present disclosure can solve the incomplete solidified problem of the sealant causing by the light is blocked and the sealant cannot be completely irradiated when the sealant of the existing display panel is solidified.
US10656462B2

A liquid crystal display includes a light source and a liquid crystal panel, wherein the liquid crystal panel includes a first substrate on the light source, a second substrate facing the first substrate, a liquid crystal layer between the first substrate and the second substrate, a color conversion layer between the second substrate and the liquid crystal layer, and including a light emitting element configured to receive a first visible light from the light source and emit a second visible light, a first polarizing layer between the liquid crystal layer and the color conversion layer, and a first phase difference layer between the liquid crystal layer and the first polarizing layer.
US10656448B2

An image display apparatus includes: a display panel; a rear frame which is plate-shaped and located on a back side of the display panel; a plurality of LED sheets which are attached to the rear frame, and on which components, which are light sources for illuminating the display panel from the back side of the display panel, are mounted; and a relay sheet which is flexible and provided with wiring for relaying power to be supplied to the plurality of LED sheets.
US10656443B2

An optical interconnect system has first and second waveguides each with wedge-shaped cross-section at a first end, disposed over an optical modulator. The optical modulator is a surface-plasmon multi quantum well (SP-MQW) modulator, the first waveguide an input waveguide and the second waveguide configured an output waveguide. In embodiments the SP-MQW modulator has multiple semiconductor layers disposed atop a lower metal layer between 10 and 300 nanometers thick and configured such that incident light is reflected at the lower metal layer unless a voltage is applied to the semiconductor layers, when incident light is coupled into a surface plasmon mode in the lower metal layer.
US10656442B2

In an optical waveguide supplied with electricity by using a heater, miniaturization of the device is achieved by enhancing heat dissipation efficiency and heat resistance. In a modulator including an optical waveguide formed on an insulating film, a first interlayer insulating film that covers the optical waveguide, a heater formed on the first interlayer insulating film, and a second interlayer insulating film that covers the heater, a heat conducting portion adjacent to the optical waveguide and the heater and penetrating the first and second interlayer insulating films is formed.
US10656430B2

A stereoscopic display device including a barrier panel is provided. When a viewing distance of a viewer is out of the proper range, the stereoscopic display device may shift the blocking regions and the transmitting regions of the barrier panel. The stereoscopic display device may maintain the ratio of channels located within a barrier blocking region and a barrier transmitting region of the barrier panel by using the channels disposed within trigger regions of the barrier panel. Thus, the stereoscopic display device may provide a stereoscopic image of good quality to the viewer located at a region being out of the proper range.
US10656425B1

The inventive concept relates to a virtual reality experience device that enables a user to stably have a display module on according to the user's physical condition and accurately matches a viewpoint change intended by the user and a virtual reality viewpoint change, thereby realistically guiding exhibitions, performances, expositions, perspectives, and the like.
US10656419B2

Disclosed herein is a head-up display apparatus integrated with a cluster. The head-up display apparatus integrated with the cluster may include a cluster housing unit provided in front of a driver, a cover unit mounted to a top of the cluster housing unit and having a display unit, and a combiner unit rotatably coupled to the cover unit, light generated in the cluster housing unit being irradiated onto the combiner unit to form an image.
US10656416B2

An automotive head-up display system with an ordinary windshield comprises an ordinary windshield and a display device, wherein the distance between the inner surface and the outer surface of the ordinary windshield is equal across the ordinary windshield, and the inner surface and the outer surface are non-processed and free of any optical film. The display device includes an image source and an optical imaging module. Compared with the traditional technologies, the automotive head-up display system with an ordinary windshield of the invention can effectively solve the ghost/double image problem and reduce the assembling and production costs of the automotive head-up display system without using the wedged windshield or any optical film.
US10656415B2

Head-up display includes display device, projection optical system, a polarization member, and a first polarizer. Display device displays an image. Projection optical system includes refraction lens. Projection optical system projects the image displayed on display device to an observer. The polarization member is disposed between projection optical system and a reflection member that reflects light from projection optical system. Transmittance of the polarization member depends on a polarization direction of transmitted light. The first polarizer is disposed behind refraction lens on an optical path starting from display device. The first polarizer rotates a predetermined polarized component by a quarter of wavelength.
US10656414B2

A projection arrangement for a head-up display (HUD) is presented. The arrangement has a vehicle windshield that includes an outer pane and an inner pane bonded to one another via a thermoplastic intermediate layer. The vehicle windshield has an upper edge, a lower edge, and an HUD region. The arrangement also has a projector that is aimed at the HUD region to generate a virtual image perceivable by an observer situated within an eyebox. According to one aspect, the windshield has an HUD reference point, at which a central beam running between the projector and the center of the eyebox strikes the inner pane. According to another aspect, the thickness of the thermoplastic intermediate layer in the vertical course between the upper edge and the lower edge in at least a section corresponding to the HUD region is variable according to a wedge angle.
US10656405B2

A method for image capture for colorimetric analysis includes inserting a colorimetric sample into a slot formed in a base of a device. The device includes a lid surrounding and covering the base. The lid includes a central opening, and a plurality of lights are within the lid and surrounding the opening. The method also includes selecting one or more wavelengths and intensities for illuminating the sample within the device, illuminating the sample within the device with the selected one or more wavelengths and intensities by selectively activating one or more of the plurality of lights, adjusting a height of a camera over the sample to focus the sample in the camera, and capturing at least one image of the sample using the camera.
US10656404B2

A microscope module (300) for imaging a sample (270) includes at least one illumination objective (210) for producing an illumination beam along an illumination beam path (215) arranged to illuminate lower surfaces of the sample (270) and at least one detection objective (220) having a detection path (225). The detection path (225) is at an angle to the illumination beam path (215).
US10656401B2

An optical apparatus includes a first optical element and a second optical element capable of separating incident light according to a wavelength of the incident light. The first optical element includes a first separation section having first optical characteristics for reflecting light in a first wavelength band, transmitting light in a second wavelength band, and partially transmitting and partially reflecting light in a third wavelength band. The second optical element includes a second separation section having second optical characteristics for separating incident light that is incident in two wavelength bands including the first wavelength band or the second wavelength band and the third wavelength band into the light in the first wavelength band or the light in the second wavelength band and the light in the third wavelength band according to the wavelength.
US10656399B2

A variable magnification optical system includes a plurality of lens element, and includes in order from an object side, a first lens unit having a positive refractive power, a second lens unit having a negative refractive power, a third lens unit having a positive refractive power, and at least one lens unit. An aperture stop is either positioned between the second lens unit and the third lens unit, or positioned in the third lens unit. At the time of zooming from a wide angle end to a telephoto end, the first lens unit is fixed, the second lens unit moves from the object side to an image-plane side, and at least one of lens units positioned on an image side of the aperture stop moves. The first lens unit includes at least four positive lens elements and at least two negative lens elements.
US10656381B2

The present disclosure provides a dual-lens module driving device, which comprises a shell, wherein the shell comprises a top wall and a side wall, the top wall is provided with a first opening and a second opening, a base and a support frame, the support frame is provided with a first accommodating cavity and a second accommodating cavity, a first lens tube, a second lens tube, a first lens set, a second lens set, a first focusing coil set, a second focusing coil set, a first magnetic steel set, a second magnetic steel set, a circuit board, an optical anti-shaking coil set, a first elastic sheet set, a second elastic sheet set, a translational suspension system and a connecting terminal. Compared with the related arts, the dual-lens module driving device of the present disclosure is provided with two lens sets, so that the shooting range is increased; the two lens tubes share one support frame, so that the structure is compact; the two focusing coil sets are provided to improve the shooting accuracy; and the dual-lens module driving device is also provided with the optical anti-shaking coil set, which can effectively compensate for a dither amplitude position and improve the shooting effect and sharpness.
US10656372B2

An imaging lens and imaging apparatus are disclosed. In one example, an imaging lens includes a first lens group having positive refractive power, a second lens group having a positive refractive power, and a third lens group having positive or negative refractive power, the first lens group being fixed with respect to an image plane, the second lens group traveling along an optical axis to the object side, and the third lens group being fixed with respect to the image plane. The first lens group may include two positive lenses and a negative lens. The second lens group may include a second a-lens component having negative refractive power and a second b-lens component having positive refractive power. The third lens group may include a third a-lens component having positive refractive power and a third b-lens component having negative refractive power.
US10656371B2

An optical arrangement including an optical component with a basic body and at least one retaining element, which is designed as an integral element of the optical component or which is actively connected to the optical component is disclosed. The retaining element is affixed on a first contact position of the basic body and a carrier, on which the optical component is supported by means of the retaining element. The retaining element is affixed on a second contact position of the carrier and is arranged in such a manner that it can be pivoted between a first contact position and a second contact position. The arrangement is conducted in such a manner that during a thermal expansion of the basic body in the direction of the carrier and/or with a thermal expansion of the retaining element a movement of the first contact position along the optical axis is generated.
US10656369B2

An optical assembly comprises a mounting structure, a plurality of optical elements, and a conformal filler material. The mounting structure has a plurality of axially spaced circumferentially recessed undercuts formed into an inner surface of the mounting structure. The optical elements are axially spaced in the mounting structure. At least one of the optical elements includes an undercut in a perimeter edge surface. The undercut is aligned with one of the plurality of undercuts in the mounting structure, such that the aligned circumferential undercuts define a void. The conformal filler material is cast in place in the void to create a mechanical lock between the optical element and mounting structure.
US10656361B2

An optical fiber termination system includes an optical fiber termination unit assembly, an enclosure, and a plurality of electronic or optical devices within the enclosure. The assembly includes a housing having an interior surface, a patch panel terminal coupled to the interior surface of the housing, an optical assembly, an input optical fiber, and a plurality of optical fibers. The input optical fiber extends into the housing to the optical signal assembly. The output optical fibers extend out of the housing from the patch panel terminal. The enclosure is separate from the housing. The optical signal assembly divides a light beam emitted from the optical signal assembly into a plurality of light beams that are received by the patch panel terminal. The output optical fibers are configured to convey respective light beams to any one or any combination of the plurality of electronic and optical devices in the enclosure.
US10656352B2

A micro-mirror array for optical coupling in a waveguide array including, a transparent body having a slanted portion, a sidewall portion, and a bottom portion, the sidewall portion and the bottom portion each respectively facing the slanted portion, and wherein a complementary shape of a conventional form off-axis mirror is arranged on the slanted portion, and a reflective coating on at least a portion of the complementary shape.
US10656347B2

A connector attached optical fiber unit includes: an MT optical connector which includes a joining end surface formed at a front end of the MT optical connector and a hollow portion opened to a rear end surface opposite to the joining end surface; a tubular boot which includes a front end insertion portion inserted and fixed into to the hollow portion and a tube attachment portion formed at a rear end portion of the tubular boot, the tubular boot extending to a rear side from the MT optical connector; a protection tube into which the tube attachment portion is inserted and to which the tube attachment portion is fixed; and a plurality of optical fibers which include tip portions inserted and fixed into the MT optical connector and are accommodated inside the boot and the protection tube.
US10656341B2

A suspension arm assembly including at least two members relatively rotatable about each other at a joint, with at least one of the joints comprising an infinite rotation joint. The infinite rotation joint allows the members at the infinite rotation joint to have unlimited rotation relative to one another. The infinite rotation joint is configured to pass at least an optical signal therethrough. The infinite rotation joint includes a stator and a rotor. At least two portions of the infinite rotation joint are separable and can automatically form a unit when adjacent arms are connected together such that the infinite rotation joint can be separated into the at least two portions. The at least two portions are configured to be automatically connected to allow the optical signal to pass therethrough once the at least two portions are engaged.
US10656339B2

An apparatus comprises a plurality of optical fibers and a lid member having one or more surfaces with grooves formed therein. The lid member defines a first plurality of grooves that are each dimensioned to partly receive an optical fiber of the plurality of optical fibers. The apparatus further comprises a substrate comprising a plurality of waveguides arranged at a predefined depth relative to a reference surface of the substrate, and a plurality of ribs extending from the reference surface. Each rib of the plurality of ribs is dimensioned to engage with a respective groove of a second plurality of grooves of the lid member. Engaging the plurality of ribs of the substrate with the second plurality of grooves of the lid member provides an optical alignment of the plurality of optical fibers with the plurality of waveguides.
US10656335B2

A method for cleaving a fiber comprises rotating an actuator to apply a positioning force to a blade in a scoring assembly. The positioning force produces a score in the surface of a fiber, and the method further comprise applying a cleaving force to the fiber to cleave the fiber. The method can further include measuring the magnitude of the positioning force and rotating the actuator until the magnitude corresponds to a pre-determined magnitude. A cleaver comprises a scoring assembly, drive assembly, and a cleaving assembly. The scoring assembly includes a holder having one or more blades, and an actuator. The cleaving assembly secures a fiber in the scoring assembly. The drive assembly rotates the actuator to position one or more blades to score the surface of the fiber. The cleaving assembly applies a cleaving force to the fiber to cleave the fiber at the location of the score.
US10656332B2

An optical coupling device for producing an optical coupling between an optical fiber and photonic circuits. The device includes a substrate and at least two coupling stages integrated on the substrate, and: each coupling stage includes a grating coupler configured to implement an optical coupling centered on a respective central wavelength; the multiple grating couplers are superimposed on top of each other, along an axis orthogonal to the substrate plane; at least one of the grating couplers is insensitive to polarization. The device can form, for example, a wide band coupler, wherein each portion of the spectrum is coupled by a coupling stage. As an alternative, such a device can form an emitting and receiving coupler, where emission and reception spectra are each coupled by a respective coupling stage.
US10656328B2

Fiber laser having a monolithic laser resonator having laser affected zones for providing laser beams having wavelengths below 800 nm and from between 400 nm to 800 nm. Methods of using femtosecond lasers to form fiber Bragg gratings, volume Bragg gratings, space gratings, and laser beam delivery patterns for changing the index of refraction within optical fibers.
US10656323B1

A molded component assembly includes a printed circuit board with a first face and an oppositely facing second face. Multiple light emitting diodes are mounted on a first portion of the first face. Multiple electronics components are mounted on a second portion of the first face. A light guide of a light translucent polymeric material has a contact surface, multiple light outlets, and multiple light emitting diode receiving pockets defining recesses in the contact surface, each sized to receive one of the light emitting diodes when the contact surface directly contacts the first portion of the first face, with visible light from the light emitting diodes transmitted through the light guide to the light outlets. A first polymeric material is molded over a portion of the second portion of the first face encapsulating the electronics components and contacting a portion of the light guide.
US10656318B2

There is provided an optical body including: a base material; and a light extraction unit that is formed on a surface of the base material and that extracts, to an outside of the base material, internally propagating light that is injected in an inside of the base material from a side surface of the base material. The light extraction unit is formed of a convex microlens array, and a maximum inclination angle of the convex microlens array substantially coincides with a maximum propagation angle of the internally propagating light.
US10656314B2

Provided is a shaped article having excellent jet blackness and also, by transmitting light with specific wavelength, can display a specific color. The shaped article is a shaped article for which the L* value of reflected light is 35 or less and the total light transmittance is 1% or less, wherein, in a wavelength range of 380 nm or more to 780 nm or less, the wavelength at which the maximum value of light transmittance is exhibited is in a range of 380 nm or more to less than 680 nm, and the expressions Tα≥0.1% and 0%≤Tβ≤Tα/2 are satisfied, or, in a wavelength range of 380 nm or more to 780 nm or less, the wavelength at which the maximum value of light transmittance is exhibited is in a range of 680 nm or more to 780 nm or less, and the expressions Tβ≥10% and 0%≤Tα≤Tβ/2 are satisfied. In the expressions, Tα is the maximum value of light transmittance in a wavelength range of 380 nm or more to less than 680 nm, and Tβ is the maximum value of light transmittance in a wavelength range of 680 nm or more to 780 nm or less.
US10656313B2

A method of manufacturing a light scattering film, the method includes providing a light transmissive base having a film shape. A plurality of holes is defined in the light transmissive base, using a perforating device. Each of the plurality of holes has a diameter ranging from about 100 nm to about 5 μm. A spacing between each of the plurality of holes is about twice to about five times as large as an average diameter of each of the plurality of holes.
US10656311B2

A nanotweezer comprises a first metastructure including a first substrate, a first electrode, and a plurality of plasmonic nanostructures; a second metastructure including a second substrate and a second electrode, wherein the second substrate and the second electrode are substantially transparent to light within a wavelength range; a microfluidic channel between the first metastructure and the second metastructure; a voltage source configured to selectively apply an electric field between the first electrode and the second electrode a light source configured to selectively apply an excitation light to the microfluidic channel, the excitation light having a wavelength within the wavelength range. In response to the selective application of the electric field and/or the excitation light, nanoparticles within the microfluidic channel are manipulated.
US10656309B2

A wire grid polarizer (WGP) can be durable and have high performance. The WGP can comprise an array of wires 13 on a substrate 11. An overcoat layer 32 can be located at distal ends of the array of wires 13 and can span channels 15 between the wires 13. A conformal-coat layer 61 can coat sides 13s and distal ends 13d of the wires 13 between the wires 13 and the overcoat layer 32. The overcoat layer can comprise aluminum oxide. An antireflection layer 33 can be located over the overcoat layer 32.
US10656306B2

A computer system and method for improving the accuracy of predictions of the amount of renewable energy, such as solar energy and wind energy, available to an electric utility, and/or refine such predictions, by providing improved integration of meteorological forecasts. Coefficient values are calculated for a renewable energy generation model by performing a regression analysis with the forecasted level of renewable energy posted by the utility, forecasted weather conditions and measures of seasonality as explanatory variables. Accuracy is further enhanced through the inclusion of a large number of time series variables that reflect the systematic nature of the energy/weather system. The model also uses the original forecast posted by the system operator as well as variables to control for season.
US10656297B2

A system for self-tuning sonic transmitters which transmits a plurality of frequencies into a downhole formation, then identifies which of the transmitted frequencies generates the best response from the formation. The system then uses the best frequency identified for subsequent logging of formation data until a subsequent tuning sequence is initiated.
US10656294B2

The present disclosure describes methods and systems, including computer-implemented methods, computer program products, and computer systems, for generating a velocity model for a subsurface area. One computer-implemented method includes obtaining, at a data processing apparatus, source wavefields and residual wavefields, wherein the source wavefields and the residual wavefields are calculated based on seismic data associated with the subsurface area; decomposing, by the data processing apparatus, the source wavefields and the residual wavefields into a subsurface azimuth and reflection angle domain; calculating, by the data processing apparatus, a plurality of gradient direction components based on the decomposed source wavefields and the residual wavefields; scaling, by the data processing apparatus, the plurality of gradient direction components based on azimuths and angles associated with each of the plurality of gradient direction components; calculating a gradient direction based on the scaled gradient direction components; and generating the velocity model using the gradient direction.
US10656285B2

The invention relates to navigation, particularly, to detection of indoor and outdoor positions of mobile devices. Technical result of the invention is to improve the accuracy of mobile terminal position detection at time of occurrence of a specific trigger event and decrease of load on sensor, computing, communication and other resources of the mobile terminal at times when a trigger event occurs. Mobile terminal positioning technique at the trigger event moment, is characterized by the following sequence: receipt of series of readings of inertial and non-inertial sensors, identification of intervals, during which readings of at least one sensor generates a stationary process; then detection of at least one point of time, when at least one stationary process is replaced by another stationary process; then identification of parameters of at least one pattern of movement for at least one stationarity interval; then detection of at least one position of the mobile terminal according to readings of non-inertial sensors; estimation of mobile terminal path according to parameters of at least one pattern of movement and then of position corresponding to change of one stationary process to another; then detection of mobile terminal position at time corresponding to a specific trigger event.
US10656268B2

An acoustic spatial diagnostic circuit couples to an array of microphones to successively sample an acoustic environment surrounding a wireless transceiver to generate an acoustic spatial map of activity within the environment based on sets of acoustic samples and execute one or more actions based on a related portion of the acoustic spatial map exhibiting one or more correlations with a spatial context condition of a wireless trained transceiver.
US10656266B2

Described in detail herein are methods and systems for estimating storage capacity of a storage unit disposed in a facility based on echoes detected by microphones. The microphones can detect sounds generated in the warehouse and reflected off the storage unit structures. The microphones detect the intensity of the sounds. The microphones can encode the sounds and the intensity of the sounds in time-varying electrical signals and transmit the time-varying electrical signals to a computing system. The computing system can decode the sounds and the intensity of the sounds from the time-varying electrical signals and estimate storage capacity of a storage unit from which the sounds reflected off of based on the intensity of the sounds.
US10656260B2

Embodiments relate to machines including a movable part. A transmitter circuit is configured to generate a radio signal and to transmit the radio signal towards the movable part via a transmit waveguide. A reflection of the radio signal from the movable part is received by a receive waveguide and guided through the receive waveguide to a receiver circuit, which is configured to determine a position and/or a speed of the movable part based on at least the received radio signal. The transmitter circuit and the receiver circuit may be comprised by a radar sensor.
US10656258B2

A system is provided with a ranging transmitter and receiver pair or a transceiver pair. The system classifies a group of radio frequency (RF) channels between ranging transmitter and receiver pairs. In a first scenario, a ranging transmitter transmits at least three channels to an active reflecting receiver. A ranging receiver then receives reflected instances of the at least three transmitted channels from the active reflecting receiver. A processor of the system then determines a ranging measurement between the ranging transmitter and the active reflecting receiver based on measured phase changes and received signal strength and assigns a classification to the determined ranging measurement indicating a relative level of accuracy for the determined ranging measurement. The classification may be a general classification, a linearity classification, a multipath classification, or a combination classification that is based on both a linearity classification and a multipath classification.
US10656252B1

Disclosed herein are examples of ladar systems and methods where data about a plurality of ladar returns from prior ladar pulse shots gets stored in a spatial index that associates ladar return data with corresponding locations in a coordinate space to which the ladar return data pertain. This spatial index can then be accessed by a processor to retrieve ladar return data for locations in the coordinate space that are near a range point to be targeted by the ladar system with a new ladar pulse shot. This nearby prior ladar return data can then be analyzed by the ladar system to help define a parameter value for use by the ladar system with respect to the new ladar pulse shot. Examples of such adaptively controlled parameter values can include shot energy, receiver parameters, shot selection, camera settings, and others.
US10656249B1

A device is provided that measures the variance in ovality, for example, in a pipe, in comparison with a circle. The device will measure, for example, a number of distance points around the outside diameter of a pipe using, in one embodiment, laser distance measuring technology, and optionally using a combination of wireless data transfer including Bluetooth and CAD technology, a series of data points can be generated and plotted. It will then be determined which data points match a circle template, and which do not, with the difference in ovality then being calculated. The device can also measure, through distance measurements, the depth of pits on the exterior surface of a pipe.
US10656238B2

Disclosed herein are techniques and systems for tracking assets using wireless beacons attached to the assets. In some embodiments, an asset tracking system may receive, from a mobile device, a first device identifier (ID) of a first wireless beacon that is presently associated with a site. At a different time, the asset tracking system may receive, from the mobile device, a second device ID of a second wireless beacon. The asset tracking system may determine whether a time between the receiving of the two device IDs is less than a threshold amount of time, and, if so, the asset tracking system may associate the wireless beacon to the site.
US10656237B2

A mobile wireless transmitter is detected from location data received for a plurality of wireless transmitters obtained through crowdsourcing or wardriving. Location data is held until sufficient time or enough location data is collected from which movement of a wireless transmitter can be detected. Sets of measurement data for each wireless transmitter are determined from the collected location data. The sets of measurement data may include, e.g., Service Set Identifier (SSID), a round trip time (RTT) variance, and/or a neighbor relationship graph for each wireless transmitter. The mobile wireless transmitter is identified from the sets of measurement data. An almanac database may then be published in which any mobile wireless transmitters are identified or excluded.
US10656236B2

At an emergency response system, a first location including a latitude and a longitude at which a first device is located is received. At an emergency response system, an air pressure reading measured by the first device is received. Using the air pressure reading and a mean sea-level barometric measurement, a first elevation of a device is computed. Using the first location, a corresponding street address is computed. Using the street address and the first elevation, a floor number is computed. The street address and the floor number are transmitted to a second device.
US10656235B2

The concepts, systems and method described herein provide direction finding (DF) methods based on a minimum distance (MINDIST) search to principal components. In an embodiment, the method includes capturing samples of data from one or more array elements. The samples may be samples of a signal received at the array elements. The method includes generating a spatial sample covariance matrix (SCM) using the samples of data, extracting principal components from the SCM and generating a principal component table using angle and frequency measurement for each of the principal components. The method further includes determining a distance between a test point and each value in the principal component table and identifying a minimum distance point corresponding to a direction of the received signal. The minimum distance point may correspond to direction of arrival of a signal on the one or more array elements.
US10656231B1

Some embodiments include memory arrays. The memory arrays can have global bitlines extending along a first horizontal direction, vertical local bitlines extending perpendicularly from the global bitlines, and wordlines extending along a second horizontal direction which is perpendicular to the first horizontal direction. The global bitlines may be subdivided into a first series at a first elevational level, and a second series at a second elevational level which is different from the first elevational level. The global bitlines of the first series can alternate with the global bitlines of the second series. There can be memory cell material directly between the wordlines and the vertical local bitlines. The memory cell material may form a plurality of memory cells uniquely addressed by wordline/global bitline combinations. Some embodiments include cross-point memory cell units that have areas of about 2F2.
US10656225B2

A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus according to an embodiment includes a static magnetic field magnet, a gradient coil, a space forming structure, a magnet supporting member, and a space forming structure supporter. The gradient coil is provided on an inner circumferential side of the static magnetic field magnet. The space forming structure forms a patient space on an inner circumferential side of the gradient coil. The magnet supporting member supports the static magnetic field magnet on a floor surface. The space forming structure supporter is attached to the magnet supporting member and supports the space forming structure.
US10656217B2

A voltage regulator controller includes a first pin for receiving aggregate temperature information from a plurality of power stages, a plurality of second pins each for receiving phase current information from one of the power stages, control circuitry for controlling the power stages, detection circuitry for detecting signal levels at the first and second pins, and fault analysis circuitry for identifying the type of reported fault and the power stage that reported the fault based on the detected signal levels at the first and second pins and state information accessible by the controller. Aggregate temperature information is reported at the first pin in a first nominal range, and phase current information is reported at each of the second pins in a second nominal range. Each reported fault type has a unique fault signature at the first and second pins, which is outside at least one of the nominal ranges.
US10656202B1

Examples of the present disclosure provide example devices that include an integrated circuit that has debugging capability. In some examples, a device includes an integrated circuit die. The integrated circuit die includes an input/output (IO) base cell and a debug port. The IO base cell has an interface node and a feedback node. The interface node is configured to be coupled to memory, such as via an interposer, for communication therebetween. The IO base cell is configurable to selectively output to the feedback node a signal that is on the interface node. The debug port has an input node and an output node. The input node is electrically connected to the feedback node. The debug port is configurable to selectively output to the output node a signal that is on the input node. The output node is configured to be coupled to a pin exterior to the integrated circuit die.
US10656201B2

According to one embodiment, a semiconductor device performs processing based on a user program by using a user program, which is used in a normal mode, as an analysis program and making a plurality of peripheral circuits having the same function operate in lock-step where the plurality of peripheral circuits operate in the identical manner, and makes failure diagnosis of the peripheral circuits by determining match or mismatch of a plurality of analysis information respectively obtained from the plurality of peripheral circuits operating in lock-step.
US10656197B2

The present disclosure relates to a computationally efficient technique for determining a location of a fault on a power line using local measurements and remote current measurements. For example, a method may include receiving one or more local measurements of a power line. The method includes receiving a signal indicating one or more remote current measurements of the power line. The method includes determining a location of a fault on the power line based on a fault voltage multiplied by a conjugate of a compensated differential current. The method includes providing the location of the fault.
US10656194B2

Methods and apparatus for measurement of a surface charge profile of an electrostatic chuck are provided herein. In some embodiments, an apparatus for measurement of a surface charge profile of an electrostatic chuck includes: an electrostatic charge sensor disposed on a substrate to obtain data indicative of an electrostatic charge on an electrostatic chuck; and a transmitter disposed on the substrate and having an input in communication with an output of the electrostatic charge sensor to transmit the data.
US10656190B2

Embodiments of the disclosure are directed towards electricity fraud detection systems that involve a behavioral detection ecosystem to improve the detection rate of electricity fraud while reducing the rate of false-positives. More specifically, machine learning algorithms are eschewed in favor of two separate models that are applied sequentially. The first model is directed to improving the detection rate of electricity fraud through the use of detectors to identify customers engaging in suspicious behavior based on the demand profiles of those customers. The second model is directed to reducing the rate of false-positives by identifying potential legitimate explanations for any suspicious behavior. Subtracting away the suspicious behavior with legitimate explanations leaves only the identified, unexplained suspicious behavior that is highly likely to be associated with fraudulent activity.
US10656183B2

A test and measurement instrument, such as an oscilloscope, including one or more ports to receive one or more signals from a device under test, a trigger enable logic circuit configured to output a trigger enabled signal when a trigger enable event occurs within the one or more signals, the trigger enable event being a real-time event of the one or more signals, one or more trigger logic circuits configured to generate a plurality of trigger signals when the trigger enable signal is received, each trigger signal being generated when a trigger event occurs within one of the one or more signals, and an acquisition circuit configured to acquire and store data in a memory in response to each of the trigger signals.
US10656174B2

A physical quantity sensor has a first movable electrode section which has a portion facing a first fixed electrode section and a second movable electrode section which has a portion facing a second fixed electrode section, and is provided with a movable mass section which is formed in a shape which encloses a first fixed electrode side fixed section, a second fixed electrode side fixed section, a first movable electrode side fixed section, and a second movable electrode side fixed section in planar view.
US10656167B2

The present invention provides methods of dosing Factor VIII or Factor IX chimeric and hybrid polypeptides. The present invention further provides high-sensitivity methods of quantifying an amount of activated FIX protein in a test sample.
US10656166B2

A method of affecting blood chemistry using a supplement may comprise: measuring a blood glucose level; determining a blood glucose level; and if the blood glucose level exceeds a threshold, administering a supplement comprising lysine, zinc, and vitamin C.
US10656163B2

The present description relates to a method for determining the risk of a pregnant woman with chronic hypertension developing early or late onset pre-eclampsia. The present description provides methods useful for determining risk that a pregnant individual with chronic hypertension will develop an early pre-eclampsia or late pre-eclampsia. Useful combination of biochemical markers including PlGF and sP-Selectin and related clinical population studies are described herein.
US10656150B2

A system of detecting a blood analyte includes a lateral flow test strip and a test strip holder, the lateral flow test strip located in the test strip holder. The system further includes a meter for receiving the test strip holder.
US10656148B2

Chromonic azo dyes are particular types of chromonic molecules that are alignable homeotropically (aggregated molecules stack perpendicularly to the surface) on different types of substrates, often without the need of any special surface treatment. This feature enables the optimization of a detection device with increased sensitivity based of the alignment distortion created by a biological immune complex.
US10656144B2

The present invention provides methods for determining the level or status of minimal residue disease (MRD) in a multiple myeloma (MM) patient including analyzing peripheral natural killer (NK), NK-T and T cell distribution and/or activation, and quantifying inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and growth factors in a biological sample obtained from an MM patient to provide a peripheral immune profile; and obtaining a level or status of MRD in the MM patient from the peripheral immune profile, wherein if the peripheral immune profile exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the MM patient is positive for MRD.
US10656143B2

The present disclosure relates to the field of medical technology, which provides methods and apparatuses for identifying red blood cells infected by plasmodium. The methods may include: obtaining a forward-scattered light signal, a side-scattered light signal and an optional fluorescence signal from cells in a blood sample; obtaining a first two-dimensional scattergram according to the forward-scattered light signal and the side-scattered light signal, or obtaining a three-dimensional scattergram according to the forward-scattered light signal, the side-scattered light signal and the fluorescence signal; and identifying cells located in a predetermined area of the first two-dimensional scattergram or the three-dimensional scattergram as the red blood cells infected by plasmodium. The apparatuses perform the methods. The methods and apparatuses can have better identification accuracy.
US10656138B2

The present invention provides a test barrel for placing a test paper card. The test barrel comprises a barrel body and a barrel lid; wherein the barrel body comprises a place reminding board arranged on the barrel body; and the barrel lid comprises an elastic piece arranged on the barrel lid and mating with the place reminding board. The test barrel for placing a test paper card according to the present invention is simple in structure and convenient in operation, and greatly reduces time for test. In addition, a place reminding structure is arranged on the test barrel, which facilitates use of the test barrel for the user and achieves sealing reminding. Further, the test result is accurate, the reusage rate is high, and cleaning is convenient.
US10656131B1

Cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) may include a pulsed light emitting diode (LED) configured to emit a light towards a photomultiplier tube (PMT). CEAS may also include a cell, which includes a pair of reflective mirrors located at opposite ends of the cell. The pair of mirrors are configured to bounce the light back and forth a plurality of times increasing the effective path length of the cell. The PMT is configured to detect the emitted light for ozone absorption measurement.
US10656124B2

A system and method are disclosed for interrogating a liquid in a container. In one embodiment, methods are provided to interrogate and identify a container material type and a liquid within a container.
US10656123B2

Sensors, as well as systems and methods of using the same are provided. Aspects of the sensors include a piezoelectric base, a plurality of surface-associated compositions that are stably associated with the piezoelectric base, and a plurality of crosslinking compositions that are configured to crosslink one or more surface-associated compositions in the presence of an analyte. The sensors, systems and methods described herein find use in a variety of applications, including the detection of an analyte in a sample.
US10656117B2

Physical parameters of macromolecules are determined by measuring electrical current I over time for translocation events as the macromolecules in solution move between two liquid compartments that are separated by and fluidically coupled through a synthetic nanopore. Values of charge, volume, shape, rotational diffusion coefficient, and dipole moment are derived from the measurements.
US10656109B1

A test apparatus for evaluating thermal properties of a test specimen across a wide range of thermal conductivities and temperature ranges using a flat plate cup cryostat. The test apparatus includes: a heater assembly having an upper surface to receive a test specimen; a cold plate positioned on top of the test specimen; a vessel comprising an outer cylindrical tube closed on a bottom end by the cold plate; an inner cylindrical tube concentrically received in an upper portion of the outer cylindrical tube above the vessel to vent the vessel; insulation material surrounding at least the heater assembly, test specimen, cold plate, and vessel; a sensor that detects boiloff or evaporation rate of liquid from the vessel vented from the inner cylindrical tube; temperature sensors positioned to detect temperatures of the heater assembly and the cold plate; and a data recording device to record the boiloff or evaporation rates and temperature values.
US10656105B2

An x-ray source and an x-ray interferometry system utilizing the x-ray source are provided. The x-ray source includes a target that includes a substrate and a plurality of structures. The substrate includes a thermally conductive first material and a first surface. The plurality of structures is on or embedded in at least a portion of the first surface. The structures are separate from one another and are in thermal communication with the substrate. The structures include at least one second material different from the first material, the at least one second material configured to generate x-rays upon irradiation by electrons having energies in an energy range of 0.5 keV to 160 keV. The x-ray source further includes an electron source configured to generate the electrons and to direct the electrons to impinge the target and to irradiate at least some of the structures along a direction that is at a non-zero angle relative to a surface normal of the portion of the first surface. The x-ray source further includes at least one optical element positioned such that at least some of the x-rays are transmitted through the first material and to or through the at least one optical element.
US10656100B2

The implementations described herein generally relate to a sensing device for use in the semiconducting industry, which sense process parameters to control semiconductor processes. More specifically, the implementations relate to packaging for a surface acoustic wave (SAW) based devices or wireless or RF-responsive sensors for use in the harsh processing environments of a semiconductor processing chamber such that the neither the sensor and its components nor the chamber components interfere with or contaminate one another. The sensor packaging may include various packaging layers with or without protective coatings and a waveguide. The packaging may have a thickness chosen such that the thickness is less than the electromagnetic wavelength of a SAW sensor radio wave. The sensing devices may be disposed in cavities of the chamber, the processing volume, on chamber components, and/or on the substrate.
US10656086B2

A measurement apparatus measures an optical characteristic with high robustness and with a simple configuration. A measurement apparatus of the present invention measures optical characteristic of a sample. The measurement apparatus includes an irradiation unit to irradiate the sample with light emitted from a light source and transmitted through an opening member, an imaging unit to detect an image formed by the light irradiated by the irradiation unit and reflected by the sample, and a processing unit to obtain the optical characteristic of the sample on the basis of an output of the imaging unit. The opening member comprises plural openings through which the light emitted from the light source is transmitted, the irradiation unit irradiates the sample with the light transmitted through the plurality of openings, and the imaging unit detects an image formed by the light transmitted through the plurality of openings and reflected by the sample.
US10656085B2

Systems for the monitoring of bacterial levels in samples, using spectral analysis of the light diffracted from a substrate with an ordered array of pores having diameters enabling the targets to enter them. The trapping pore array is cyclically illuminated by light of different wavelengths, and the light diffracted from the pore array is imaged by a 2-dimensional detector array, with one pixel, or a small group of pixels receiving light from each associated pore. The temporal sequence of frames provides a series of images, each from the reflection of a different wavelength. A time sequenced readout of the signal from the pixel or pixels associated with each pore region, provides a spectral plot of the reflected light from that pore region. Spectral analysis of the light intensity from this series of different wavelength enables the effective optical thickness (EOT) of each pore to be extracted.
US10656070B2

A technique is presented for aligning, in a desired region within a flow chamber of a flow cell, a non-spherical biological entity carried in a sample. The flow chamber has a rectangular cross-section. A bottom flow input module, a top flow input module and a sample input module provide a viscoelastic first fluid, a second viscoelastic fluid, and the sample, respectively, to the flow chamber. The first and the second viscoelastic fluids laminarly flow along a bottom and a top wall of the flow chamber and the sample laminarly flows sandwiched between them. By controlling rate of flow of the first and/or the second viscoelastic fluids the sample flow, and thus the non-spherical biological entity, is focused in the desired region. A gradient of sheer within the sample flow set up due to the first and second viscoelastic fluids orients the non-spherical biological entity in the desired region.
US10656069B2

A flow cell including a flow channel through which a sample fluid and a sheath fluid flow, a sample flow channel that introduces the sample fluid into the flow channel, and at least one sheath flow channel that introduces the sheath fluid into the flow channel. The flow channel includes a flow merging section where the sample flow channel and the sheath flow channel merge, a flattened section that is disposed downstream of the flow merging section, that is formed in line with one wall face of wall faces facing across the flow merging section, and that is shallower in depth than the flow merging section, and a tapered section that connects the flow merging section with the flattened section and that gradually decreases in depth on progression downstream. The sample flow channel introduces the sample fluid into the flow merging section along the one wall face of the wall faces facing across the flow merging section, and the sheath flow channel introduces the sheath fluid into the flow merging section from a direction such that the sheath fluid flows so as to press the sample fluid against the one wall face.
US10656058B2

The present invention relates to a material for aggregating blood cells, used in the preparation of a paraffin block for diagnosing circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and a method for preparing a paraffin block using the same, and more specifically, to a method for detecting CTCs present in the blood through blood sample collection in the preparation of a paraffin block from CTCs, which are present in a very small amount in the blood. The present invention is non-invasive and simple, and thus is very useful for the diagnosis of cancer recurrence and metastatic cancer and for prognosis prediction, and can be a remarkable breakthrough in cancer treatment through the analysis of the onset, metastasis and recurrence mechanisms of cancer.
US10656053B2

A hand-held device for measuring tire pressure and temperature including a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor, an optical pointer, a processor responsive to an output of the pressure sensor and the temperature sensor, and a display. The processor is configured to output a value on the display indicative of a measured tire pressure.
US10656048B2

A system reproduces aerodynamic boundary layer transition conditions in a wind tunnel test environment under ambient to cryogenic temperature conditions. The system includes a test component disposed in the test environment that defines an exterior surface. A trip dot is mounted on the test component and has a first state, in which a distal surface of the trip dot is at a first elevation relative to the exterior surface of the test component, and a second state, in which the distal surface of the trip dot is at a second elevation relative to the exterior surface of the test component. An actuator is operably coupled to the trip dot and configured to transition the trip dot between first and second states. A controller remotely causes the actuator to transition the trip dot between the first and second states.
US10656043B2

A battery pack for electric vehicles and a method of detecting cooling water leakage in the battery pack for electric vehicles are provided. The battery pack includes a moisture collection unit that is disposed in the battery pack and a moisture discharge unit that is disposed in a bottom of the moisture collection unit. A moisture discharge detection unit detects whether moisture is being discharged through the moisture discharge unit and a controller detects and adjusts the amount of moisture discharged through the moisture discharge unit.
US10656040B2

A differential pressure monitoring apparatus includes a case having a continuous sidewall including a first end closed a by first end cap, and a second end closed by a second end cap. A differential pressure monitoring unit mounted in the case includes a differential pressure sensor in communication with the external environment, a temperature and humidity sensor in communication with an internal atmosphere inside the case, a data processor operatively connected to the sensors, data storage, an information display viewable through the case, a non-gas permeable membrane tube in connection with the differential pressure sensor and an internal environment and a harsh and/or corrosive gas filter in connection to the differential pressure sensor.
US10656039B2

An apparatus includes a sensor body, a sensor configured to measure differential pressure, and first and second pressure inputs in or on the sensor body. The pressure inputs are configured to provide multiple input pressures to the sensor. Each pressure input includes a barrier diaphragm configured to move in response to pressure and an overload diaphragm configured to limit movement of the barrier diaphragm. The overload diaphragm is also configured to exert a preload force against the sensor body. The overload diaphragm of each pressure input may include multiple convolutions. Bases of the convolutions may be configured to provide the preload force, and tops of the convolutions may be separated from the sensor body by gaps. Tops of the convolutions that are non-adjacent may be configured to provide the preload force, and tops of the convolutions between the non-adjacent convolutions may be separated from the sensor body by gaps.
US10656028B2

A semiconductor device that may include temperature sensing circuits is disclosed. The temperature sensing circuits may be used to control various parameters, such as internal regulated supply voltages, internal refresh frequency, or a word line low voltage. In this way, operating specifications of a semiconductor device at worst case temperatures may be met without compromising performance at normal operating temperatures. Each temperature sensing circuit may include a selectable temperature threshold value as well as a selectable temperature hysteresis value. In this way, temperature performance characteristics may be finely tuned. Furthermore, a method of testing the temperature sensing circuits is disclosed in which a current value may be monitored and temperature threshold values and temperature hysteresis values may be thereby determined.
US10656024B2

A molten material apparatus can include a container including a wall at least partially defining a containment area and an opening extending through the wall. The molten material apparatus can include a protective sleeve mounted at least partially within the opening of the wall of the container. A thermocouple can be positioned within an internal bore of the protective sleeve. A method of processing molten material can include inserting a thermocouple into a protective sleeve fabricated from a refractory ceramic material, and measuring a temperature of material within a containment area of a container with the thermocouple.
US10656020B2

A light detection device includes: a Fabry-Perot interference filter provided with a light transmission region; a light detector configured to detect light transmitted through the light transmission region; a package having an opening and accommodating the Fabry-Perot interference filter and the light detector; and a light transmitting unit arranged on an inner surface of the package so as to close an opening, the light transmitting unit including a band pass filter configured to transmit light incident on the light transmission region. When viewed from a direction parallel to the line, an outer edge of the Fabry-Perot interference filter is positioned outside an outer edge of the opening, and an outer edge of the light transmitting unit is positioned outside the outer edge of the Fabry-Perot interference filter.
US10655997B2

The invention relates to a flowmeter for liquid/gas two-phase cryogenic fluids, including: a separator of the liquid/gas phases, preferably made up of vessel, the cryogenic fluid being admitted into the top portion of said vessel; a liquid flow sensor, located on a liquid pipe in fluid communication with the bottom portion of the vessel, the vessel being placed in the top position in the space relative to the liquid flow sensor; a gas pipe, in fluid communication with the upper portion of the vessel, provided with a flow sensor of the gas phase circulating in said gas pipe; a three-way valve capable of recovering, in two of the channels thereof (A/B), the downstream end of said gas pipe and the downstream end of said liquid pipe; and a device for measuring the level of liquid in the vessel, preferably comprising two level sensors: a bottom level sensor and a top level sensor.
US10655989B2

Pressure sensors that may be used in flowrate monitoring or measuring systems, where the pressure sensors may enable simple, low-cost designs that are readily implemented. One example may provide a pressure sensor having a built-in flow path with a dimensional variation. Pressures of a fluid on each side of the dimensional variation may be compared to each other. The measured differential pressure may then be converted to a flowrate through the flow path.
US10655983B2

A method for calibrating aircraft tri-axial balance include steps of: receiving a first indicator signal; tumbling an aircraft by 360 degrees by specified times according to the first indicator signal; collecting and recording first geomagnetic data; receiving a second indicator signal; rotating the aircraft laterally by 360 degrees by the specified times according to the second indicator signal; collecting and recording second geomagnetic data; receiving a third indicator signal; rotating the aircraft horizontally by 360 degrees by the specified times according to the third indicator signal; collecting and recording third geomagnetic data; and obtaining a calibrated geomagnetic curve according to the first geomagnetic data, the second geomagnetic data and the third geomagnetic data. The method and the device for calibrating the aircraft tri-axial balance according to an embodiment of the present invention are able to fully calibrate geomagnetic sensors of the aircraft and better eliminate interference of the geomagnetic sensors.
US10655980B2

An electronic device and a method are described. The electronic device is adapted to be installed on a handlebar of a vehicle, the electronic device comprising: a processor; a communication module; a display comprising a halo-shaped display; a memory for storing therein executable instructions, the instructions upon being processed by the processor, causing the electronic device to: receive, via the communication module, navigational data from a mobile device, the navigational data being associated with a circular visual signal indication, the circular visual signal indication being indicative of at least one of (i) an upcoming directional instruction and (ii) a distance between a current location and an upcoming location associated with the upcoming directional instruction; and, cause to display, on the halo-shaped display, of the circular visual signal indication.
US10655965B2

A rotation rate sensor having a first structure movable with respect to the substrate, a second structure movable with respect to the substrate and with respect to the first structure, a first drive structure for deflecting the first structure with a motion component parallel to a first axis, and a second drive structure for deflecting the second structure with a motion component parallel to the first axis. The first and second structures are excitable to oscillate in counter-phase, with motion components parallel to the first axis, the first drive structure having a first spring mounted on the substrate to counteract a pivoting of the first structure around an axis parallel to a second axis extending perpendicularly to a principal extension plane, the second drive structure having a second spring mounted on the substrate to counteracts a pivoting of the second structure around a further axis parallel to the second axis.
US10655960B2

A method is provided to assist adjustment for a movement path of a probe. A coordinate measuring machine includes a probe having a tip for detecting a surface of an object, and a movement mechanism for moving the probe, and measures a shape of the object by allowing the probe tip to scan the surface. A controller controls operation of the coordinate measuring machine by calculating a scanning path for allowing the probe tip to perform scanning movement and the movement path followed by the probe when the probe tip moves along the scanning path, setting control points on a line connecting each position of the probe tip and each corresponding position of the probe accepting a change in position of the control points by a user, and changing the movement path accordingly. An adjustment guide unit in the controller allows the control points to move collectively.
US10655955B2

The present disclosure provides a time-space coding method and apparatus for generating a structured light coded pattern. Different coded patterns are outputted in time division by driving different light-emitting points based on a regular light-emitting lattice so as to time-space label a target object or a projection space. This method effectively overcomes the limitations of the fact that in the prior art, a plurality of projectors is needed to project different patterns in time division when it is required to project time-space labels of a plurality of patterns. According to the present method, by driving different light-emitting elements on the light-emitting substrate, different coded patterns are formed, and by using a time-division output technology, time-space labeling of an object may be finalized with only one projector. Moreover, this method may significantly improve the accuracy and robustness of three-dimensional depth measurement through time-space coding with a depth decoding algorithm.
US10655954B2

In a conventional moiré method, achieving both measurement accuracy and dynamic measurement and balancing field of view and measurement accuracy have been difficult. The present invention makes it possible to handle conventional moiré fringes as a grating for generating phase-shifted second-order moiré fringes, use a spatial phase shift method algorithm to accurately analyze the phases of the second-order moiré fringes before and after deformation, and determine shape from the phase differences between gratings projected onto the surface of an object of measurement and a reference surface and determine deformation and strain from the phase differences between the second-order moiré fringes, before and after deformation, of a repeating pattern on the object surface or a produced grating. As a result, it is possible to measure the three-dimensional shape and deformation distribution of an object accurately and with a wide field of view or dynamically and with a high degree of accuracy.
US10655946B2

An apparatus includes a kinematic nest that supports an element having a spherical surface, a rotation mechanism that rotates the element, and processor that activates the rotation mechanism.
US10655944B1

A bullet seating die for assembling shoulder breeching rifle cartridges that aligns the bullet co-axial with the case shoulder. Bullet seating depth is set relative to the datum line of the case shoulder and is adjustable. Shoulder breeching rifle cartridges use the shoulder, exclusively, to position the cartridge in the chamber. Therefore, cartridges assembled with this die will position the bullet concentric with the bore of the barrel and at a set distance from the bore with greater precision and consistency than cartridges produced by die of previous designs.
US10655938B2

An aerosol generating system is provided, including: a storage portion for storing an aerosol-forming substrate, an aerosol generating element for generating an aerosol from the aerosol-forming substrate, control circuitry in communication with the storage portion, and disabling component within the storage portion for rendering the storage portion inoperable in the aerosol generating system in response to a disable signal from the control circuitry. There is also provided a method in an aerosol generating system, including sending a disable signal from the control circuitry to the disabling component following a determination that an amount of the aerosol-substrate in the storage portion is below a threshold level or following a determination of a malfunction in the system.
US10655936B2

Apparatus and associated methods relate to coordinating guided-missile targeting among multiple guided missiles using inter-missile optical communications. An inter-missile communications channel is optically established with a first guided missile illuminating a first target within a scene aligned along a first missile axis, and a second guided missile receiving the illumination reflected by the first target. By illuminating the first target within the scene, the first guided missile designates the first target. The second guided missile can be configured to navigate to the designated first target or to select a second target not designated by the first guided missile. In some embodiments, the second guided missile can be configured to illuminate its selected second target so as to designate the selected second target and to communicate the designation to other guided missiles. By facilitating communications among a plurality of guided missiles, missile targeting can be coordinated during a flight portion of a guided-missile operation.
US10655934B2

This application discloses systems and methods of a laser device which could be used to aim firearms. The device includes a laser diode capable of emitting two or more different wavelengths of light to form a laser using a collimator, for example a single collimator or a compound collimator. In embodiments using a single collimator, the collimator can be repositioned at different distances from the laser diode to ensure proper positioning to create a laser beam for the particular wavelength of light emitted from the laser diode. In embodiments using a compound collimator, the collimator could have different collimating regions and be configured to rotate to cause the different collimating regions to receive light emitted from the laser diode such that different light wavelengths are properly collimated without needing to alter the distance from the collimator to the laser diode.
US10655929B2

A gun rail accessory mounting system that is symmetrical in both the Y axis, forward to backwards plane, and in the Z axis, over and under plane is described. Additionally, the two mounting brackets can have similar external dimensions and form factors to allow full 3 axis symmetry. This symmetry allows for an accessory to be mounted on gun rails of the PICATINNY, WEAVER, GLOCK, or any other rail type, where a recoil locking slot is used.
US10655921B2

Tube-bundle heat exchange unit (1) for internals of heat exchangers or reactors, comprising: at least one tube bundle (2); a plurality of baffles (3) associated with said tube bundle and defining through-openings according to a predefined arrangement, each opening being passed through by one of more tubes of the tube bundle, and a shell (6) which surrounds said tube bundle and said baffles, wherein the assembly of the tube bundle and the shell can be disassembled and the shell is structurally collaborating with the tube bundle through said baffles.
US10655916B2

A method for testing the internal structure of a refractory part, has the following steps: a) by a transmission antenna, sending at least one electromagnetic wave, termed a “pulse”, into the refractory part to be tested; b) by a reception antenna, receiving the pulse after reflection thereof by a reflecting zone of the refractory part; c) analyzing the time offset between the two preceding steps in order to deduce the position, in the refractory part, of the reflecting zone, the pulse having a duration less than or equal to 0.5 nanoseconds.
US10655914B2

The present invention provides methods and systems for a portable modular drying device that includes a distributing manifold for receiving a blower device that distributes air through the device, and at least one drying manifold having a first end, a second end, and at least one opening between the first end and the second end for distributing the drying air selectively secured to the distributing manifold. The device further includes at least one drying hose or glove tube selectively secured to the at least one opening of the at least one drying manifold.
US10655913B2

A method for energy storage which integrates charging a liquid in an energy storage facility through consumption of a power from the grid with reduction pressure of natural gas through expander at the co-located city gate station and includes recovery of mechanical power of the natural gas expander and cold thermal energy of the expanded natural gas for an increase in production of liquid air per each kW of low-demand power consumed from the grid during off-peak hours.
US10655910B2

The present application provides a cooler for cooling a beverage fluid flow. The cooler may include a thermoelectric cooling device in communication with a fluid heat exchanger with the fluid flow therein and a water permeable membrane. The cooler further may include a fan positioned about the water permeable membrane for evaporative cooling therein.
US10655907B2

A computer-implemented method, according to one embodiment, includes: detecting a first type of food item added to a first compartment of a refrigerator, determining an ideal storage temperature associated with the type of food item added to the first compartment, adjusting an ambient storage temperature in the first compartment to substantially match the ideal storage temperature associated with the first type of food item, detecting a second type of food item added to a second compartment of the refrigerator, determining an ideal storage temperature associated with the second type of food item added to the second compartment, and adjusting an ambient storage temperature in the second compartment to substantially match the ideal storage temperature associated with the second type of food item. The ideal storage temperature associated with the first type of food item is different than the ideal storage temperature associated with the second type of food item.
US10655877B2

According to certain embodiments, a system comprises a controller and an HVAC system with components comprising an evaporator unit comprising an evaporator coil, an indoor fan, and a discharge air duct and a condenser unit comprising a compressor, a condenser coil, and an outdoor fan. The system is configured to determine that a first or a second level of evaporator coil freeze risk is present and to communicate an instruction to the HVAC system with a first or a second action to counteract the freeze risk. For example, in certain embodiments, the actions comprise changing the indoor fan speed, changing the compressor speed, and changing the outdoor fan speed.
US10655876B1

Programmable controller technology, in which data is received that identifies a particular type of HVAC system component that is to be controlled by a programmable controller. Based on receiving data identifying the particular type of HVAC system component, configuration information is accessed for the particular type of HVAC system component. A configuration is determined for one or more interface ports of the programmable controller based on the configuration information for the particular type of HVAC system component. The interface ports of the programmable controller are configured according to the determined configuration. A connection between the particular type of HVAC system component and the programmable controller that satisfies the determined configuration is detected. Based on detecting the connection between the particular type of HVAC system component and the programmable controller that satisfies the determined configuration, the particular type of HVAC system component is controlled through the one or more interface ports.
US10655874B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for tracking computing enthalpy measurements indicating abnormalities associated with operation of a heating, ventilating, and cooling (HVAC) system. In some implementations, a computer-implemented method includes: obtaining, from one or more sensors associated with the HVAC system, (i) temperature data including a source vent temperature measurement and a return vent temperature of the HVAC system, and (ii) humidity data including a source vent humidity measurement and a return vent humidity measurement of the HVAC system; computing an enthalpy measurement associated with operation of the HVAC system; determining that the computed enthalpy measurement indicates an efficiency issue associated with operation of the HVAC system; and in response to determining that the computed enthalpy measurement indicates the efficiency issue associated with operation of the HVAC system, taking action related to the HVAC system.
US10655872B2

A load management system including a number of sensors structured to sense characteristics of a managed area, a controller including a processor structured to estimate occupancy of the managed area based on outputs of the number of sensors and to implement a load management scheme, a number of circuit breakers, at least one of the number of circuit breakers being electrically connected to a corresponding load circuit and including a metering circuit structured to meter energy provided to the load circuit and a device control unit structured to control one or more load devices electrically connected to the load circuit based on the load management scheme. The processor is structured to implement the load management scheme based on outputs of the sensors and metering information of one or more of the circuit breakers.
US10655864B2

A cooking appliance is provided having a cooking cavity with an opening defined at its base. The cooking appliance also includes a modular accessory that is reversibly receivable in said opening. The modular accessory defines a sump space that extends below the base of the cooking cavity through said opening. The modular accessory can be a modular sump; or it can be a steamer, a water-basin for steaming and/or sous-vide cooking, a holder for briquettes or wood chips used to smoke food, a plate-warming compartment, a pizza stone or a grill rack. The appliance can further include a heating element that extends outside and adjacent to a sidewall of said modular accessory, partially surrounding said modular accessory.
US10655862B2

A heatable cavity (2) for a kitchen appliance (1), particularly for an oven, wherein the heatable cavity (2) comprises a plurality of cavity walls defining a cooking chamber (7) for cooking foodstuff, and a central opening for placing foodstuff into the cooking chamber (7), wherein the outer surface of at least one of the cavity walls comprises a coating (10) that comprises a material with a low emissivity, preferably wherein said material with a low emissivity has a lower emissivity than oxidized steel.
US10655859B2

A gas turbine engine includes a compressor section and a combustion section with a scroll, a scroll baffle, a combustor, and a combustor case. The scroll defines an interior scroll flow path. The scroll baffle surrounds the scroll to define a scroll cooling passage. The combustor case surrounds the combustor and the scroll baffle to define a collector space. Moreover, the engine includes a turbine section with a turbine rotor and a turbine rotor blade shroud that includes a shroud cooling passage. The compressor flow path is fluidly connected to the scroll for cooling the scroll. Also, the scroll cooling passage is fluidly connected to the shroud cooling passage for cooling the turbine rotor blade shroud. Furthermore, the shroud cooling passage is fluidly connected to the collector space. Flow from the collector space flows into the combustor, along the interior scroll flow path, toward the turbine rotor.
US10655858B2

The present disclosure provides assemblies for cooling a liquid fuel cartridge unit within a combustor head end. In one embodiment, the cooling is accomplished passively as air from the head end air plenum is directed into a cooling channel radially outward of a liquid fuel delivery conduit. In another embodiment, the cooling of the liquid fuel cartridge unit is accomplished actively as air is directed through a first air flow conduit radially inward of the liquid fuel delivery conduit and then redirected through a second air flow conduit radially outward of the liquid fuel delivery conduit.
US10655856B2

A liner panel is provided for use in a combustor of a gas turbine engine. The liner panel includes a major dilution passage having a lip and a first seal boss. The liner panel also includes a minor dilution passage having a second seal boss adjacent the first seal boss.
US10655849B2

The method in a recovery boiler comprises estimating the first melting temperature T0 of the fly ash depositing on heat transfer surfaces, the estimating being based on potassium (K) content of the fly ash; measuring or estimating the temperature Tss of superheated steam; evaluating a temperature difference TD1 between the first melting temperature T0 and the temperature Tss of the superheated steam, the temperature difference TD1 providing an estimate of the risk of corrosion; and selecting a control action for influencing the temperature difference TD1. Alternatively or additionally, the method comprises estimating the sticky temperature TSTK of the fly ash depositing on heat transfer surfaces, the estimating being based on potassium (K) and chlorine (Cl) contents of the fly ash; measuring or estimating the temperature TFG of the flue gases; evaluating a temperature difference TD2 between the sticky temperature TSTK and the temperature TFG of the flue gases; the temperature difference TD2 providing an estimate of the risk of plugging; and selecting a control action for influencing the temperature difference TD2.
US10655841B2

An air moving device includes a housing member, a rotary fan assembly, and a nozzle. The air moving device further includes a light source member mounted within the nozzle. The light source member can be placed within a flow of air moving out the end of the nozzle in a generally columnar pattern. The flow of air can be used to cool the light source member.
US10655828B2

An LED package structure includes an LED frame, a driver frame unit, a housing, LED chips, a driver chip, and a light-permeable package body. The LED frame includes a carrying segment and two bent leads connected to the carrying segment. The driver frame unit includes two side frames each having a functional segment and a bent lead. The housing has a cavity exposing the carrying segment and the two functional segments. The bent leads protrude from a lateral surface of the housing, and curvedly extend to a bottom surface of the housing. The LED chips are mounted on the carrying segment. The driver chip is fixed to one of the two functional segments, and is electrically connected to the other functional segment and the LED chips. The light-permeable package body is filled in the cavity so as to embed the LED chips and the driver chip.
US10655821B2

An LED device holder, an LED lighting system and a method of manufacturing an LED lighting system are described herein. An LED lighting system includes a holder defining an aperture. The aperture has a perimeter and a fillet adjacent the perimeter. The fillet has a radius greater than or equal to 2.0 mm and less than or equal to 4.6 mm. An LED array is mechanically coupled to the holder. The LED array has a light emitting surface exposed through the aperture.
US10655817B2

A light emitting apparatus includes a light source, a thin plate-shaped mirror unit which guides light from the light source, and a tension imparting means which imparts tension to the mirror unit. The tension imparting means may have at least any one of a first tension imparting mechanism which imparts tension in a first direction toward the light source along a surface of the mirror unit and a second tension imparting mechanism which imparts tension in a second direction opposite to the first direction, and further, the tension imparting mechanism may have at least any one of a third tension imparting mechanism which imparts tension in a third direction in parallel with the light source along the surface of the mirror unit and a fourth tension imparting mechanism which imparts tension in a fourth direction opposite to the third direction.
US10655814B2

A vehicle luminaire includes: a flange; a mount portion provided with a housing portion opened to an end opposite to the flange side; a board provided inside the housing portion; at least one light-emitting element provided on the board; at least one resistance provided on the board and electrically connected to the light-emitting element; at least one control element provided on the board and electrically connected to the light-emitting element, the control element having an electric resistance increasing as a temperature rises; and a temperature control unit configured to control heat generated from at least one of the light-emitting element and the resistance and transferred to the control element via the board or via the board and the mount portion.
US10655800B2

A method and device for emitting electromagnetic radiation at high power using nonpolar or semipolar gallium containing substrates such as GaN, AlN, InN, InGaN, AlGaN, and AlInGaN, is provided. In various embodiments, the laser device includes plural laser emitters emitting green or blue laser light, integrated a substrate.
US10655794B2

There is provided a lighting device (100) comprising a housing comprising a frangible light exit window (110) and a fitting (120) including a first electrical connector (122) inside said housing. Within the housing there is a carrier assembly (130) comprising a plurality of SSL elements (132), and a second electrical connector (134) in contact with the first electrical connector (122). The second electrical connector (134) is held in contact with the first electrical connector (122) by the light exit window (110). This lighting device is relatively safe as if the light exit window (110) breaks the electrical components of the carrier assembly (130) may not be live.
US10655792B2

An LED filament includes LED chips in an array, two conductive electrodes, conductive wires, an enclosure coating, and an auxiliary piece. The chips are connected with one another. The electrodes are corresponding to the chips. Each electrode is connected to a corresponding LED chip at an end of the array. The wires connect the chips and the electrodes. The wires are respectively between every two adjacent chips and between each of the electrodes and the corresponding chip at an end of the array. The coating is on two or more sides of the array and the two electrodes. A portion of each of the electrodes is exposed from the coating. The auxiliary piece is in the coating and overlaps one of the wires between each of the electrodes and the corresponding one of the two chips respectively at two ends of the array on a radial direction of the filament.
US10655790B2

A lighting device (1, 11, 21) comprising a substrate (4, 14, 24), a plurality of light sources (3, 13, 23), and a housing (2, 12, 22) of a light transmissive material. The substrate has a first side (4a, 14a, 24a) and a second side (4b, 14b, 24b) and the plurality of light sources are arranged on the first side of the substrate. The light sources have a common general output direction. The housing is arranged to transmit light surrounding the substrate, having a first portion (2a, 12a, 22a) of said housing and a second portion (2b, 12b, 23b) of the housing arranged substantially opposite the first portion with respect to the substrate. The plurality of first optical elements (6, 16, 26) may be arranged substantially opposite the output direction of the plurality of light sources along the first portion of the housing facing the first side of the substrate. The substrate is adapted to allow transmission of light. The plurality of first optical elements are arranged to transmit part of the light emitted by the light sources and reflect part of the light emitted by the light sources through the substrate towards the second portion of the housing.
US10655787B2

A valve mechanism includes a first plunger, a second plunger, a seal member, and a valve element. The first plunger has a thread engaging with a threaded portion provided on an inner wall of the flow passage. The first plunger is movable along the axis by rotating around the axis. The second plunger has a first end and a second end. The first end engages with the first plunger such that the first plunger is relatively rotatable with respect to the second plunger. The second plunger is movable along the axis by rotating the first plunger. The seal member is provided to surround the second plunger. The valve element has a back end engaging with the second end such that the valve element is movable along the axis according to movement of the second plunger so as to be seated on and separated from a valve seat.
US10655786B1

A pressure gauge system for a tank with a variable flow rate that provides a user with an indication of how much usable time is left in a pressurized gas tank given a particular selected flow rate or operational condition and what pressure of gas is left in the tank.
US10655775B2

An expandable socket for attachment to a portable media player or a portable media player case. The expandable socket generally includes a platform, a skin coupled to the platform, a button coupled to the skin opposite the platform, and a biasing element. The skin includes an outer wall, an inner wall spaced radially inward of the outer wall, and a cavity defined by the inner wall, wherein the skin is deformable between a collapsed configuration and an expanded configuration. The biasing element is arranged within the cavity of the skin between the platform and the button, such that the biasing element is at least partially surrounded by the inner wall of the skin. The biasing element is configured to bias the skin into the expanded configuration.
US10655768B2

A breakaway connector apparatus for joining a first tubing section to a second tubing section includes a first member and a second member positioned axially opposite the first member. The second member includes a male portion extending from the second member. A housing is disposed between the first and second members, the housing including a socket shaped to receive the male portion of the second member. An axial passage provides a flow path defined inside the housing between the first and second members. A stem is disposed in the axial passage between the first and second members. A first valve is disposed on the first or second member, and the stem engages the first valve and opens the first valve to allow flow between the first and second members through the axial passage when the male portion of the second member is fully received in the socket of the housing.
US10655766B2

A flange to be assembled to an end portion of a duct member includes a plurality of pre-fabricated fastener entry areas disposed in an inner wall member, and a plurality of first fastener indicators disposed on an outer wall member, wherein the pre-fabricated fastener entry areas are substantially aligned with the first fastener indicators, each of the plurality of first fastener indicators being sized to guide and each corresponding fastener entry areas being sized to receive a self-tapping screw fastener there through to fasten the wall members to the end portion of the duct member. The fastener entry areas and correspondingly aligned fastener indicators, respectively, may be spaced apart such that the fasteners can be inserted at regular intervals along the length of the flange and the length of the end of the duct member.
US10655762B2

A threaded retainer including a body having a through-bore therein, a first screw thread operatively arranged on an outer surface of the body, wherein, the first screw thread is arranged to secure the threaded retainer to a fluid connector having a second screw thread, the first screw thread corresponding with the second screw thread, a first shoulder arranged on the body, wherein the first shoulder is arranged to abut against a second shoulder of the fluid connector, and an axial gap between the fluid connector and the threaded retainer, wherein the axial gap is formed when the fluid connector is secured to the threaded retainer.
US10655759B2

A plastic drain pipe for drainage includes a first end, a second end, and a pipe sub-section between the first end and the second end. The pipe sub-section includes a collapsible section of corrugated pipe, a first non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe, and a second non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe. The collapsible section of corrugated pipe has a first joining area and a second joining area. The first non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe is connected to the collapsible section of corrugated pipe at the first joining area, and the second non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe is connected to the collapsible section of corrugated pipe at the second joining area. An outermost diameter of the collapsible section of corrugated pipe is approximately the same as an outermost diameter of the first non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe and an outermost diameter of the second non-collapsible section of corrugated pipe.
US10655752B2

A valve manifold includes a manifold and a valve. The manifold has a recess, a first fluid port, and a second fluid port. The valve is disposed entirely within the recess and is fluidically interposed between the first fluid port and the second fluid port. The valve has a rotatable needle having an end that is configured to be displaced relative to a valve seat upon rotation.
US10655748B2

A latching valve has a valve body defining a fluid chamber and supply, delivery, and exhaust ports. A solenoid within the chamber includes a pole piece defining a fluid passage between the chamber and exhaust port and having one end facing the exhaust port and another end defining a first valve seat. A coil is disposed about the pole piece. A housing has a portion radially outward of the coil and portions extending radially inwardly on opposite sides of the coil radially aligned with the pole piece and an armature. The armature has one end configured for engagement with the first valve seat and another end configured for engagement with a second valve seat formed in the valve body between the fluid chamber and supply port. A return spring biases the armature towards the second valve seat. A magnet ring is disposed about the armature in contact with the housing.
US10655747B2

A double-armature solenoid valve may include an adjustable first armature and an adjustable second armature arranged axially opposite each other along a common adjustment axis, and a coil mechanism configured to provide a magnetic flux. The valve may also include a first restoring spring, a second restoring spring, an inlet opening arranged on an axial side of the first armature opposite the second armature, and an outlet opening arranged on an axial side of the second armature opposite the first armature. The inlet opening and the outlet opening may be connected via a fluid duct. The first armature and the second armature may respectively have a different closing time such that when an energization of the coil mechanism is at least one of interrupted and reduced the inlet opening is closable more quickly via the first armature than the outlet opening via the second armature.
US10655746B2

A solenoid valve includes a coil, a valve element receiving portion, a valve element placed inside of the valve element receiving portion, and a valve portion configured to open and close a gas flow path accompanied with move of the valve element. Either a surface of the valve element opposed to the valve element receiving portion or a surface of the valve element receiving portion opposed to the valve element has a first groove that is extended in an axial direction and a second groove that is arranged to intersect with the first groove and to be extended in a circumferential direction. The first groove is formed to be extended at least from the second groove toward a valve portion-side.
US10655745B2

A pressure regulator includes a valve body having a fluid inlet and a fluid outlet connected by a fluid passageway. An orifice is disposed between the fluid inlet and the fluid outlet. A valve seat is disposed within the fluid passageway. A movable valve plug is disposed within the fluid passageway, and the valve plug interacts with the valve seat to selectively open or close the fluid passageway. A cage is disposed in the fluid passageway, the cage surrounds the valve plug, and the cage includes a mechanical stop that limits movement of the valve plug within the cage away from the valve seat.
US10655743B2

A carbide insert assembly for use in a control valve having a valve stem, a flow passage, and a valve seat disposed in the flow passage. The carbide insert assembly includes a housing, a carbide insert disposed within the housing, and a metal retainer adjacent the carbide insert. The metal retainer is fused to the housing.
US10655741B2

A rotary joint includes a tubular case body, an outer cylinder body provided to be relatively rotatable inside the case body, an inner shaft body provided to be relatively rotatable inside the outer cylinder body, a first mechanical seal for forming flow passages that connect a first flow passage of the case body and a second flow passage of the outer cylinder body to each other by dividing a first annular space formed between the case body and the outer cylinder body, and a second mechanical seal for forming flow passages that connect a third flow passage of the outer cylinder body and a fourth flow passage of the inner shaft body to each other by dividing a second annular space formed between the outer cylinder body and the inner shaft body.
US10655731B2

As a mode switching shift line when a sub-transmission mechanism is switched from a first-speed to a second-speed, a first mode switching shift line, which prioritizes a learning of a hydraulic pressure with which a Low brake starts to slip and a learning of a hydraulic pressure with which a High clutch starts to transmit a torque, or a second mode switching shift line, which is a shift line in a Low side with respect to the first mode switching shift line and prioritizes a fuel efficiency of an engine is selected, and the sub-transmission mechanism is switched from the first-speed to the second-speed on the basis of the selected mode switching shift line.
US10655729B2

A gearbox assembly for an electric power assisted steering apparatus comprises a gearbox housing which houses a worm shaft and a gear wheel, the worm shaft being supported relative to the housing by a main bearing assembly at an end closest to the motor and by a tail bearing assembly at an end furthest from the motor. The main bearing assembly comprises an inner race and an outer race separated by bearing elements, the outer race being supported by a carrier that is supported by an axle that is in turn secured to gearbox housing, the axle defining a pivot axis for the worm shaft that is located on the side of the worm shaft closest to the wheel gear and extends in a direction orthogonal to the axis of the worm shaft and parallel to the axis of the wheel gear.
US10655723B2

A pulley assembly having a body, a shaft mount and a plurality of bolts is disclosed. The body is aligned to the shaft mount by providing a tight tolerance between a shoulder portion of the bolt and a neck portion of a counter sunk hole formed in the body. Additionally, an outer surface of the body may have a pattern of friction lines or patches formed by fusing particulate matter to the outer surface with heat generated by a laser beam.
US10655719B2

Disclosed is an electric differential with a torque vectoring function. The electric differential includes: a main drive mechanism; a bevel gear differential; a TV control drive mechanism used for outputting control power; a first single-row planetary gear train, of which a first sun gear is coaxially and fixedly connected with a first half shaft and a first gear ring is connected with a control output end; a second single-row planetary gear train, of which a second gear ring is fixed to a drive axle housing, a second planet carrier is fixedly connected with a first planet carrier and a second sun gear is supported on the first half shaft through a bearing.
US10655712B2

A lever mechanism for converting a motion from linear to rotary includes a guiding bar, a slider which slides along the guiding bar, and a lever. The lever includes a cylindrical element and a pair of slot links which are fixed frontally on the cylindrical element and between which the slider is arranged. The slider includes at least two bushes for supporting a pivot which is adapted to act on the slot links. The bushes are mutually separated by a space to accommodate a reserve of lubricant.
US10655695B2

A motorized vehicle includes an engine, a transmission having an input coupled to the engine and an output, and a controller for controlling at least the transmission. A braking system includes a brake sensor and a brake pack configured to reduce a speed of the vehicle. The brake sensor is disposed in electrical communication with the controller. A main hydraulic pump is operably driven by the engine and an output hydraulic pump is operably driven by the transmission output. A brake coolant valve is disposed in fluid communication with the main hydraulic pump and the output hydraulic pump. The brake coolant valve is controlled between an open position and a closed position. The main hydraulic pump and the output hydraulic pump are fluidly coupled to the brake pack when the brake coolant valve is in its open position.
US10655694B2

A friction engagement device of an automatic transmission is provided, which includes a rotational member comprised of at least one of a drum member and a hub member including a spline part engaged with a friction plate to be movable in axial directions of the automatic transmission, and a drive force transmitting part for exchanging a drive force with another rotational element. The drive force transmitting part of the rotational member is made of a ferrous metal. A part of the rotational member other than the drive force transmitting part is made of a clad material containing a first material that is easily joined to the ferrous metal and a second material that is less easily joined to the ferrous metal compared to the first material and weighs less than the ferrous metal.
US10655690B2

A drag ring for a clutch includes an axis, a circumferential surface extending about the axis and first and second pluralities of segments. The first plurality of segments includes first and second ends integrally joined with the circumferential surface and a first center segment protruding radially outward from the circumferential surface. The second plurality of segments includes third and fourth ends integrally joined with the circumferential surface and a second center segment protruding radially inward from the circumferential surface. In an example embodiment, the first and second pluralities of segments are circumferentially distributed about the circumferential surface. In an example embodiment, the circumferential surface includes first and second continuous edges with a distance therebetween. A circular line extending about the circumferential surface at a midpoint of the distance is interrupted by the first and second pluralities of segments.
US10655688B2

A fan-coupling device with a unitary magnetic pole is disclosed. The magnetic pole is of a unitary, ring-shaped construction and includes a choke space and a ridge that promote an increased amount of magnetic flux generated by an electromagnet to travel to a magnetic armature on a fluid flow valve, resulting an increase in the amount of magnetic force that acts upon the valve. This is an improvement over the prior art two-piece magnetic pole structure and over a unitary magnetic pole without the choke space and ridge. The magnetic pole also includes apertures in which protrusions on a sound dampening gasket are inserted to reduce the noise resulting from the armature striking the magnetic pole.
US10655679B2

A seal assembly for a bearing compartment of a gas turbine engine includes a seal carrier, a seal element, a seal plate, and a trough. At least a portion of the seal element is within the seal carrier. The seal plate is in contact with the seal element and is configured to rotate relative to the seal element. The trough extends around the seal plate and comprises an annular channel positioned to capture oil slung from the seal plate.
US10655674B2

A double-row self-aligning roller bearing, which is suitable for receiving an axial load and a radial load, and loads having different magnitudes acting on rollers in two rows, and achieves sufficient load capacity for the rollers that receive axial load within the constraint of dimensional standards, is provided. The double-row self-aligning roller bearing includes inner and outer rings; and rollers in two rows arranged in a bearing width direction interposed between the inner and outer rings and having lengths different from each other. The roller has an outer peripheral surface of a cross-sectional shape along a raceway surface of the outer ring having a spherical shape. Length of the longer rollers is equal to or greater than 39% of the bearing width. A ratio of contact angle of the shorter rollers and contact angle of the longer rollers is within a range of 1:4 to 1:2.
US10655671B2

A nested bushing arrangement may comprise a first nested bushing coupled to a second nested bushing. Each nested bushing may comprise a mating aperture located opposite an annulus body. The annulus body of each nested bushing may insert within the mating aperture of the opposite nested bushing to couple the first nested bushing to the second nested bushing.
US10655668B2

A bonding washer for making electrical connection between two metal pieces that are to be mechanically fastened together. The washer, to be interposed between the two metal pieces, may be constructed so as to fasten to one of the pieces before the two pieces are joined. Teeth on the washer, positioned at right angles to the plane of the washer, are forced into each of the two metal pieces when the fastener is tightened, making electrical connection between the two metal pieces.
US10655645B2

A fan system for improved external case fan design with self-cleaning bristles, the fan system includes a housing a housing defining an opening and an interior space that extends along an axis, a plurality of fan blades positioned within the interior space and configured to rotate about the axis, and bristles positioned proximate to the opening of the housing. The fan system also includes one or more brushes configured to rotate about the axis and to be moved to a position to engage the bristles for cleaning and a mechanism configured to move the brushes to the position for engaging the bristles.
US10655641B2

Systems and methods for flying sheet materials including a conduit, at least one airflow diverter and an outlet, and a fan positioned relative to the conduit for moving high velocity air through the conduit and out the at least one airflow diverter. In example embodiments, at least one sheet material is connected to a portion of the conduit and nearby the outlet such that the high velocity air provides a force against the sheet material causing the same to unfurl and fly as if an outdoor wind was present. In some example embodiments, two or more sheet materials can be unfurled or fly at the same time.
US10655634B2

A compressor wheel assembly for a forced induction device includes an impeller member and a plate member. The impeller member is formed of a polymer material, and includes a hub portion and a plurality of blades extending from an outer surface of the hub portion. The hub portion includes an outer peripheral portion formed therewith. The plate member is connected to the outer peripheral portion of the impeller member to be rotationally fixed thereto. The plate member being formed of a metal material.
US10655631B2

One embodiment relates to a pump device with an impeller; a pump housing, including a wall surrounding an interior having an inlet and an outlet. The impeller is provided in the interior of the pump housing. The pump housing includes at least one first part-region, at least two further part-regions and at least one third part-region. The at least one first part-region includes, to an extent of at least 60% by weight, based on the total weight of the first part-region, at least one nonmagnetic material, wherein the at least two further part-regions comprise, to an extent of at least 25% by weight, based on the total weight of the further part-region, at least one ferromagnetic material metal, wherein the at least one third part-region comprises a metal content in a range from 40% to 90% by weight, based on the total weight of the third part-region.
US10655630B2

A fairing installed in a bypass duct defined between an outer casing and an inner casing around an axis of a turbofan engine to make compressed air bypass a low pressure compressor is comprised of a fore section elongated aftward from the inner casing at an inlet of the bypass duct and running along an internal periphery of the outer casing; and an aft section elongated aftward in succession to the fore section and curved in a direction getting away from the internal periphery so as to increase an area of a flow path toward an aft end of the aft section, the whole of the aft section being curved.
US10655629B2

There is provided a variable vane apparatus including: a housing portion; a plurality of vane gear portions configured to rotate and provided on the housing portion to be spaced apart from one another; a plurality of variable vane portions connected to the plurality of vane gear portions; a drive gear portion configured to transfer power to the plurality of vane gear portions; and a connection gear portion arranged between the plurality of vane gear portions and configured to transfer power amongst the plurality of vane gear portions.
US10655622B2

A method and system providing a pressurized fluid includes a pump having a pump inlet and a pump outlet, the pump to provide a fluid flow, a bypass path to direct the fluid flow from the pump outlet to the pump inlet, a load path having a load path pressure, the load path including: a fluid accumulator to accumulate a fluid volume, and at least one load device, a bypass regulator valve in fluid communication with the pump outlet, the bypass path, and the load path, and a controller to direct the fluid flow to the load path in response to the load path pressure being less than a low load path threshold pressure via the bypass regulator valve and to direct the fluid flow to the bypass path in response to the load path pressure being greater than a high load path threshold pressure via the bypass regulator valve.
US10655611B2

An energy collecting device is disclosed. For example, the energy collecting device comprises a plate layer having a plurality of perforations for receiving a plurality of molecules, a molecular energy collecting layer, coupled to the plate layer, having an impacting structure for receiving the plurality of molecules, and a substrate layer, coupled to the molecular energy collecting layer, having a conductor wire coil for collecting electrons that are generated when the plurality of molecules impacts the impacting structure.
US10655610B2

The present disclosure is directed to a bearing assembly for a wind turbine. The bearing assembly includes an outer race, an inner race rotatable relative to the outer race, a plurality of rolling elements positioned between the inner and outer races, and at least one wire race arranged with the plurality of rolling elements between the inner and outer races.
US10655602B2

There is provided a pitch control system (210) for controlling a pitch force system (220) for pitching a blade (103) of a wind turbine (100), the pitch control system (210) being arranged for activating (682) an auxiliary pitch force subsystem (224) at an initiation point in time where a main pitch force is sufficient to pitch the blade (103) into a target pitch value. An advantage thereof may be that tracking of a target pitch value may be improved and the impact on the pitch force system (220) may be reduced. In aspects, there is furthermore presented a hydraulic pitch system (206), a wind turbine (100), a method and a computer program product.
US10655599B2

A wind farm that includes a plurality of wind power generation units. The wind farm further includes a sensing part and a controlling part. The sensing part is configured to sense an external environment risk element. The controlling part is configured to receive a risk signal from the sensing part and to control the wind power generation units in the wind farm.
US10655589B2

The invention relates to a method for actuating a starter device (10), wherein the starter device (10) comprises a starting pinion (22) which is to be meshed with a toothed ring (25) of an internal combustion engine (210), the internal combustion engine (210) having a drive shaft (222). The invention is characterized in that a) first a rotational speed (n, n1, n2, n3) of the drive shaft (222) is determined, b) said rotational speed (n, n1, n2, n3) is then compared to a predefined rotational speed value (nG), and c) in the case that the rotational speed (n, n1, n2, n3) is less than or equal to the predefined rotational speed value (nG), the starting pinion (22) is toed in the direction of the toothed ring (25).
US10655588B2

A restart control system includes a rotational angle estimation unit that estimates a rotating electrical machine's rotational angle in a state wherein an internal-combustion engine's rotational speed detected by a rotational speed detection unit is higher than an estimation threshold and configured not to estimate rotating electrical machine's rotational angle in a state wherein internal-combustion engine's rotational speed is lower than estimation threshold; a rotating electrical machine control unit increases internal-combustion engine's rotational speed by rotating electrical machine under condition where predetermined restart conditions are satisfied and rotating electrical machine's rotational angle is estimated by rotational angle estimation unit, thereby restarting the internal-combustion engine; and a starter motor control unit starts driving of a starter motor under a condition where predetermined restart conditions are satisfied and internal-combustion engine's rotational speed falls below a predetermined rotational speed set lower than estimation threshold, thereby increasing internal-combustion engine's rotational speed to estimation threshold.
US10655587B2

An ECU makes an opening degree of a throttle valve larger than an opening degree in an idle rotating state of an engine in a rotation drop period during which engine speed drops to zero after combustion of the engine is stopped. Further, the ECU determines that the engine speed is within a predetermined rotation speed range including at least a resonance range of the engine in the rotation drop period, and, in the case where it is determined that the engine speed is within the predetermined rotation speed range, the ECU performs rotation drop processing of temporarily increasing a drop rate of the engine speed.
US10655578B2

An intake duct structure (22) of an engine intake system for an internal combustion engine of a vehicle includes a passage portion (28) internally defining an air passage having an air inlet (22A) located in an upstream end part of the passage portion and an air outlet (22B) located in a downstream end part of the passage portion, and extending above a structural member (40, 11B) of a vehicle body, and a resonator portion (29) depending from the downstream end part of the passage portion and internally defining a resonator chamber (35). The passage portion is provided with a bottom surface (28G) configured to rest on an upper surface of the structural member, and the resonator portion is provided with a vertical surface (29C) opposing a vertical surface of the structural member.
US10655572B2

A valve housing that has a flow passage. Arranged in the flow passage are a valve seat that includes a valve hole, valve body that can be seated on the valve seat, and a section of a rotary shaft with the valve body fixed to the tip thereof. A ring-shaped seat surface is formed in the valve hole of the valve seat. A ring-shaped sealing surface corresponding to the seat surface is formed on the perimeter of the disc-shaped valve body. By rotating the rotary shaft, the valve body rotates open from a closed state in which the valve body is seated on the valve seat and the sealing surface is in contact with the seat surface. A tapered upstream-side flow regulating part is provided in the valve hole of the valve seat, so as to widen from the seat surface toward the upstream side of the EGR gas flow.
US10655562B2

A compressor for gaseous fluids comprises a positive displacement gear pump, as typically used for liquid transfer, modified to effect compression of gases. The pump inlet includes a main inlet plus multiple secondary inlets feeding inlet gases to gear voids spaced from and moving away from the main inlet. The pump outlet includes a main outlet plus multiple feedback passages feeding partially pressurized outlet gases to gear voids spaced from and moving toward the main outlet. The supplemental inlets and feedback passages increase both the throughput of the compressor and the amount of compression imparted to the gases.
US10655561B2

A cast light metal piston for an internal combustion engine may include a piston crown and a piston skirt adjoining the piston crown. The piston skirt may include two skirt walls arranged on a pressure side and a counterpressure side, respectively. The piston skirt may have two box walls connecting the skirt walls, which conically taper towards one another in a direction of the piston crown. The piston may include an annularly encircling cooling channel. A thickness of the piston crown may amount to a maximum of 4.5 mm.
US10655560B2

A cylinder head comprises a cylinder head body. The cylinder head body has two intake ports placed on a first side of the cylinder head body with respect to the plug hole, and the two exhaust ports placed on a second side of the cylinder head body with respect to the plug hole. A water jacket of the cylinder head includes: an intake-port-to-intake-port passage portion communicating with the outside of the cylinder head and extending between the two intake ports; an exhaust-port-to-exhaust-port passage portion communicating with the outside of the cylinder head and extending between the two exhaust ports; and a central passage portion communicating with the intake-port-to-intake-port passage portion and the exhaust-port-to-exhaust-port passage portion, the central passage portion being formed so as to surround the plug hole.
US10655552B2

A canister purge control method for a vehicle can reduce the number of components of an active purge system provided in the vehicle. An active purge operation is performed using a pressure value measured by an intake pressure sensor, instead of a pressure value measured by a rear-end pressure sensor, after a purge control solenoid valve is fully opened.
US10655548B2

An electric supercharging system has an electric supercharger disposed on an intake air passage of an engine and a control unit in which a microcomputer is built. Then, control unit changes an actuation timing of the electric supercharger on the basis of change amounts of a rotational speed and an accelerator opening of the engine. At this time, the control unit changes the actuation timing of the electric supercharger by correcting the actuation timing of the electric supercharger according to the rotational speed of the engine with a coefficient according to the change amount of the accelerator opening.
US10655542B2

In one embodiment, a system includes a drive train starter system. The drive train starter system includes a generator mechanically coupled to a drive train of a gas turbine system and an exciter system electrically coupled to the generator and configured to provide a magnetic field. The drive train starter system additionally includes a load commutated inverter (LCI) electrically coupled to the generator and configured to provide electrical power to the generator and a controller communicatively coupled to the generator, the exciter system, and the LCI. The controller is configured to start up the drive train via the LCI and the generator up to less than a drive train operating speed, wherein the generator is converting electricity into mechanical motion; drive the drive train via a gas turbine up to the drive train operating speed; and to drive the drive train via the generator at the drive train operating speed.
US10655541B2

The present disclosure is directed to a segmented annular combustion system including a first panel fuel injector including a premix air plenum, a fuel plenum, and a plurality of first side premixing channels, where each first side premixing channel is in fluid communication with the premix air plenum, the fuel plenum, and a respective first side injection aperture of a plurality of first side injection apertures. A second panel fuel injector is circumferentially spaced from the first panel fuel injector and includes a premix air plenum, a fuel plenum, and a plurality of second side premixing channels where each second side premixing channel is in fluid communication with the premix air plenum, the fuel plenum, and a respective second side injection aperture of a plurality of second side injection apertures. A fuel nozzle is disposed circumferentially between the first panel fuel injection and the second panel fuel injector.
US10655535B2

A connecting rod for a variable compression internal combustion engine, the connecting rod including a crank bearing eye configured to connect the connecting rod to a crankshaft of the variable compression internal combustion engine; a connecting rod bearing eye configured to connect the connecting rod to a cylinder piston of the variable compression internal combustion engine; an eccentrical element adjustment arrangement configured to adjust an effective connective rod length, which eccentrical element adjustment arrangement includes an eccentrical element that is connected torque proof with an eccentrical element lever, wherein a wrist pin of the cylinder piston is receivable in the eccentrical element, wherein the eccentrical element adjustment arrangement includes two hydraulic chambers respectively including a piston that is movably arranged in a cylindrical borehole and connected with a support rod which is connected with the eccentrical element lever at another end, wherein the support rod is configured from plural components.
US10655529B2

An engine system includes an internal combustion engine, a compressor, a high-temperature coolant circulation circuit, a low-temperature coolant circulation circuit, an intercooler, and an electronic control unit. The intercooler is configured to transfer heat of the high-temperature coolant to the low-temperature coolant via intake air. An in-compressor passage of the compressor is arranged in the low-temperature coolant circulation circuit at a location at which the low-temperature coolant that exits from an in-cooler low-temperature water passage during a predetermined period from beginning of cold start is introduced into the in-compressor passage without passing through a low-temperature radiator. The electronic control unit is configured to increase the flow rate of the low-temperature coolant that flows through the low-temperature coolant circulation circuit during the predetermined period as compared to the flow rate after the predetermined period.
US10655522B2

An aftertreatment system includes an exhaust reductant tank configured to store an exhaust reductant. A filter is fluidically coupled to the exhaust reductant tank. The aftertreatment system includes a hydrocarbon detection device configured to indicate the presence of a hydrocarbon in the exhaust reductant. A catalyst is included in the system and configured to treat the exhaust reductant flowing through the system. The hydrocarbon detection device can include a hydrophobic paper, and can be disposed in the filter.
US10655519B2

A vehicle includes a filter disposed in an exhaust passage through which exhaust gas discharged from an internal combustion engine passes, the filter being configured to collect PM that is particulate matter contained in the exhaust gas; a PM removal control device configured to start execution of PM removal control that heats the filter to remove the PM accumulated on the filter while the internal combustion engine is stopped; and a determination device configured to determine whether a user of the vehicle is away from the vehicle. The PM removal control device is configured to start the execution of the PM removal control only when the determination device determines that the user of the vehicle is away from the vehicle.
US10655518B2

Embodiments of emission reduction system including various embodiments of an emission filters for a power plant including a gas turbine are disclosed. The system includes: an emission filter; and a retraction system operably coupled to an exhaust passage of the gas turbine. The exhaust passage defines an exhaust path of exhaust from the gas turbine. The retraction system selectively moves the emission filter between a first location within the exhaust path and a second location out of the exhaust path. In a combined cycle power plant, the first location is upstream of a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The systems and filters described allow for temporary positioning of emission filter(s) just downstream of a gas turbine exhaust outlet, or upstream of an HRSG, where provided, for emission reduction at low loads or startup conditions, and removal of the emission filter(s) once operations move to higher loads.
US10655509B2

A variable valve timing control device includes a connection mechanism provided with a coupling member which connects a driving-side rotation member and an input gear with each other, the connection mechanism including a first engagement portion and a second engagement portion, the first engagement portion engaged with the driving-side rotation member so as to be relatively displaceable therewith in a first radial direction, the second engagement portion engaged with the input gear so as to be relatively displaceable therewith in a second radial direction which is orthogonal to the first radial direction, and a biasing member restricting a coupling member from being displaced.
US10655506B2

Multiple tubular members 40 that include multiple cam members 41 and 42 having cam parts 11 are connected to each other to form a single cam tube 12. Multiple female splines 45, which are partially arranged on an inner tube surface 44 of the tubular members which include the cam members 41 and 42, mate with male splines 47 formed on the outer tube surface 46 of a drive shaft 13, and the cam tube 12 rotates integrally with the drive shaft 13, and is capable of moving freely in the axial direction thereof.
US10655498B2

A turbomachine with a shaft supporting a turbine wheel is supported for rotation in a housing. The shaft extends through a bore in the housing and a bearing assembly is disposed in the bore. The turbomachine has a first lubricating fluid slinger comprising a screw thread that is engageable with a threaded section of the shaft such that the first lubricating fluid slinger is screwable along the threaded section of the shaft so as to apply a compressive preload to the bearing assembly.
US10655492B2

An abrasive tip comprises an additive, the additive is configured to prevent adhesion of an organic component from an abradable seal onto an abrasive blade tip.
US10655487B2

An annular stator seal support extends radially between a radial inner support side and a radial outer support side. A secondary seal includes a first radially extending secondary seal sidewall surface, a second radially extending secondary seal sidewall surface and a third radially extending secondary seal sidewall surface. An annular stator sleeve support includes a channel radially distal the radial inner support side, the channel includes a first radially extending channel sidewall and a second radially extending channel sidewall located axially forward of the first radially extending channel sidewall, and a third radially extending channel sidewall located axially behind the first radially extending channel sidewall. The first radially extending seal sidewall surface contacts the first radially extending channel sidewall, and the second radially extending channel sidewall is axially spaced from the second radially extending secondary seal sidewall surface.
US10655485B2

A turbine nozzle segment includes a radially-inner endwall, a radially-outer endwall, a pair of airfoil-shaped vanes extending between the radially-inner endwall and the radially-outer endwall, and respective reinforcing ribs extending between the pressure and suction sidewalls of the vanes. The back face of the radially-inner endwall and/or the back face of the radially-outer endwall has a pocket formed therein in an area between the pressure sidewall of the first vane and the suction sidewall of the second vane to enhance stiffness distribution between the second vane and the radially-inner endwall and/or radially-outer endwall.
US10655483B2

A guide vane segment 10 for a turbomachine includes a radially inner shroud plate 13 having a shroud plate surface 14 that is adapted to be configured in the turbomachine to face a rotor blade 20 adjacent to the guide vane segment, and thereby essentially extend along an outer conical surface K1 whose cone axis coincides with the axis of rotation A of a rotor shaft 30. In a radially inner region, a rotor blade 20 for a turbomachine has a base plate 23 having a base plate surface 24 that is adapted to be configured in the turbomachine to face a shroud of a guide vane row 10 adjacent to the rotor blade and thereby essentially extend along an outer conical surface K2 whose cone axis coincides with the axis of rotation A of a rotor shaft 30.
US10655478B2

A blade main body (51) of a gas turbine is provided with a first cooling passage part (58), a second cooling passage part (59), a column part (60), and a plurality of protrusions. The first cooling passage part (58) is provided at the side near to a leading edge (55). The second cooling passage part (59) is provided at the side near to a trailing edge (56). The column part (60) is provided between the first cooling passage part (58) and the second cooling passage part (59), and is continuously formed between a base part and an end part of the blade main body (51). The protrusions protrude from the inner wall surfaces of the first cooling passage part (58) and the second cooling passage part (59).
US10655474B2

Disclosed is a turbo-engine component comprising a wall, the wall comprising a hot gas side surface and a coolant side surface. At least one coolant discharge duct is provided in said wall and opening out onto the hot gas side surface at a coolant discharge opening. A coolant flow direction is defined from the interior of the coolant discharge duct towards the discharge opening, the coolant discharge duct further being delimited by a delimiting surface thereof provided inside the wall. The coolant discharge duct has a first cross sectional direction and a second cross sectional direction. The coolant discharge duct is a blind cavity and is closed towards the coolant side surface, and further a dimension of the coolant discharge duct measured in the first cross sectional direction decreases in the coolant flow direction.
US10655471B2

A flow path width at a hub endwall of a blade main body decreases toward a minimum width from a leading edge, and increases toward a trailing edge from the minimum width, the flow path width at a reference blade height aparted toward a tip side from the hub endwall of the blade main body gradually decreases toward the trailing edge from the leading edge, and an axial chord length position of the minimum flow path widths at respective blade height shift toward a transition to the trailing edge side from the hub endwall toward the tip side of the blade main body and coincides with the trailing edge at the reference blade height.
US10655470B2

This impeller is provided with: an impeller body formed in a disk-like shape and having a boss hole section formed therein, the boss hole section allowing a rotating shaft to be fitted therein; and compressor blades provided on the front surface side of the impeller body so as to protrude from the hub surface of the impeller body. The impeller consists either of a first resin member and a second resin member, which are engaged with each other and which consist of a resin, or of a resin member and a metallic member, which are engaged with each other.
US10655458B2

A communication assembly is described that when placed around a string casing in a wellbore transmits data along a pipe string from the wellbore to, for example, the surface of the well. The assembly includes a high magnetic permeability substrate to eliminate signal loss to the casing string thereby enhancing the signal and improving data transmission.
US10655457B2

Methods for locating an acoustic source. A method may comprise measuring noise from the acoustic source from a downhole environment, which produces a measurement for processing, performing a dispersion analysis on the measurement, performing a space entropy equalization and normalization process on the measurement, performing a weighted integration on the measurement, performing a pattern recognition on the measurement, performing a weighted enhancement on the measurement, and producing a recognition factor from the measurement. A method may comprise measuring noise from the acoustic source from a downhole environment, which produces a measurement for processing, performing a dispersion analysis on the measurement, performing a time difference scan on the measurement, performing a propagation distance scan on the measurement, performing a weighted enhancement on the measurement, and producing a recognition factor from the measurement.
US10655448B2

In one embodiment, a system includes a casing disposed within a wellbore, one or more data collection tools coupled to the casing, and one or more sensors disposed within an annulus of the wellbore. Each of the one or more sensors include a substrate, a strain-sensitive element coupled to the substrate, and a transceiver coupled to the substrate and configured to communicate with the one or more data collection tools.
US10655447B2

A directional drilling system includes a rotary steerable tool. The rotary steerable tool includes an extendable member configured to extend outwardly from the rotary steerable tool upon actuation, and a geolocation electronics device configured to track a position of the rotary steerable tool and the extendable member and control actuation of the extendable member. The geolocation electronics device and extendable member are configured to rotate with the rotary steerable tool.
US10655444B2

Methods including introducing a solids-free high-viscosity fracturing fluid into a subterranean formation above the fracture gradient to create or enhance at least one dominate fracture. Introducing a first low-viscosity pad fluid (LVPadF) above the fracture gradient to create or enhance at least one first microfracture extending from the dominate fracture. The first LVPadF comprises an aqueous base fluid, high-density micro-proppants (HDMPs), and low-density micro-beads (LDMBs), the HDMPs having a specific gravity that is at least about 100% greater than the specific gravity of the LDMBs. Placing at least a portion of the HDMPs and LDMBs into the microfracture to form at least a partial monolayer. Introducing a low-viscosity proppant fluid (LVPropF) into the subterranean formation above the fracture gradient. The LVPropF comprises an aqueous base fluid and medium-sized proppants (MSPs). Placing at least a portion of the MSPs into the dominate fracture.
US10655440B2

An earphone test system (20) includes a plurality of test stations (22) each operative to perform a function during testing of an earphone device (12) coupled thereto. During testing of earphone devices (12) coupled to the plurality of test stations (22) the earphone test system (20) is operative to expose each of the plurality of test stations (22) to a noise field generated by a common noise field source (29).
US10655439B2

A method for injection of a lift gas into a wellbore production string comprises determining production pressure within the production string, and autonomously controlling a variable orifice gas lift valve in accordance with the determined production pressure, wherein the variable orifice gas lift valve controls the injection flow rate of the lift gas into the production string. A valve comprises a housing defining an inlet, an outlet and a flow path therebetween, and a valve member linearly moveable within the housing between first and second positions to vary flow along the flow path, wherein the valve member is prevented from rotation relative to the housing during linear movement between the first and second positions. The valve further includes a rotary drive and a transmission arrangement interposed between the rotary drive and the valve member for converting rotation of the rotary drive to linear movement of the valve member.
US10655438B2

A perforating tool usable in a well casing to perforate the well casing is described. Perforating tool includes an activation member disposed in body wherein the activation member is moveable relative to the body to move at least one working member between and inwardly retracted condition an outwardly deployed condition relative to the body. A plurality of pistons is arranged to move the activation member relative to the body, each piston being disposed in a respective pressure chamber arranged to be filled with fluid in response to an increase in fluid pressure in the body.
US10655436B2

The present invention discloses a device for solid-state fluidization mining of seabed shallow layer non-diagenetic natural gas hydrates. The device comprises a hydraulic jet nozzle set, a coiled tubing, a hydrate collecting ship arranged on the sea surface, a transfer station arranged in sea water and a riser arranged in a seabed surface layer. A guide seat is arranged in the riser. The hydraulic jet nozzle set is arranged in the guide seat. A delivery pipe connected with the transfer station sleeves a nozzle body. An opening is formed in a position where the delivery pipe is in contact with the nozzle body. The transfer station is connected with the hydrate collecting ship. The present invention further discloses a method for collecting seabed shallow layer non-diagenetic hydrates.
US10655427B2

A method of restoring flow through an opening in a well, the opening being blocked by a plugging device, can include conveying a well tool into the well, contacting the plugging device with the well tool, and permitting flow through the opening as a result of the contacting step. Another method of restoring flow through an opening blocked by a plugging device in a well can include conveying a well tool into the well, reducing pressure in the well with the well tool, and permitting flow through the opening as a result of the pressure reducing step.
US10655426B2

A system for use with a well can include a perforating assembly with at least one perforator, the perforating assembly conveyed through a wellbore with fluid flow through the wellbore, and plugging devices spaced apart from the perforating assembly in the wellbore, the plugging devices conveyed through the wellbore with the fluid flow. A method of deploying plugging devices in a wellbore can include conveying a perforating assembly including a dispensing tool through the wellbore, the dispensing tool including a container, and then releasing the plugging devices from the container into the wellbore at a downhole location. Another method of deploying plugging devices in a wellbore can include conveying the plugging devices through the wellbore with fluid flow through the wellbore, and conveying a perforating assembly through the wellbore while the plugging devices are being conveyed through the wellbore.
US10655423B2

Swellable packer assemblies, and associated systems and methods are described for operation in connection with a subterranean wellbore. The swellable packer assemblies may include a shroud for maintaining a sealing element in a fully inactivated configuration until the packer assemblies reach a predetermined location in the wellbore. The shroud may be formed of a dissolvable metal material such that fluids in the wellbore may remove the shroud, and thereafter the sealing element may be rapidly expanded by exposure to fluids in the wellbore or by exposure to a trigger fluid pumped from the a surface location. The expanded sealing element may establish a seal with an outer tubular structure to isolate adjacent portions of the wellbore.
US10655420B2

A seal for a blind shear ram is configured to extend between a first carrier and a second carrier of the blind shear ram. The seal includes a curved portion and an elastic layer extending through the curved portion. The elastic layer is configured to contact at least one of the first carrier and the second carrier to seal a wellbore when the first carrier and the second carrier are in a closed position. The elastic layer has a first elasticity. The seal also includes an anti-extrusion structure coupled to the elastic layer. The anti-extrusion structure extends through the curved portion. The anti-extrusion structure has a second elasticity less than the first elasticity. The anti-extrusion structure defines a plurality of slits to facilitate the anti-extrusion structure extending through the curved portion.
US10655419B2

A leak containment system for sealing around a fluid flow member includes a ram sealing system mounted on a mobile vehicle. The ram sealing system has a sealing chamber having a generally cylindrical shape when the ram sealing system is in a closed position, and a ram assembly located at an end of the sealing chamber. The ram assembly has a pair of rams, each ram having an engaging surface, the engaging surface sized and shaped to seal around the fluid flow member. The ram assembly also has an actuating arm assembly connected to one of the rams and a ram body. The pair of rams is rotationally attached to the ram body.
US10655418B2

A technique facilitates automatic shut-in of a well and disconnect of a corresponding landing string. The landing string is employed in a well application and comprises a landing string module which measures a parameter or a variety of parameters. Those parameters may be used to determine the occurrence of an event which initiates shut-in of the well and disconnect of the landing string. The subsea landing string system is constructed to enable autonomous shut-in and disconnect.
US10655413B2

A sealing device relates to a plug that includes a crusher mechanism, where the sealing device includes one or more glass layers positionable in a wellbore. The glass in a barrier phase bears against at least one seat or support sleeve arranged axially displaceably in the wellbore, where the at least one seat or support sleeve bears against the glass by means of a supporting hydraulic fluid in a pressure support chamber, the seat or support sleeve being configured to be released, be displaced axially, and to crush the glass when the supporting hydraulic fluid is released from the pressure support chamber.
US10655412B2

An equipment for stimulating increased oil recovery is described. The complex is most suitable for operations in wells where natural flow and gas-lift recovery methods are used, and also for combined treatment of bottom-hole formation zones together with acoustic (ultrasonic) emitters. The complex consists of two main parts: a surface power supply and control unit, and a downhole electro-hydraulic instrument consisting of a boosting inverter unit a capacitor unit and a plasma discharger. Said instrument has a diameter less than 52 mm, allowing the instrument to pass freely through all existing production tubing. The instrument has a modular structure, making it possible to build up the power of the plasma discharge from 0.5 to 3 kJ. The plasma discharger is designed to be easily disassembled for replacement of electrodes and installation of a new spool with a wire, the discharger having a mechanical drive of a wire feeding unit, set in motion by a piston mechanism that is powered by a high pressure pulse produced by the discharger itself. Using the equipment for increase in efficiency and cost-effectiveness of oil recovery enhancement operations when working through tubing.
US10655402B2

A one-connector penetrator system that is adaptable to any cables used in artificial lift system is described herein. The one-connector penetrator system can comprise an enclosure and a plurality of seals. The enclosure can have a hollowed interior. The plurality of seals can be housed within the enclosure. The plurality of seals can stabilize a three-phase power cable in a fixed position. The plurality of seals can comprise a first seal, a second seal, and a third seal. The first seal can be placed at the front-end portion of the enclosure. The second seal can be placed within the middle portion of the enclosure. The third seal can be placed at the bottom portion of the enclosure.
US10655397B2

A metal matrix composite tool includes a body having hard composite portion that includes reinforcing particles dispersed in a binder material. At least some of the reinforcing particles comprise a monolithic particle structure including a core having irregular outer surface features integral with the core.
US10655396B2

A hybrid bit includes an earth-boring element and a percussion element. The earth-boring element and the percussion element are coaxially arranged, with the earth-boring element surrounding the percussion element. A reciprocating member of the percussion element may oscillate in a manner that enables a bottom end of the reciprocating member to repeatedly protrude from a bottom end of the earth-boring element and to be repeatedly withdrawn. A configuration of the earth-boring element may enable it to drill into and remove some materials from an earth formation, while the percussion element may enable the hybrid bit to drill into and remove difficult-to-drill materials, including abrasive materials and/or materials with high compressive forces, such as chert.
US10655393B2

An example apparatus for controlling the direction of drilling a borehole includes a housing and a radially offsetable drive shaft at least partially within the housing. The apparatus may further include one or more pusher extendable from the housing. The one or more pusher may be extendable in response to a radial offset in the offsetable drive shaft with respect to a longitudinal axis of the housing.
US10655385B2

A covering for an architectural opening has a dual cord operating system. The covering may include a head rail, blind panels depending from the head rail, and an operating system. The operating system may include a housing connected to the head rail, a first drive assembly rotatably mounted within the housing and operable to move the blind panels between an extended configuration and a retracted configuration, and a second drive assembly rotatably mounted within the housing and operable to move the blind panels between a closed configuration and an open configuration.
US10655371B2

A self-centering handle assembly is provided for a vehicle door. The handle assembly includes a pivoting handle base coupled to the vehicle door at a pivot axis, and includes a front face having a first and second opposing ends. The first and seconds ends are configured for a selective pivotal movement in opposite directions about the pivot axis. First and second drive arms are provided extending a distance from a rear portion of the handle base and configured for coordinated movement with the respective first and second ends of the handle base. A bell crank is provided, coupled to the handle assembly, and configured to rotate about a second pivot axis. Rotation of the bell crank is driven by movement of the first and second drive arms. A biasing member is in contact with the bell crank and urges the bell crank to a return to a self-centering, rest position.
US10655356B2

A pole reinforcement system and method for improving the stability of a pole with both an above-grade and below-grade installation. The pole reinforcement system generally includes a sleeve assembly which is secured around a pole via one or more retainers which may comprise brackets, securing bands, or other structures. One or more insertion attachments are utilized so that the sleeve assembly may be secured to the pole at a position below-grade. The sleeve assembly may comprise one or more sleeves which are secured around the pole. By utilizing the present invention to reinforce the pole both above- and below-grade, the stability of the pole may be greatly improved over prior reinforcement methods.
US10655355B2

A method of forming a post sleeve within a post hole in the ground to include a post receiving cavity to insertably receive and support a post is provided. The method includes positioning a post sleeve core within the post hole with the aid of an elongate installation member and depositing uncured material into the post hole to at least partially surround the post sleeve core while the post sleeve core is attached to the elongate installation member. The method further includes allowing the uncured material to harden around the post sleeve core to form at least a portion of the post-receiving cavity of the post sleeve and removing the post sleeve core from the hardened material to expose the post receiving cavity to receive and support the post. Other related methods of forming post sleeves are also provided.
US10655353B2

A device (100) for securing a post (105) comprises a central portion (110) defining an aperture (115) therethrough configured to engage the post (105) and two or more support members (120) extending outwardly from the central portion (110). Each support member (120) comprises a first portion (125) and a second portion (130), the first and second portions (125, 130) each comprising at least one support element (135, 140) configured to extend towards and further engage the post (105). The second portion (130) is configured to penetrate a post-mounting surface (132) in a substantially longitudinal direction relative to the post (105), thereby securing the post (105) with respect to shear forces acting on the post (105) in a direction substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal direction.
US10655352B2

A balance and lift parking apparatus increases parking space availability and therefore allows users to park more than one automobile vertically. The balance and lift parking apparatus includes a support structure, a parking platform, a first wheel track, and a second wheel track. The support structure is the structural base of the balance and lift parking apparatus. Further, the support structure allows the balance and lift parking apparatus to support the weight of automobiles. Moreover, the support structure provides a clearance area from the ground surface which allows at least one automobile to be parked. The parking platform provides a surface on which at least one automobile may traverse onto. The first wheel track and the second wheel track are used to guide at least one automobile onto and along the parking platform.
US10655351B1

Pool stair assemblies having stair structures fabricated from plastic foam are provided. The stair structures include protective tread sheets and protective riser sheets and a vinyl pool liner mounted over the stair structure, tread sheets, and riser sheets. The stair structure, which may be buoyant, is retained in a pool by the weight of pool water on the liner and stair structure. Aspects of the invention overcome the disadvantages of conventional pool stair assemblies and ladders positioned on top of pool liners. Other related pool structures, methods of installing stair assemblies, stair structures, and methods of fabricating stair structures are also disclosed.
US10655346B2

Disclosed herein is a method for erecting a shuttering framework. The method comprises the steps of a) mounting one end of a first support to the ground or other stationary object and mounting one end of a first brace to the ground or other stationary object, b) attaching the opposite end of the first brace to the opposite end of the first support or to a position between the two ends of the first support, c) repeating a) and b) for a second support and a second brace, and d) mounting a plurality of ties between the first and second supports. Also disclosed herein is a method of casting concrete.
US10655341B2

A flooring mat that includes a first layer that includes a vapor barrier, a second layer that includes a textile pad, and a third layer having an entangled filament structure. The second layer is disposed between the first layer and the third layer. The flooring mat may be provided between a subfloor and a surface layer of a flooring structure.
US10655340B2

A landscaping block having a block body with at least a first side surface, a second side surface, a third side surface and a fourth side surface, and opposed and substantially parallel top and bottom surfaces. The patio block having at least one spacer projection extending outwardly from each of the at least first, second, third and fourth side surfaces. The patio block having at least one spacer locator positioned along each one of the first, second, third and fourth side surfaces. The at least one spacer locator positioned along each side surface has a retaining surface shaped to receive a spacer projection, at least a portion of the retaining surface extending outwardly from the side surface.
US10655337B2

An insulating siding panel comprises a backing member, and a siding member. The backing member comprises a front face, a rear face, a top face, and a bottom face. The siding member has an upper end, a lower end, and a nailing divot. An upper end of the backing member combines with the upper end of the siding member to form a tongue. A groove is defined in the bottom face of the backing member that is complementary in shape to the tongue. The nailing divot of the lower panel may be concealed by a front section of the backing member of the upper panel.
US10655328B2

A structural reinforcement includes a plurality of individual reinforcing elements. Each of the plurality of reinforcing elements includes a first end segment, a second end segment and an intermediate segment between the first and second end segments. A support engages the plurality of individual reinforcing elements along the intermediate segments and holds the elements in parallel.
US10655326B2

A wood blocking blank for creating wood blocking for placement between metal studs includes a panel of a blocking material. The panel of blocking material has an original length and a standard width. The standard width is sized to a nominal stud width configured to fit between the metal studs. A groove is cut down the entire original length of the panel of blocking material approximate a first side of the panel of blocking material. The groove is configured for orienting the first side of the panel of blocking material in a soft side of a first metal stud and a second side of the panel of blocking material against the hard side of an adjacent metal stud. The groove is sized to receive the lip of the soft side of the metal stud.
US10655322B2

The invention provides a waterproofing membrane which does not require a removable release sheet but which nevertheless bonds to post-cast concrete and facilitates water-tight sealing at membrane-to-membrane overlaps. The waterproofing membrane comprises a carrier and pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) layers, an inorganic particle layer having particulate bodies which are partially embedded in the PSA and which have an average particle size less than the average thickness of the PSA layer, and an anti-submarining nano-silica-containing coating layer attached to un-embedded portions of the inorganic particles to prevent total embedding into the PSA when the membrane is rolled or unrolled, whereby water-tight seams are facilitated between overlapped portions of adjacently installed waterproofing membranes, and whereby the water-tight seam is achieved preferably using only detailing or waterproofing tape and without the additional use of a liquid primer, mastic, or other coating.
US10655316B1

An underground water detention and release chamber including two concrete galleys and a plastic cap. Each galley has a substantially horizontally disposed top deck and two substantially vertically disposed side walls. The top deck and side walls connecting at respective ends to form first and second side edges. The two galleys positioned parallel to and a distance apart each other such that adjacent side walls of the galleys define a longitudinal channel between the galleys. The cap spanning the longitudinal channel and includes an arch-shaped body having two side base portions. Each side base portion has a horizontal strut and a vertical strut extending away from the body such that each base conforms to a side edge of a respective galley to position the cap on the galleys. The cap has a plurality of reinforcing members.
US10655309B1

An accelerated drain apparatus for a walk-in bathtub, in which a pump communicates water to a valve selectively in a first position to circulate the water through nozzles into the bath water therein and in a second position to a drain, with a controller configured for moving the valve selectively between the first and second positions, and during draining, stopping the pump in response to a signal from a water level sensor and after a predetermined period of gravity draining of residual water, moving the valve to the first position for subsequent filling and use of the walk-in bathtub.
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