US07721347B2
A method and device are provided for determining, without contact, the physical and electrical properties of nanotube materials. The device includes a scanning probe configured to generate a signal of certain frequency onto the nanotube material and measure a reflected signal from the nanotube material, and a processor coupled to the scanning probe and configured to determine the physical and electrical properties of the nanotube material from the measured reflected signal. The method includes positioning a scanning probe relative to the nanotube material, generating a signal of certain frequency onto the nanotube material, and measuring a reflected signal from the nanotube material.
US07721345B2
The method for securing data in a distributed computer system for security sensitive content includes granularly extracting sensitive content, per security level, from remainder data. The security sensitive content is classified into security levels, each having a security clearance. The extracted data is remotely stored in extract stores. The controlled release of extracted data occurs with the appropriate security clearances. Maps of storage sites and filters for repetitive extraction may be employed, stored and then sometimes destroyed. The data input, extracted data and remainder data may be deleted from the originating source. Encryption, unique to each security level, enhances security (preferably during transfers, storage and retrieval). Full or partial reconstruction of the data is permitted with security clearances. An information processing system is encompassed.
US07721343B2
Reinforcement of a system renewability is realized skillfully utilizing properties peculiar to a system. As a result, there is produced such a new effect as to similarly reinforce required specification with respect to copyright protection of a content recorded in a medium for exclusive use in reproduction and a recordable medium. In a system which encrypts information such as a content to record/reproduce the information, design is made so that encryption/decryption processing information differs for a device (software (S/W) main body device) whose main body is software constituted of a recording/reproducing drive of a recording medium and a personal computer (PC), a device (hardware (H/W) main body device) whose main body is hardware integrally containing a drive and data coding/demodulation processing, and the medium for exclusive use in reproduction and the recording medium.
US07721337B2
Digital pre-downloading of high bandwidth digital data is performed through a system gateway based on selective filtering, scheduling, and end user device requirements. Digital broadcasting systems are used to push large bandwidth data during non-peak periods (e.g., in the early AM hours) or during times of other relative network or end user device inactivity. Digital data, such as background images, song compilations, artist compilations, newspapers, e-books, digital purchases of other data, maps of local areas based on, for example, GPS based location detection, etc., are pre-downloaded and stored in the end user (client) device, e.g., a car digital radio or other consumer electronic device with display flag turned off. The device is subscriber preconfigured to selectively filter and retain (e.g., in local cache memory) a desired portion of the data broadcast. Later, a command is sent to activate the contents for subscriber presentation. Delta updates, if received, are pushed in real-time. Real-time updates are matched to the corresponding pre-downloaded data at specific scheduled times. The updates predominantly comprise a refresh of only the changes (delta) to the data (e.g., traffic updates).
US07721312B2
In a TV displaying thumbnails of videos grouped by genre, genre labels are shown so that a user can conveniently move genre to genre with a single click on a remote control device.
US07721309B2
The present invention relates to an entertainment system and method for selectively storing broadcast channels by the entertainment system. To store a broadcast channel, the system first receives programming data associated with the channel. A show associated with the channel is displayed and a menu associated with the storing of the channel in memory may also be displayed. The viewer may then select to add to or remove from memory the programming data associated with the currently tuned channel via a one-step process, and the programming data is subsequently loaded into the memory.
US07721306B2
A method for bandwidth sharing between first and second satellite television networks involves receiving a shared video data stream shared between the satellite television networks; receiving advertisement metadata forming a part of the shared video data stream, the advertisement meta-data containing identifying information that identifies the advertisement as being associated with one of the satellite television networks; determining which of the satellite television networks the advertisement is associated with by reading the identifying information; if the first satellite television network is identified as associated with the advertisement, then outputting the advertisement as a video signal; and if the second satellite television network is identified as associated with the advertisement, then identifying an advertisement that is possibly stored in an advertisement cache, retrieving the advertisement from the advertisement cache and outputting the stored advertisement as a video signal. This abstract is not to be considered limiting.
US07721301B2
The presently described subject matter allows the user to interactively browse a collection of electronic files, such as a digital photo collection, remotely using voice activated mobile device. Files from the collection of electronic files can be displayed on the mobile device or they can be directed from the mobile device to be sent to a remote display device, where the file can be displayed. Also, a user can record voice and text annotations and keywords from the mobile device to preserve with an electronic file, and which is transported along with the file when it is displayed.
US07721299B2
Techniques for virtualized computer system environments running one or more virtual machines that obviate the extra host operating system (O/S) copying steps required for sending and receiving packets of data over a network connection, thus eliminating major performance problems in virtualized environment. Such techniques include methods for emulating network I/O hardware device acceleration-assist technology providing zero-copy I/O sending and receiving optimizations. Implementation of these techniques require a host O/S to perform actions including, but not limited to: checking of the address translations (ensuring availability and data residency in physical memory), checking whether the destination of a network packet is local (to another virtual machine within the computing system), or across an external network; and, if local, checking whether either the sending destination VM, receiving VM process, or both, supports emulated hardware accelerated-assist on the same physical system. This optimization, in particular, provides a further optimization in that the packet data checksumming operations may be omitted when sending packets between virtual machines in the same physical system.
US07721297B2
Art apparatus, system, and storage medium that, in an embodiment, register each partition in a logically-partitioned computer to send local events to an aggregation component and register a first partition to send events associated with a group of partitions to the aggregation component. In various embodiments, the group may be all of the partitions or some of the partitions. If the connection to the first partition is unavailable, the first partition is registered to cancel sending events associated with the group, a second partition is selected, and the second partition is registered to send events associated with the group to the aggregation component. If the connection to the first partition is restored subsequent to being unavailable, a determination is made whether to change registration back to the first partition. In this way, in an embodiment, redundant reporting of events is supported while decreasing the number of events reported.
US07721289B2
A mechanism dynamically allocates physical machines (computers) for satisfying requests for the machines, such as in the context of assigning test machines for running test cases. Each request specifies one or more logical machine sets it needs, and each logical machine set has specified requirements. The physical machines are organized into a hierarchical structure that includes groups and subgroups of machines. An allocation engine performs the function of allocating available machines from a selected group in the hierarchy for a request based on the requirements of each logical machine set of the request. A group or subgroup of machines may be marked as “allocate as one unit” and all machines in it will be reserved for one request. A job corresponding to a request may have sub-jobs, and machines allocated for the sub-job are selected from the machines allocated for the parent job.
US07721278B2
Methods are provided for utilizing a modular server architecture for processing requests for services, such as authorization and authentication, in a web server. The modular server architecture includes self-contained modular components that can be plugged in and out of the web server, as needed, to provide requested web services. The modular server architecture is also extensible in that it provides set of server APIs for processing requests for supporting built-in server functionality as well as functionality provided by third party modular components. The modular server architecture also supports the integration of request processing tasks for both native and managed modular components, such as ASP.NET modules, by virtue of a managed module host component. The modular server architecture also optimizes server performance by only providing modular component functionality when needed. By utilizing the modular server architecture, server functionality is extended, duplication of request processing tasks is eliminated and performance administrative overhead is reduced.
US07721270B2
An information converter includes: an input for receiving non-structured information transformation specification and a processor. The processor is adapted to (i) convert the non-structured information transformation specification to a structured information transformation specification; (ii) generate information transformation code responsive to the structured information transformation specification; and (iii) associate a code alteration indication to the non-structured information transformation specification in response to an alteration of the information transformation code. A method and a computer readable medium converts the non-structured information transformation specification to a structured information transformation specification; generates information transformation code responsive to the structured information transformation specification, and associates a code alteration indication to the non-structured information transformation specification in response to an alteration of the information transformation code.
US07721269B2
A system and method of detecting redundant subroutine calls in a software system is provided. Call path data is obtained for the software system and stored into a call tree comprising a plurality of nodes, each node representing a software routine of the software system, the call tree describing the calling paths between the plurality of software routines. At least one focal node is identified among the plurality of nodes in the call tree for redundancy analysis. The calling redundancy to the focal node is analyzed by determining a common ancestor node list for the focal node and by generating call path data for each of the common ancestor nodes on the list. The common ancestor list data may be sorted and call trees generated for the common ancestors in relation to the focal node. This data may then be displayed on a graphical user interface for redundancy analysis of the focal node.
US07721268B2
A method of acquiring software profile information of a target software application includes receiving a programmed interrupt while executing an application in a computer system, servicing the interrupt such that call stack information is acquired and processing the call stack information to produce statistical information concerning function calls. The call stack information includes program counter and other information which is derived from the target application as well as operating system. Some or all of the call stack information may be recorded. The statistical information includes statistics concerning the number of samples wherein a series of functions calls are included in the call stack information and the number of samples wherein a set of function calls are at the top of the call stack information.
US07721262B2
A system, apparatus and method process data by identifying a processing pipeline defining a series of markup language processing steps. The system inserts at least one debugging step into the processing pipeline. The debugging step(s) define processing to collect debug data associated with application of the markup language processing steps to markup language data to be processed by the processing pipeline. The system executes the series of markup language processing steps, including the debugging step(s), upon input markup language data as a transaction. Execution of the debugging step(s) captures the debug data for at least one of the series of markup language processing steps in the processing pipeline. The debug data allows analysis of operation of the markup language processing steps of the processing pipeline on the input markup language data.
US07721261B2
A method (200) of creating pairwise combinatorial test cases from system configuration data can include reading a graphic representation of the system configuration data (210, 230, 260). Within the graphic representation, parameters can be represented by nodes and parameter can be represented by flows linking the nodes. The method further can include identifying paths of flows through the graphic representation until each parameter value of the graphic representation has been paired with all values of each other parameter of the graphic representation (205). Each path can specify a pairwise combinatorial test case.
US07721258B2
A software development tool, in the form of an integrated development environment (IDE), comprises a managed platform registry for managing the combination of compatible target platforms and versions of a software development framework. Each compatible combination of a platform and a version of the software development framework is assigned a unique managed platform ID. The managed platform IDs and information associated therewith are managed by the managed platform registry. The software development tool provides upgrade capability allowing a developer to use a newer version of the software development framework while maintaining the current target platform. The software development tool also provides the ability to switch target platforms while maintaining the current version of the software development framework.
US07721251B2
To increase the user friendliness of the project planning software (6), it is proposed that information (12, 13, 14, 15) about the applicability of project planning (8) to the operating device (1) be provided, such that the information (12, 13, 14, 15) is recorded directly within the framework of an operating interface of project planning software.
US07721241B2
A method and tool for creating documentation for a transformer design uses design files created during the transformer design process to generate drawings and other information necessary to populate documentation. The design files contain information relating to the physical layout of all of the components of the coil as well as the electrical connectivity of the windings. The method and tool retrieve the design information, construct the associated drawings, format the drawings to the appropriate sizes, and display any associated text.
US07721235B1
Disclosed is a method, system, and computer program product for performing edge optimization on an electronic design. According to some approaches, the number of edges and/or the length of edges within an IC design are configured for optimized manufacturability and yield of an integrated circuit. The edge optimization may occur in real-time during layout, placement, and/or routing, or occur in a post-optimization step.
US07721232B2
Apparatus are described for a pair of MOSFET power transistors, a MOSFET driver, and an idealized circuit layout utilized in a power stage such as that of a power conversion system. The power stage comprises a pair of MOSFET transistors having substantially identical electrical characteristics and complementary package configurations for simplifying and optimizing the layout of the power stage on a single side or layer of a printed circuit board. The ideal layout effectively avoids parasitic circuit components, minimizes layout area and costs, and permits operation at higher switching frequencies. A new MOSFET transistor pin configuration is also described that is essentially a functional mirror or functional complement of an existing MOSFET transistor pin configuration to provide the complementary package configurations and the optimized PCB layout. A customized MOSFET driver pin configuration further optimizes the power stage layout by arranging the pins of the driver to coordinate with those of the MOSFET transistor pair.
US07721230B2
Graphical user interface for filtering a population of items. The graphical user interface may be implemented as a method on a system comprising a computer server or other computing device. The system defines a library of available criteria to be used in filtering a population of items to identify items of interest. Each criterion has a graphical representation. The system receives an indication of at least one of the criterion to be applied to the population as a filter and also accepts an indication of a tier of the filter to which the selected criterion is to be associated. The system identifies a list of items of interest satisfying a current set of criteria defining the filter. A graphical representation of the filter is displayed by the system while it is being constructed by the user. In one embodiment, the items are securities such as stocks.
US07721229B2
Displaying calendars may be provided. In response to a first input initiated by a user, a first calendar may be displayed comprising a user's calendar. Next, a second calendar may be overlaid over the first calendar. The second calendar may be displayed transparently with respect to the first calendar. Then, a third calendar may be displayed beside the first calendar. The second or third calendar may each comprise an event calendar, a project calendar, or a calendar of another user not associated with the first calendar. In addition, a second user initiated input may be received selecting an entry on the second calendar. In response to the received second user initiated input, the second calendar may be redisplayed not transparently with respect to the first calendar. Moreover, in response to the received second user initiated input, the first calendar may be redisplayed transparently with respect to the redisplayed second calendar.
US07721221B2
A computer system is configured as a task manager that provides interfaces both for designing an abstract activity and for defining a concrete instantiation of such an activity by replacing the abstract activity's abstract information with concrete information. In executing concrete instantiations of the abstract activities thus defined the task manager sends users prompts that cause them to take actions such as providing the task manager information that it uses to define the concrete instantiation further.
US07721219B2
The present invention relates to systems and methods that provide automatic generation of user interfaces via creation of a class-based model. A system is provided that facilitates generating a user interface. The system includes a class component to generally define properties and methods associated with one or more interface actions. A service component parses the class to automatically generate all or a portion of a user interface from the interface actions. Push and Pull-type models can be provided to facilitate merging of actions from various classes such as provided by third parties or from existing component developments.
US07721218B2
The present invention generally relates to intelligent software agents. Agents are interfaced with through user interfaces that are generated according to the agent's intelligence. In one aspect, the interfaces are dynamically and programmatically generated in response to a request from a user desiring to interface with a particular agent. In this way, the interface may be generated in real time according to the applied intelligence of the agent. Interfaces may also be updated periodically and, in this way, be available prior to a user's request.
US07721216B2
A communication icon represents a shared connection allowing members of an online group to interact with each other and participate in different activities together. The icon through which the group interacts resides on each group member's desktop and has many attributes including click activation modes and drag and drop functionality. The icon provides each group member with a representation of the group's shared relationship. Any group member can change the group icon and have that change propagated to the computers of the other members of the group. The icon can be activated for both non-verbal and verbal communications as well as activity sharing. Online members of the group are kept apprised of the group's status and activities via a displayed status bar.
US07721215B2
In a service providing system, a live-distribution service for live-distributing contents supplied according to a reservation, and a chat service for providing the use of a chat space corresponding to the reservation for live distribution are provided. After the live distribution finishes, a communication server sends the whole or a part of the contents of chatting performed in the chat space corresponding to the reservation for the live distribution, to a personal computer. With this, even if the user of the personal computer, who supplies the contents, could not participate in a chat with a user of another personal computer while capturing the contents, for example, the user of the personal computer can check the contents of the chat later.
US07721212B2
A configuration for an enterprise computing system is selected. A computer-implemented method to be performed in connection with installing a software system includes presenting, on a display device, multiple selectable visual representations regarding how to configure an enterprise computing system. Each of the visual representations has associated therewith a predefined set of configuration data for the enterprise computing system, and each visual representation depicts a feature of the associated predefined set of configuration data that differentiates from the other predefined sets of configuration data. The method includes receiving a selection of one of the visual representations by a user, and configuring the enterprise computing system using at least one of the predefined sets of configuration data that is associated with the selected visual representation.
US07721209B2
Techniques for accomplishing slide transitions in a presentation are disclosed. In accordance with these techniques, objects within the slides are identified, automatically or by a user, and each object is individually manipulable during slide transitions. The individual manipulation applied to each object during a transition may also be automatically determined or specified by a user. In certain embodiments, the persistence of an object between slides may be taken into account in the manipulation of the object during slide transition.
US07721202B2
The present invention includes devices and methods to specify a document transformation. A template specifies a transformation that is applied to a document in a streaming mode, without building a full object tree in memory representing the document.
US07721199B2
Two files are configured for more rapid comparison by removing blank spaces from the code of all of the lines in each of the files to be compared and also by attaching a control to the beginning of each line of code in each of the two sources prior to be compared. After blank spaces are removed and the controls attached, the two files are compared to determine additions, deletions and changes. The program continues to compare the strings of identical length until all of the strings have been compared. By comparing only strings of identical length, the program is able to compare two sources in substantially less time than by using conventional means of comparison.
US07721185B1
An error decoding system that comprises a first Reed-Solomon (RS) decoder that receives an encoded codeword and generates a decoded codeword. An inner code (IC) decoder checks the decoded codeword for uncorrected errors. A decoding control module communicates with the first RS decoder and the IC decoder, iteratively modifies a parameter of the first RS decoder if the IC decoder detects uncorrected errors in the decoded codeword, and instructs the first RS decoder to decode the encoded codeword again after modifying the parameter.
US07721179B2
A method and apparatus is provided to improve an error correction capability for transmitted information, thereby reducing bit error rate and block error rate, and improving the reliability. The method and apparatus can generate error correcting codes having a good minimum distance characteristic, and which can achieve soft decision decoding and reduce the quantity of calculations for the decoding by using an IFHT decoder. Also, the method and apparatus can perform decoding while improving the error correcting capability of particular bits.
US07721156B2
A system and method for selective logging of computer activity. A method in accordance with an embodiment of the invention includes: temporarily logging program execution data to a memory buffer during execution of a program; and determining a permanent disposition of the temporarily logged data in accordance with an execution outcome of the program.
US07721155B2
A method of operation of a computer system having a master and slave Inter-IC (I2C) bus network includes detecting and isolating an I2C bus failure, configuring a failed I2C bus as offline, reconfiguring a remaining I2C bus as a multi-mastered bus, and masking the failed I2C bus from operation until the failed I2C bus can be repaired. A first test request is sent to a remote device from a local device. If the remote device receives the first test request, a remote bus mode is switched to a failure position, a local bus mode is switched to a multi-master position, and a second request is sent to the remote device to indicate position changes.
US07721141B2
A recording medium for storing start position information for each zone, a method of managing data using the information, and an apparatus for recording the information and controlling recording and reproduction of data based on the recorded information. In a disc having a plurality of zones which form a group, and a spare area which is allocated at the start portion or the end portion of the group for replacing defects, when start logical sector numbers of each zone are changed by slipping replacement during initialization or reinitialization, the information is stored in the defect management area to thereby increase the compatibility of the medium. In particular, by the method and apparatus of managing data using information stored in a defect management area, generation of errors is prevented in reading or writing due to the change of a physical position of a real-recorded file which are caused by wrong calculation of the start logical sector numbers for each zone.
US07721139B2
A method, system, and computer program product are provided for managing data in a browser-based application. The application is opened in the browser, and a subset of the application is arbitrarily specified as data. Different versions of the subset of the application specified as data are caused to persist so that they may be recovered later. Persistence and recovery of the subset of the application specified as data are performed in a manner transparent to the application.
US07721131B2
In an information processing system, a host apparatus and a device are communicatively connected such that the host apparatus serves as a master and the device serves as a slave. The device is configured to establish a power-saving mode, when any command is not received from the host apparatus for a prescribed time period. A device driver is provided in the host apparatus. The device driver is configured to transit from a normal state to a suspended state when an operation command for operating the device is not received from an application running in the host apparatus for a prescribed time period, and to transmit a dummy response to the application, when an inquiry command is received from the application while the device driver is placed in the suspended state, without notifying the inquiry command to the device.
US07721130B2
An apparatus being connectable as a latch stage into a asynchronous latch chain comprises a reception interface, wherein upon receipt of the first signal at the reception interface, the apparatus switches to one of the first power saving mode and a second power saving mode, depending on the second signal at the reception interface and wherein the apparatus offers a first power consumption and a first wake-up time in the first power saving mode, and a second power consumption and a second wake-up time in the second power saving mode.
US07721122B2
A method of employing a power supply grid can include transmitting an identification initiation command from a control module to a first power supply unit to initiate a corresponding identification command. The method can also include transmitting an identification command from the first power supply unit to other power supply unit(s) that are supplied with power using a power supply phase in common with the first power supply. The method can further include transmitting identification acknowledgement signal(s) from the other power supply unit(s) to the control module in response to the first corresponding identification command. In one embodiment, the method can include mapping which power supply units correspond to various power supply grids. In other embodiments, control modules and power distribution systems can be operable to perform portions of the methods.
US07721113B2
An inter-record alteration detection code verification unit 36 calculates an inter-record alteration detection code by merging a record alteration detection code stored in a record to read from a database 34 and a record alteration detection code in the immediately previous record so as to generate a code and applying a predetermined hash operation to the generated code. The verification unit verifies whether the calculated inter-record alteration code coincides with the inter-record alteration detection code stored in the record to read. If they coincide with each other, data is determined to be not altered.
US07721110B2
System and method for secure and verified sharing of resources in a peer-to-peer network environment
A system and method for secure and verified sharing of resources in a peer-to-peer network environment to facilitate efficient use of bandwidth are disclosed. The method for securely sharing resources over a peer-to-peer network generally comprises broadcasting a request by a requesting peer for a resource over the peer-to-peer network where the resource is identified with a resource version identifier, receiving a response from a responding peer on the peer-to-peer network indicating that the responding peer has the requested resource, retrieving the requested resource from the responding peer, and verifying the retrieved resource by ensuring the retrieved resource contains the version identifier embedded therein. Preferably, the verifying also includes verifying a digital signature, such as a 1024-bit VeriSign digital certificate, of the retrieved resource to ensure integrity of the retrieved resource.
US07721107B2
A physical token operates together with an online server to test whether a user operating a user computer to access a service available at the online server is human. The physical token has two states: inactive and active. When in the inactive state the physical token displays interaction instructions for performing a physical action on the token. When the interaction instructions are satisfied, the physical token transitions to the active state and displays a response that may be used for satisfying a challenge issued by the online server to the user seeking to access the service.
US07721092B2
An authenticating device 100 includes an authentication processing unit 197 to perform an authentication process with a communication device 200 using an authentication key, an update key generating unit 160 to generate a new authentication key when the communication device 200 does not hold an authentication key to be used in the authentication process by the authentication processing unit 197, and to generate a new authentication key for updating the authentication key when the communication device 200 holds the authentication key but the authentication process with the communication device 200 by the authentication processing unit 197 fails. The authentication processing unit 197 performs again the authentication process with the communication device 200 using the new authentication key generated by the update key generating unit 160.
US07721090B1
A method of creating a secure intellectual property (IP) representation of a circuit design for use with a software-based simulator can include translating a hardware description language representation of the circuit design into an encrypted intermediate form and compiling the intermediate form of the circuit design to produce encrypted object code. The method further can include linking the encrypted object code with a simulation kernel library thereby creating the secure IP representation of the circuit design. The secure IP can include an encrypted simulation model of the circuit design and a simulation kernel configured to execute the encrypted simulation model.
US07721080B2
Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein instructions stored in an option ROM are copied to the system memory of a computer, wherein the option ROM corresponds to a device that is coupled to the computer. A virtual machine is generated, wherein the virtual machine executes the instructions copied to the system memory to boot the device before any operating system is loaded.
US07721077B2
A computing system may support an endian toggle register (ETR) and the endianess of the endian toggle register may be designated using a set endian bit (SEB) or a clear endian bit (CEB) instruction. An endian conversion is performed on the data that is moved into and moved out of the ETR. However, if the destination memory is an endian toggle disabled memory, the contents of the ETR may be transferred to the endian toggle disabled memory without performing the endian conversion. A compiler supported on the computing system may comprise an endian storage class to perform endian conversion, transparently, using high-level languages.
US07721075B2
A RISC processor having a data mover engine and instructions that associate register addresses with memory addresses. In an embodiment, the instructions include a read-tie instruction, a single write-tie instruction, a dual write-tie instruction, and an untie instruction. The read-tie, single write-tie, and dual write-tie instructions are used to associate software accessible register addresses with memory addresses. These associations effect the operation of the data mover engine such that, for the duration of the associations, the data mover engine routes data to and from associated memory addresses and the execution unit of the processor in response to instructions that specify moving data to and from the associated register addresses. The invention reduces the number of instructions and hardware overhead associated with implementing program loops in a RISC processor.
US07721073B2
A RISC processor having a data moving engine and instructions that associate register addresses with memory addresses. In an embodiment, the instructions include a read-tie instruction, a single write-tie instruction, a dual write-tie instruction, and an untie instruction. The read-tie, single write-tie, and dual write-tie instructions are used to associate software accessible register addresses with memory addresses. These associations effect the operation of the data moving engine such that, for the duration of the associations, the data moving engine routes data to and from associated memory addresses and the execution unit of the processor in response to instructions that specify moving data to and from the associated register addresses. The invention reduces the number of instructions and hardware overhead associated with implementing program loops in a RISC processor.
US07721058B2
In a storage system having a plurality of control units each connected with a plurality of disk units, it is provided that a replication is created in the volume of the disk units connected to different control units. The replication creation unit of a given control unit creates a replication in the volume of the disk unit connected to other control units in such a manner that the original volume information, the replication volume information in the control unit and information on the other control units are registered as volume pair information. Based on this volume pair information, a replication creation request is transmitted to the other control units.
US07721056B2
The present invention proposes a storage system having a plurality of disk array apparatuses managed separately by different managers, that can considerably improve the reliability of data backup. The invention provides a storage system, in which a first disk array apparatus includes a storing unit for storing volume information, which is information about the configuration of the volume; an extracting unit for, when receiving an external backup instruction, extracting, according to the backup instruction, volume information, as backup volume information from the volume information stored in the storage unit, about a backup target volume; and a presenting unit for presenting the backup volume information extracted by the extracting unit to an external device, and the second disk array apparatus includes an allocating unit for allocating a corresponding second volume to the backup target volume by referring to the backup volume information presented by the presenting unit.
US07721048B1
A computer processing system is disclosed that includes a cache that includes cache blocks of data. The system includes a marking sub-system, an ordering sub-system, and a replacement sub-system. The marking sub-system identifies and marks cache blocks that were provided to the cache via a wrong path with marking data. The ordering sub-system provides an order in which the cache blocks of data will be replaced in the cache, and the ordering sub-system is responsive to the marking data. The replacement sub-system replaces cache blocks in the cache in accordance with the ordering sub-system as required.
US07721045B1
A method for operating a computer storage system is disclosed. One or more data storage devices are configured to store a data content of a data container. A data structure having a plurality of permitted modification times (mtimes) is generated, the mtimes to control modifying a data stored in the data container. An I/O operation is performed by the storage system in response to a selected mtime. A request for the I/O operation is received from a client, and the data structure having a plurality of permitted modification times (mtimes) is generated in response to the request. The selected mtime is transmitted to the client, and an I/O operation is requested by the client in response to the selected mtime. The I/O operation is performed as an atomic I/O operation.
US07721043B2
Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for managing write requests in cache directed to different storage groups. A determination is made of a high and low thresholds for a plurality of storage groups configured in a storage, wherein the high and low thresholds for one storage group indicate a high and low percentage of a cache that may be used to store write requests to the storage group. A determination is made of a number of tasks to assign to the storage groups based on the determined high and low thresholds for the storage groups, wherein each task assigned to one storage group destages write requests from the cache to the storage group.
US07721034B2
A system and method is disclosed for managing system management interrupts in a multiprocessor system. The system described herein includes multiple processors, each of which may be directly coupled to memory. A primary processor will recognize the initiation of a system management interrupt. The primary processor will write a reason code to a storage location and set a watchdog timer, the expiration of which causes all of the processors of the system to enter a system management mode. After all of the processors have entered system management mode, it is determined if the reason code of the storage location corresponds to certain software-based system management interrupts. If so, the system management interrupt is handled by the local processors. Following the handling of the system management interrupt by the local processor, a signal is sent to each of the other processors to cause the processors to exit system management mode.
US07721033B2
An interrupt notification block stored in host memory is disclosed that contains an image of the interrupt condition contents that may be stored in a host attention register in a host interface port. The interrupt notification block is written by the host interface port and pre-fixed into the port pointer array of a host at the time the host interface port updates the pointers stored in a port pointer array in host memory. The host may then read the interrupt notification block to determine how to process a response or an interrupt rather than having to read the host attention register in the host interface port across the host bus.
US07721032B2
In a device that can execute multiple media applications, but only one at a time, a media server coordinates among applications, but neither the media server nor the individual applications maintain rules regarding all of the different applications. Each connection used by an application is assigned a priority and communicates that priority to the media server when the connection is established. When an application requests to begin playback, the request is granted if no other application is playing, or if another application is playing on a connection having a priority at most equal to that of the connection used by the requesting application, but is denied if the connection already in use has a higher priority. Resumption of an application that was interrupted by another application on a connection with higher priority is determined by the interrupted application after the interruption ends, based on information communicated by the media server.
US07721030B2
A method for connecting at least one sensor or actuator to a time-controlled bus system, the sensor or actuator carrying out a signal processing in at least two phases, the signal processing in a first phase taking place at a higher speed than in a second phase, the sensor or actuator being synchronized to a time, which is external to the sensor, of the time-controlled bus system in at least one of the phases.
US07721016B2
A method of initiating re-enumeration of a USB device without manual intervention is provided. The method involves a sequence emulating detachment and re-attachment of a device to the host while the device remains attached to the host. As the device remains attached to the host throughout the sequence, the host OS is manipulated to receive a plurality of preset device states in order for it to perceive a device change and to eventually initiate device enumeration. The sequence, which involves a series of command exchanges between the device and the host, may be initiated by a software application residing in the host upon an event requiring device enumeration.
US07721012B2
An optic module is disclosed having a shared bus interface, a transmit disable line, a memory and control logic or a processor configured to facilitate address modification via a bus shared by multiple optic modules. A single housing may contain multiple modules, all of which are preferably accessible via a shared host via a shared bus. Standard compliant modules share a common address, which inhibits communication with only a particular optic module, via the shared bus, in a housing containing multiple optic modules. Using a common message to all modules to treat a transmit disable line as a module select line, a single module may be active during an address re-write operation. This process may repeat until all the modules within the housing have unique addresses.
US07721010B2
Embodiments of the invention generally provide a system, method, and memory device for accessing memory. In one embodiment, a first memory device includes command decoding logic configured to decode commands issued to the first memory device and a second memory device, while command decoding logic of the second memory device is bypassed.
US07721008B2
A method corrects channel change errors in a media center personal computer system. The media center personal computer system has a personal computer coupled to an infrared (IR) remote control device and a tuner card coupled to an output of an external tuner. The method determines when channel change instructions have been sent from the IR remote control device to the external tuner. It then determines whether an output from the external tuner is changing and if not, resends the channel change instructions from the IR remote control device to the external tuner upon determining that the output from the external tuner is not changing.
US07721005B2
A system and method is introduced that integrates middleware components without canonicalization of data at runtime. An interface receives inputs identifying at least a first and second middleware to be made interoperative and a configurator configures at least an in-port and an out-port based on a binding and transport associated with the first and second middleware, respectively. Interoperation of the first and second middleware is effected via at least one communication path between the configured in-port and out-port, wherein the communication path allows an incoming message to pass from the in-port corresponding to said first middleware to the out-port corresponding to the second middleware without the creation of an intermediate canonical message.
US07721001B1
Systems and methods are disclosed for time synchronization of operations in a control system. Synchronization networks and devices are provided for transferring synchronization information between controllers in a distributed or localized control system, which is employed in order to allow operation of such controllers to be synchronized with respect to time. Also disclosed are synchronization protocols and hardware apparatus employed in synchronizing control operations in a control system.
US07720990B2
A method for handling service requests in a data processing system is disclosed. In response to a service request, a priority of the service request is determined by mapping a context of the service request to a service level agreement (SLA). SLA-aware and timeout-conscious and preemptive and replayable lock manager is designed to account for different operational goals and different importance to satisfy various SLAs. An average processing time of the service request is then calculated based on statistical results. The service request will be allowed to process if the determined average processing time meets historical guarantee situations.
US07720988B2
A hardware constitution and method for playing back different types of media content is provided. Data is registered from a desired medium to a user data storing unit of a server from a PC. Content may then be selected by a vehicle onboard apparatus from the server. The data corresponding to the selected content is then transmitted to the vehicle onboard apparatus, and the data is decoded on the vehicle onboard apparatus using a decoder that corresponds to the content medium.
US07720986B2
A method includes receiving a media request for a target device. The signaling information may be received from the target device and a media server. At least one attribute of the target device and the media server may be identified using the signaling information. At least one attribute of the target device and the media server may be evaluated against a service level objective to select a media format. The service level objective may include consideration of the target device and available bandwidth over a provider network. The media may be provided in the selected media format over the provider network to the target device.
US07720982B2
A computer architecture and programming model for high speed processing over broadband networks are provided. The architecture employs a consistent modular structure, a common computing module and uniform software cells. The common computing module includes a control processor, a plurality of processing units, a plurality of local memories from which the processing units process programs, a direct memory access controller and a shared main memory. A synchronized system and method for the coordinated reading and writing of data to and from the shared main memory by the processing units also are provided. A hardware sandbox structure is provided for security against the corruption of data among the programs being processed by the processing units. The uniform software cells contain both data and applications and are structured for processing by any of the processors of the network. Each software cell is uniquely identified on the network. A system and method for creating a dedicated pipeline for processing streaming data also are provided.
US07720980B1
A system and method for dynamically controlling a rogue application through incremental bandwidth restrictions is disclosed. A network connection supporting a flow of network traffic in a distributed computing environment is monitored. The network traffic flow includes a stream of data packets generated by a rogue application. Bandwidth allocated to the monitored network connection is incrementally adjusted until the flow of the network traffic for the rogue application achieves a steady state of bandwidth restriction. The flow of subsequent network traffic over the monitored network connection is controlled at the steady state of bandwidth restriction.
US07720979B2
A processor transfers control information set for each connection from a second memory to a first memory, and updates the control information stored in the first memory in accordance with processing of the connection. The processor selects control information updated in the first memory, and transfers the selected control information from the first memory to the second memory.
US07720972B2
An apparatus and program product for transferring entitlement to standby resources between respective computers. Standby resources are made available at a destination computer by rendering unavailable corresponding resources at a source computer. As such, the aggregate number of available standby resources may remain unchanged, but the distribution of the availability may be reapportioned according to operational requirements. Where desired, this transfer of entitlement may be accomplished automatically, dynamically and/or in a secure manner.
US07720967B2
An exemplary embodiment of the invention relates to a method, system, and storage medium for resolving contention issues by a channel in a fibre optic switch environment that occur during channel program execution. The method comprises a channel receiving a status packet indicating a device is no longer busy. The method also includes specifying whether the channel intends to re-initiate a channel program that previously resulted in the device busy status. If the channel does not intend to re-initiate the channel program, a first combination of bits in a re-initiate field of a status-acceptance packet are set which indicate that the channel will take no further action. If the channel intends to re-initiate the channel program, a second combination of bits in the re-initiate field of the status-acceptance packet are set, indicating that the channel will re-initiate the channel program. The method further includes transmitting the status-acceptance packet to a control unit. The invention also includes a system and a storage medium.
US07720964B2
The invention can enable monitoring of the display of content by a computer system. Moreover, the invention can enable monitoring of the displayed content to produce monitoring information from which conclusions may be deduced regarding the observation of the displayed content by an observer. The invention can also enable monitoring of the display at a content display site of content that is provided by a content provider site over a network to the content display site. Additionally, the invention can enable the expeditious provision of updated and/or tailored content over a network from a content provider site to a content display site so that the content provider's current and appropriately tailored content is always displayed at the content display site. Aspects of the invention related to transfer of content over a network are generally applicable to any type of network. However, it is contemplated that the invention can be particularly useful with a computer network, including private computer networks (e.g., America Online™) and public computer networks (e.g., the Internet). In particular, the invention can be advantageously used with computer networks or portions of computer networks over which video and/or audio content are transferred from one network site to another network site for observation, such as the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.
US07720953B2
A data source detection method and system for detecting data sources are provided. The data source detection system comprises a generic data source connector for connecting to a data source, a data source connectors repository for storing the location of the data source and a data source model for representing information contained in the data source. The method comprises the steps of reading a data source connector repository, locating and connecting to a data source connector of a data source and building a data source model of the data source.
US07720950B2
Discovery, maintenance, and representation of entities in a managed system environment are described. Apparatus described herein includes one or more agents that run on respective serves that are managed within a management system, and that generate discovery data in response to a discovery rule. The apparatus also includes a management server that is adapted to transmit the discovery rules for execution by the agent, and to receive the discovery data from the agent. Methods described herein include defining the rules for discovering data about an entity on the server, and receiving the discovery data in response to the rule being executed in an environment in which the entity is deployed. Several types of user interfaces for presenting the discovery data are also disclosed.
US07720947B2
A method of reserving a transmission band of a transmission line for transmitting data via a plurality of Internet service providers on the Internet between first and second communication devices includes the steps of (a) the first communication device requesting an intermediary server to reserve the transmission band and (b) the intermediary server reserving the transmission band for the first and second communication devices.
US07720941B2
A method of monitoring network elements in a communications network includes querying the network elements for reboot and/or reconfiguration event data, identifying a group of the network elements responsive to the querying, and updating information for the identified group of network elements in a network configuration database. The method may further include extracting information from the identified group of network elements into independently searchable databases. The invention may be embodied as methods, data processing systems and computer program products.
US07720939B1
A method and system for transforming and verifying downloaded programs fragments with data type restriction in an embedded system in which a program fragment being temporarily stored a verification process of the stored program fragment object code is executed instruction by instruction so as to discriminate for each instruction the existence of a target, a branching instruction target, a target of an exception handler call or a target of a subroutine call. On the occurrence of a target of a branching instruction as the current instruction, the empty status of the stack is verified and the program fragment is rejected otherwise. A verification process and updating of the effect of the current instruction on the data types of the type stack and the table of register types is performed. The verification process is successfully executed instruction by instruction until the table of register types is stable, with no modification being present, and interrupted with the program fragment being rejected otherwise.
US07720936B2
The present solution provides a variety of techniques for accelerating and optimizing network traffic, such as HTTP based network traffic. The solution described herein provides techniques in the areas of proxy caching, protocol acceleration, domain name resolution acceleration as well as compression improvements. In some cases, the present solution provides various prefetching and/or prefreshening techniques to improve intermediary or proxy caching, such as HTTP proxy caching. In other cases, the present solution provides techniques for accelerating a protocol by improving the efficiency of obtaining and servicing data from an originating server to server to clients. In another cases, the present solution accelerates domain name resolution more quickly. As every HTTP access starts with a URL that includes a hostname that must be resolved via domain name resolution into an IP address, the present solution helps accelerate HTTP access. In some cases, the present solution improves compression techniques by prefetching non-cacheable and cacheable content to use for compressing network traffic, such as HTTP. The acceleration and optimization techniques described herein may be deployed on the client as a client agent or as part of a browser, as well as on any type and form of intermediary device, such as an appliance, proxying device or any type of interception caching and/or proxying device.
US07720934B2
An electronic musical apparatus for use in a music contents distribution processing system which makes it possible to selectively use usage modes such as downloading of music contents from a music contents distributing site to a user terminal (electronic musical apparatus) and streaming of such music contents in a simple manner. A distribution mode designating file indicative of whether music contents are to be distributed from the music contents distributing site in a download mode or a streaming mode is received and interpreted. The music contents received from the music contents distributing site are processed in the download mode or the streaming mode according to the result of the interpretation.
US07720932B2
A layered syndicated feed or content is provided having layers defined according to a media type (e.g., text, graphic, audio, or video) wherein each layer has a plurality of levels such that each level provides either inclusive or exclusive content of the layer's media type in varying degrees of detail or depth. Furthermore, a system is provided for requesting and storing user and mobile device profiles indicative of the syndicated content layers and levels that the user is interested in receiving and that the user's mobile device is capable of receiving.
US07720922B2
An email content builder that generates email content based upon customer created rules is described. Messages to clients are edited automatically to suit a client's needs. The language in the text of a message is translated and changed depending on the country and client. Users select a script in an ebusiness system. After retrieving the appropriate script and associated information, the email content builder would either build the appropriate script corresponding to a client or retrieve appropriate text from the database. Then, the email content builder builds a script and email message depending on certain aspects of the client, such as language, billing information, etc.
US07720920B2
Client side based data synchronization and storage is accomplished through a smart way of data off-lining coupled with a synchronization technique implemented on the client side that does not require any modifications to the server side. The customized client utilizes the server as a temporary placeholder for document synchronization. Attached documents to an item will be off-loaded from the client based on a predetermined policy. The clients make off-line copies of the items and documents. The server will maintain only the document store skeleton or metadata for such processed items. Any client which has not made an off-line copy of an item will pass a synchronization request via the server to the other clients so that at least one of its peers may upload the document onto the server. The requesting client can then retrieve the item from the server and synchronize/off-line that item on its local store.
US07720918B1
Systems and methods for interconnecting media services to an interface for transport of media assets
Systems and methods are provided to integrate disparate media services and applications across an organization. The media services are connected to an interoperable media services bus by creating a connector API for each service, thereby enabling the media services to exchange messages in a standardized format related to transactions to be performed involving media assets and/or metadata associated with media assets. Media assets are advantageously transported between different media systems using a transport interface that hides details of the transport operation from the sender and recipient media services. Each media service provides its own file transport parameters defining procedures for obtaining media assets therefrom and writing media assets thereto; the transport service determines particular protocols for each transport operation based on the information provided by the sender and recipient media services.
US07720916B2
A unique system, method, and user interface that facilitate ordering personal items based on past personal interaction between a user and the user's correspondents are provided. In particular, the system provides alternative views of information, such as messages, that is organized around people using an ordering based on the history of communication between the recipient and sender. Social metrics can be calculated based on social metadata associated with the messages, for example. Metrics can be used to configure how or which messages are viewed and their order in one or more pane views. Each pane view can present different orderings of messages—which are displayed by the recipient or sender of the message. So for instance, instead of viewing messages in chronological receipt date, they can be viewed by the message's sender and ordered by the number of messages previously sent to the user.
US07720894B2
An internal security method for use with a relational database system is disclosed. The method is incorporated into a database system such that there is no need for security coding be layered on top of the system application software to prevent unauthorized access to restricted database information. The method of the present invention includes at least two embodiments and at least one of the embodiments has a “down the tree view” structure.
US07720889B1
A system and method for nearly in-band search indexing. A network switch (or other intermediate network device) is configured to provide port mirroring so that data access requests directed to a storage system are forwarded to both the storage system and to a search appliance. The search appliance collects index information from the received data access requests to update a search index. As the search appliance is nearly in-band, i.e., not directly in-line of the data access request path, no increase of latency occurs for processing data access requests by the storage system.
US07720874B2
An enhanced space allocation mechanism (ESAM) for dynamically allocating space for a fixed length part of variable length fields, such as VARCHAR fields, in database tables. Each record in such a variable length field has a fixed length part, a variable length part, and a pointer to the variable length part. The ESAM determines how much space to allocate based on the data that was historically put into these tables. In one embodiment, a database management system (DBMS) maintains a historical record that includes fields identifying the table, column and application ID, as well as fields that track a count and a total length. For each variable length field in a Structured Query Language (SQL) statement such as CREATE table or ALTER table, the DBMS finds a matching historical record, determines an estimated optimal fixed portion length based on the matching historical record, and sets a space allocation length for the fixed length part of the variable length field based on the estimated optimal fixed portion length. This dynamic space allocation approach is especially advantageous in situations where an empty table will be loaded with a massive amount of data.
US07720870B2
A method and system for quantifying the quality of search results from a search engine based on cohesion. The method and system include modeling a set of search engine search results as a cluster and measuring the cohesion of the cluster. In an embodiment, the cohesion of the cluster is the average similarity between the cluster elements to a centroid vector. The centroid vector is the average of the weights of the vectors of the cluster. The similarity between the centroid vector and the cluster's elements is the cosine similarity measure. Each document in the set of search results is represented by a vector where each cell of the vector represents a stemmed word. Each cell has a cell value which is the frequency of the corresponding stemmed word in a document multiplied by a weight that takes into account the location of the stemmed word within the document.
US07720867B2
Constructing a query in a natural-language format using a purpose-driven query template. A user is prompted to select one of a plurality of query purposes. User-input is received indicating a selected one of the plurality of query purposes. A first list of conditions is selected from a plurality of lists of conditions based on the selected one of the plurality of query purposes, then displayed in a format in which each of a plurality of conditions in the first list is grammatically joined to at least one other condition in the first list to form a query sentence, and wherein each of the plurality of conditions in the first list is associated with a respective set of user-selectable values.
US07720866B2
A data-generation supporting system includes an template generating unit that generates a document type template from metadata for inputting a combination, the metadata defining a class and properties indicating attributes of an instance belonging to the class; a combination-information generating unit that receives a combination of constituent elements of the properties based on the generated document type template through an input unit, and that generates combination information; and a combination expanding unit that generates contents data using a function of calculating a direct product of the properties of the generated combination information, and using a function of performing a calculation of the constituent elements of the properties and a character-string combination of the constituent elements of the properties.
US07720862B2
One implementation provides a method for acquiring knowledge from multiple knowledge bases in a knowledge repository. The method includes identifying first and second knowledge bases within the knowledge repository by analyzing a search request received from a client system. The first knowledge base contains knowledge of a first type and the second knowledge base contains knowledge of a second type. The method further includes generating instructions that, when executed, cause first and second requests to be sent to the knowledge repository in sequential fashion to acquire knowledge from the first and second knowledge bases, such that the second request is sent after the first request, and such that the second request includes knowledge of the first type from the first knowledge base acquired in response to the first request.
US07720857B2
A visualization graph is provided on a computer by storing data corresponding to a plurality of entities having a particular type, wherein a semantic net includes the entities and wherein the entities are linked to each other by a plurality of relations. The visualization graph is provided in response to a query with respect to an entity selected from the plurality of entities, wherein the visualization graph includes a plurality of sectors representing the results of the query. Entities are allocated to a predetermined sector of the graph depending on their entity type.
US07720855B2
A social network for affecting personal behavior is provided. The psychological and behavioral progress of a registered user of the social network is maintained. The social network provides the registered user with friends who can track the user's progress and encourage the user by communications with the user. The friends of the user can be anybody, including people who are not registered with the social network. A dynamic mechanism for grouping different users into support groups is also provided. The grouping is based on the user's progress, satisfaction with the user's supporters, and the user's traits and preferences. User-customized profiles are used to elucidate user traits instead of standard direct forms to avoid incorrect or misleading responses to the forms. In addition, a wireless portable device in communication with the social network of friends and supporters is provided for constant access to sources of motivation.
US07720848B2
A probabilistic clustering system is defined at least in part by probabilistic model parameters indicative of word counts, ratios, or frequencies characterizing classes of the clustering system. An association of one or more documents in the probabilistic clustering system is changed from one or more source classes to one or more destination classes. Probabilistic model parameters characterizing classes affected by the changed association are locally updated without updating probabilistic model parameters characterizing classes not affected by the changed association.
US07720844B2
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to flexible, user-adapted, continuous searching, on behalf of a particular user, for points of interest relevant to the user's current location within a specifically computed personal region of interest. In a general case, the personal region of interest is computed as a function of the user's level of disposition towards the searched-for points of interest. The level of disposition towards the searched-for points of interest may, in turn, be based on two or more of the user's location, the current date and time, a history of the user's interaction with the POI-searching system, including user-initiated searches and user selections from displayed search results, a user profile developed for, and continuously updated on behalf of, the user, and a current context for the search, as specified by a search query or by other context-specifying means. The personal region of interest generally defines an abstract area, volume, or hypervolume within which method and system embodiments of the present invention search for points of interest.
US07720843B2
A system and method for facilitating real-time end-user awareness in results to a query to optimize and refine a computerized search utilizing an interactive result layer (IRL) and result operational layer (ROL) are disclosed. The present invention establishes a loopback feedback between encapsulated end-user interactions, which are facilitated through an interactive result layer (IRL), and the results from a query, passed through a result operational layer (ROL). An end-user selects interactions to particular results by way of a prompt within the IRL. The end-user interactions are provided to and processed in the ROL in real-time without the end-user having to re-query the system to reflect said interaction or combination of interactions. A real-time automatic result feeder aides in delivering new results to end-user when results are deleted. Subsequent queries can reflect past end-user interactions.
US07720832B1
A method for presenting contact information that includes receiving a search request for the contact information and retrieving a result set comprising a plurality of contacts corresponding to the search request, wherein each contact comprises a plurality of common contact data fields. The method also includes, for each common contact data field in the result set, determining a differentiating factor for the common contact data field, and selectively displaying at least one value of the common contact data field based on the differentiating factor.
US07720821B1
A media storage device records a meta-data header with packets received by the media storage device. The meta-data headers include a cycle mark value and a cycle count value. The cycle mark value has a specific pattern which is then used to locate cycle boundaries within the recorded stream of data. The cycle count value specifies the value of the isochronous cycle number on which the packet was received. Preferably, the media storage device includes an embedded stream processor which is responsible for appropriately adding the meta-data header to the packets within the recorded stream of data. The embedded stream processor is also integral to the playback of recorded data, and is used to retrieve data from the storage media, strip the meta-data headers from retrieved data being played back and recover from any error conditions encountered during the playback of previously recorded data. The meta-data headers stored within the recorded stream of data are also utilized to recover from any error conditions and resynchronize the transmission of the data during playback.
US07720819B2
A method and apparatus for protecting file data is provided that combines or merges revision based backup with backup based on time intervals. One embodiment is directed to a method for protecting data contained in a file of a computer system, wherein the computer system is useable to create multiple successive file versions. The method comprises the steps of specifying a maximum number of file versions that can be stored collectively at first and second storage locations, and apportioning the maximum number into a first number of file versions and a second number of file versions. The method further comprises storing the most recent of the multiple file versions, up to a number equal to the first number, at the first storage location. A number of file versions respectively created before the stored most recent versions, up to a number equal to the second number, are stored at the second storage location, over a pre-specified time period and in accordance with a pre-specified strategy.
US07720817B2
A method for browsing objects on a protected volume in a continuous data protection system begins by displaying a list of top-level objects to a user who selects a top-level object to browse. A snapshot is selected from the selected top-level object and is decoded. A list of objects in the selected snapshot is displayed and the user selects an object to browse. The selected object is decoded and operations are performed on the selected object. The user can browse the protected volume by snapshots in the top-level object or by a range of time of coverage of the top-level object.
US07720809B2
A method and system for integrating form data in an ERP system with a target application are provided. The method includes receiving a first input from a user of an ERP system while a form is running on an application layer of the ERP system to initiate a data integration process. Next, a metadata form XML file is generated at an ERP platform layer from the form running on the application layer. Then, the metadata form XML file is sent from the ERP platform layer to the application layer for use by target applications in integrating data from the form into the target applications.
US07720808B2
A computer readable medium comprises executable instructions to form a list of parameters for a report. The list of parameters is compared to existing lists of parameters. A selected list of parameters is designated. A report is generated with the selected list of parameters.
US07720807B1
Ease of processing and exchange of information and data between different programmatic schema and memory stores is described. A common indexing system or coordination language based on the natural number node-labeled tree data structure provides a common programming element for use at the base of all container-oriented manipulation.
US07720802B2
Systems methods and computer products for reclaiming resident buffers on demand. Exemplary embodiments include systems and methods for reclaiming resident buffers, including allocating a buffer, determining that the buffer allocation pushes the buffer pool below a reclaim threshold, marking an oldest in-use buffer to be reclaimed, determining that all messages referencing the buffer have been queued, allocating a new buffer and performing a swap of the oldest in-use buffer and the new buffer, performing a free message block operation and updating a message block by updating a set of read and write pointers to point to the new buffer.
US07720798B2
A transmitter-receiver system includes: a transmitting apparatus configured to transmit data categorized into groups recorded on a recording medium; and a receiving apparatus configured to receive the data; wherein the transmitting apparatus includes: a read unit configured to read a destination of the data, the destination which is recorded on the recording medium and associated with the group of the data; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit data categorized into a predetermined group and group information showing the group to the destination read by the read unit, and the receiving apparatus includes: a receiving unit configured to receive data and group information transmitted from the transmitting unit; and a record control unit configured to record the data in a folder corresponding to the group based on the group information.
US07720796B2
A NAS switch provides mirroring in a NAS storage network that is transparent to client. A source file server exports an original NAS file handles indicative of object locations on the source file server to the NAS switch. The NAS switch modifies the original NAS file handles to an internal file system and maps the original NAS file handles to a switch file handles independent of location. The NAS switch exports the switch file handles to a client. The client looks-up objects and makes NAS requests to the source file server using switch file handles. The NAS switch performs mirroring of a namespace when during processes such as data migration, data replication, and data snapshot.
US07720795B2
A method for communicating information for pre-defined metrics management of business metrics uses a system including a server and at least one user accessible device communicative with the server. The server has a database and a web interface. The method comprises providing a user with a web interface configurable to a template accommodating business metrics data by the user, and providing visual indications of the status of the business metrics.
US07720788B2
Methods and apparatus for initiating a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) push session to push information from a push proxy gateway to a mobile station in a wireless communication network are provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises transmitting an initiation request to the mobile station using a connection-oriented signalling channel, the mobile station establishing a push session in response to the initiation request. Preferably, the connection-oriented signalling channel transmits the initiation request without using a store-and-forward mechanism. In one embodiment, the connection-oriented signalling channel comprises an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel. The initiation request may conform to a WAP protocol for Service Initiation Requests (SIRs) or a USSD protocol for Unstructured Supplementary Service Requests (USSRs). In the latter case, the method may comprise establishing a connection with the mobile station using USSD; and sending a USSR message requesting the mobile station to activate and establish a push session.
US07720786B2
A system and method of identifying loose patterns using a smart multiset intersection operation are provided. Data segments are received from a data segmentation algorithm and sorted into corresponding multisets. A retain operation may be performed on the multisets. A normalization operation is then performed on the repeating elements in the multisets to identify the loose pattern. The loose pattern is stored in a database.
US07720778B2
Example implementations relate to a system for selecting a provider service that fulfills a specification of a service request. The system includes a storage unit, a transformer unit, and a selection unit. The storage unit is configured to store a generic contract that is a concept of an ontology and a provider sub-concept that is a further concept of the ontology and a sub-concept of the generic contract. The provider sub-concept represents the provider service. The transformer unit is configured to transform the service request to a request sub-concept that is a concept of the ontology and a sub-concept of the generic contract. The selection unit is configured to select the provider service in case that the request sub-concept is a sub-concept of the provider sub-concept.
US07720777B2
Method, device, and program product to monitor the social health of a persistent virtual environment
Device, method, and computer program product for monitoring the social health of a persistent virtual environment. The disclosed technology monitors social interactions between subscribers of on-line entities who have interactions related to the persistent virtual environment.
US07720776B2
A method of facilitating calculations of the changes in three mutually dependent variables, in which an initial condition of all the variables is represented by a triangle, calculated changes are then displayed by modifying the triangle, and the modified form of the triangle then provides a new basis for further calculations.
US07720775B2
Conventional robot apparatus etc. can not perform name-learning naturally. Learning the name of an object is performed such a manner that the name of a target object is obtained through dialog with a human being, the name is stored in association with plural items of different characteristic data detected for the target object, and a new object is recognized based on the stored data and associative information, the name and characteristic data of the new person are obtained and this associative information is stored.
US07720773B2
We set out a graphical model for describing probability distributions over labeled partitions of an undirected graph which are conditioned on observed data. We show how to efficiently perform exact inference in these models, by exploiting the structure of the graph and adapting the sum-product and max-product algorithms. The method can be used for partitioning and labeling hand-drawn ink fragments, image data, speech data and natural language data amongst other types of data elements. A significant performance increase is obtained by labeling and partitioning simultaneously. It is also possible to partition without labeling.
US07720770B1
A method and system for negotiating improved terms for a product being purchased over the Internet. Once a purchaser has made a decision to buy a specific product over the Internet, the purchaser may use the services of a personal negotiating broker-agent program to beat the best available purchase transaction within a specifiable time window. The personal broker-agent program may detect an issuance of a commitment to purchase over the Internet by a purchaser. The personal broker-agent program may then make an offer to the purchaser the option of waiting a predetermined amount of time while the broker agent searches for improved items. On acceptance of the option by the purchaser, the personal broker-agent program may conduct an auction and/or search the Internet for a better deal and may evaluate the auction and/or search responses to determine the best deal. The personal broker-agent program may then execute the best deal. If the purchaser elects not to accept the option from the personal broker-agent program, then the purchaser may execute the commitment to purchase transaction without delay.
US07720769B1
A card activated cash dispensing automated banking machine is provided. The machine may be operative to install a terminal master key (TK) therein in response to at least one input from a single operator. The machine may include an EPP that is operative to remotely receive an encrypted terminal master key from a host system. The machine may authenticate and decrypt the terminal master key prior to accepting the terminal master key. The machine may further output through a display device of the machine a one-way hash of at least one public key associated with the host system. The machine may continue with the installation of the terminal master key in response to an operator confirming that the one-way hash of the public key corresponds to a value independently known by the operator to correspond to the host system.
US07720765B1
A method and system for secure distribution of digital content, using a disintegration tool under control of a distributor of the digital content to divide the digital content into protected and unprotected segments, delivering the unprotected segments to the customer along with installation software and identification information. The segments to be protected are modified using the identification information on the distribution medium and hardware information unique to a particular customer device. Upon communication of this information from the customer device, the modified segments are sent to the customer device for integration with the unprotected segments to generate a modified digital content operable only on the particular customer device.
US07720764B2
A method for conducting a secure transaction over a network includes the steps of receiving a price and a transaction identifier from a merchant, the transaction identifier identifying a purchase selection made by a user, receiving a user identifier from a user, receiving a financial institution selection from the user, initiating a communication session with the selected financial institution, receiving a financial-institution user-identifier from the user, communicating the financial-institution user-identifier to the selected financial institution, communicating to the selected financial institution a request to transfer funds, receiving the funds from the selected financial institution, and sending the funds to the merchant.
US07720763B2
A supplemental financial transaction processing system operates in conjunction with one or more primary financial services systems for purposes of providing supplemental financial transaction processing services to users of the primary financial services system. The supplemental financial transaction processing system comprises a secure web services system and a supplemental transaction server. The secure web services system comprises at least one financial transaction method available to the primary financial services system. Upon receipt of a method call for a financial transaction, the supplemental financial transaction processing system: i) associates a unique redirect URL to the method call; and ii) returns the unique redirect URL to the primary financial services system. The primary financial services system may then pass the unique redirect URL through a secure connection with its client. The supplemental transaction server, upon a client requesting an HTTPS connection to the unique redirect URL, verifies the validity of the unique redirect URL. If valid, a web document object is provided for rendering by the client. The web document object comprises: i) the financial institution defined transaction values (at least one); ii) user interface control script for rendering of controls for obtaining user entry of at least one client defined transaction value; and iii) transaction control script. The transaction control script comprises instructions for i) creating a financial transaction; ii) validating the financial transaction; and iii) posting the validated transaction back to the supplemental financial transaction server.
US07720751B2
A computer system for conducting continuous assurance for internal control of financial transactions is disclosed. The computer system comprises a processor, a bus coupled to the processor, a memory coupled to the bus, a mass storage system coupled to the bus, and continuous assurance software resident in the memory. The continuous assurance software, when executed, performing the steps of accessing client database, downloading total population, performing analysis, evaluating analysis results, comparing total population to financial statements, determining risk ratings for each predetermined financial group, determining a materiality of anomalies, and displaying results.
US07720744B2
Systems and methods for shifting bids and/or offers in a trading interface are provided. Using these systems and methods, a trader may access various bid and/or offer data, adjust bid and/or offer statuses, and shift a plurality of bid and/or offer prices and sizes to accommodate for changes in a trading environment. The trading interface may provide users with multiple bid and/or offer interaction. This may allow users to apply changes to a plurality of bids and/or offers simultaneously and provide time efficient bid and/or offer shifting. Furthermore, the trading interface may allow the user to access or import books from various trading applications.
US07720741B2
The invention relates to a method for calculating in a network that comprises links a distribution of forward prices for using the links in the network. The method comprises the following steps:a) a provision step for providing an observed forward price of a forward contract for each of the links,b) a determination step for deriving from the observed forward prices a proposed joint distribution of forward prices by applying a forward pricing process to each of the links, thereby generating a geographical arbitrage in the network;c) an arbitrage reduction step for reducing the geographical arbitrage in the proposed joint distribution of forward prices by a geographical arbitrage reduction value;d) a verification step for verifying if the proposed joint distribution of forward prices together with the observed forward prices has a defined property in response to the determination step and the arbitrage reduction step;if the verification step results in the defined property being not presente) a generation step for generating a property reduction value;repeating the determination step, the arbitrage reduction step and the verification step, applying the property reduction value to the forward pricing process of each of the links.
US07720740B2
A system of fractional ownership of intellectual property, and a method for providing same. The system can comprise a pooling account, a first entity, and at least one second entity. The first entity can have an interest in an intellectual property, and can transfer at least a portion of such interest into the pooling account. The second entity can contribute consideration into the pooling account. In return for the consideration from the second entity, a commensurate fractional interest in the intellectual property can be associated with the second entity.
US07720739B2
A traveler registers a credit card and merchandise purchased at each of domestic shops with the credit card. The shop transmits purchase information to a card company. The traveler finishes an embarkation procedure and then receives an application form output from an information terminal that is installed in advance. The application form is prepared by the card company and is output to the information terminal. The traveler performs a tax refund application process at a tax refund application counter with a passport and the application form. The merchandise is delivered to the tax refund application counter in a departure airport.
US07720727B2
A process control system includes economic models disposed in communication with process control modules, as well as with sources of economic data, such as cost, throughput and profit data, and uses the economic models to determine useful economic parameters or information associated with the actual operation of the process plant at the time the plant is operating. The economic models can be used to provide financial statistics such as profitability, cost of manufactured product, etc. in real time based on the actual current operating state of the process and the business data associated with the finished product, raw materials, etc. These financial statistics can be used to drive alarms and alerts within the process network and be used as inputs to process plant optimizers, etc. to provide for better or more optimal control of the process and to provide a better understanding of the conditions which lead to maximum profitability of the plant.
US07720725B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for planning a supply network for a product between a source location and a destination location in a managed supply chain. In one embodiment, a method is provided that comprises the steps of: creating a planned stock transfer order to cover demand from the destination location, deploying available products from the source location to the destination location in response to the planned stock transfer, the deploying step including the step of calculating a quantity of products available to deploy, wherein the calculating step takes into account a rounding value and a maximum lot size, and confirming the planned stock transfer order with the calculated available quantity.
US07720717B2
Mobile terminal device, mobile terminal method, mobile terminal program, and electronic money server
A mobile terminal device has an information processing unit that processes electronic money information and a storage unit that stores the electronic money information. A receiving unit receives from an electronic money server an electronic money identification (ID), a mobile terminal identification (ID) identifying the mobile terminal device, and a money information processing program for enabling the information processing unit to execute processing of the money information stored in the storage unit. An installation unit installs into the storage unit the money information processing program and the IDs received by the receiving unit. A sending unit sends to the electronic money server information necessary for enabling the electronic money server to provide electronic money service, the necessary information being sent to the electronic server before the receiving unit receives the money information processing and the IDs.
US07720706B2
A method and a system for providing and presenting performance statistics to an agent. A further embodiment of the present invention provides performance comparison reporting between an agent and an agent data group and/or a management unit. This is achieved by collecting and calculating statistical parameters that characterize the performance of agents, providing periodic updates to the performance data, and providing access to the performance data to the agent.
US07720705B2
Service providers are evaluated and rated according to criteria that includes customer satisfaction with the services provided by the service provider. If the service provider meets and/or exceeds certain predetermined criteria, the service provider is certified, and a list of certified companies together with a satisfaction rating, is posted on an Internet Web site maintained by the rating company for access by the consuming public. A member of the consuming public, wishing to use the service of a certified company, may register his/her credit card with the Rating Company. When the service is rendered, and paid for by the registered credit card, the payment is detected to trigger the sending of Internet e-mail to the consumer to solicit information as to the consumer's satisfaction with the service. A response to the Internet e-mail by the Rating Company is used to update on a real-time basis the customer satisfaction of the service provider that provided the service.
US07720703B1
System and methods are described for assisting a contractor in managing information associated with a construction project. The amount of information relating to labor, materials, scheduling and billing and the number of individuals accessing the information can be overwhelmingly large for even a simple construction project. As such, the system and methods described are particularly useful for gathering, maintaining and disseminating the voluminous amount of information associated with a construction project. In one method, a drawing from a construction project is provided that has one or more intelligent objects. Information is then gathered relating to labor, materials and schedules for the project. The information is associated with the respective intelligent object and visually represented on the drawing. The drawing is displayed and certain aspects associated with the intelligent objects can be quickly identified. In addition, reports may be generated that quickly and efficiently organize information according to any number of user selected criteria.
US07720699B2
Systems and methods for use in settling mass tort claims are disclosed for determining insurance premiums for asymptomatic claimants in order to provide an insured defined monetary benefit in the event of a future emergence of critical injuries associated with exposure to injurious substances or conditions. Asymptomatic claimant risk classification data are entered for each settling claimant. Mortality and critical injury tables are determined. Durational probabilities of surviving without emergence of a covered critical injury are determined from a present date for each future insurance coverage year during the remaining life of the settling claimant. The durational probabilities are multiplied by the critical injury rates and then multiplied by the amounts of the specified monetary benefits. The premiums are then determined for a single claimant and on an aggregate basis for all claimants in any particular batch of mass tort claims settlements.
US07720692B2
A triage category for determining a medical triage disposition includes a set of tiered triage questions comprising a plurality of only yes/no questions arranged in a plurality of tiers. The tiers are ranked according to a level of urgency. There is also a plurality of dispositions corresponding to the plurality of tiers. One of the plurality of dispositions is selected when one of the plurality of only yes/no questions is answered “yes.”
US07720688B1
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for generating one or more real estate transfer and/or closing documents on a website with a set of information input by a user, using an unrelated website and/or application program. In particular, some embodiments apply such a method/system to generate one or more real-estate transfer/closing documents for a particular real-estate transaction on a website. For example, a method is disclosed for generating such documents which may include providing an application program for receiving first information from a user to post to an unrelated website. The application program may be operational on at least one of a user client computer or server computer and the website preferably includes functionality for generating one or more documents for a particular real-estate transaction. Moreover, the one or more documents preferably include at least a portion of the first information and the first information preferably include information directly related to the particular real-estate transaction. The method preferably also includes automatically generating the one or more real-estate transfer documents on the website using the application program.
US07720681B2
Generally described, the present invention is directed toward generating, maintaining, updating, and applying digital voice profiles. Voice profiles may be generated for individuals. The voice profiles include information that is unique to each individual and which may be applied to digital representations of that individual's voice to improve the quality of a transmitted digital representation of that individual's voice. A voice profile may include, but is not limited to, basic information about the individual, and filter definitions relating to the individuals voice patters, such as a frequency range and amplitude range. The voice profile may also include a speech definition that includes digital representations of the individual's unique speech patterns.
US07720672B1
A video display terminal capable of operating with a graphical user interface such as Windows provides windowing functionality to permit use of popular applications programs resident on a server, without requiring more than application data to be transmitted from the server, and keyboard and mouse information to be transmitted from the terminal to the server. The terminal includes processing means, not fully compatible with personal computer BIOS or disk operating systems and incapable of executing windowing applications locally, adapted to receive windowing information supplied by programs executing on a remotely located application server. The terminal also includes a display for the windowing information supplied by programs executing on the remotely located application server. The invention provides FTP and SNMP capabilities along with a number of user interface enhancements, DHCP and SNMP enhancements. File information is transferred to and from the terminal using a communications protocol. One or more image upgrades are transferred to the terminal from the remotely located application server. Configuration data for the terminal can also be transferred to the terminal from the remotely located application server. The present invention further provides for simultaneously maintaining more than one connection between the terminal and server and establishing more than one virtual machine on the terminal with each virtual machine running an open session. Each virtual machine stops sending and receiving data to and from the server when an application resides in the background session. Each virtual machine commands the server to refresh the data for the application when the application is switched to the foreground.
US07720665B1
A system for controlling reset in discrete event simulation is disclosed. The system includes a simulator configured to effect the discrete event simulation, the simulator having a plurality of shared executable files, a memory configured to store the simulator for execution, an operating system having a loading/unloading facility, and a control program configured to effect a reset operation by directing the operating system to unload the simulator from the memory and then reload the simulator into the memory using the loading/unloading facility.
US07720664B2
For the purpose of providing a simulation model allowing gate simulation but is capable of keeping the circuit information on the functional block (IP) secret, a method of generating a simulation model provided herein by the present invention comprises a step of generating a net list containing circuit information of an electronic circuit using a functional block; and a step of deleting the circuit information based on the net list, and generating a gate simulation model carrying out a timing simulation, including logic information and delay information between input/output of the functional block.
US07720663B1
The present invention provides a delay analysis system which makes it possible to make delay analysis considering circuit logical information in order to give more accurate delay times. In addition to circuit connection information and delay time information on the rises and falls of the input and output terminals of the circuits which are stored in a delay analysis library, the delay analysis system according to the present invention contains, in the library, logical operation information which represents correspondence between the logical values of each input terminal and their output logical values of the circuits. When making the delay analysis of a logic circuit, the system selects, for each circuit included in the logic circuit, a delay time between an input terminal and an output terminal from the delay time information on the rises and falls of the input and output terminals of the basic circuits, stored in the library, according to the logical operation of the circuit in order to calculate the delay time of the circuit.
US07720662B1
A tool that can be used in connection with a programming or modeling environment is disclosed. The tool can be incorporated into the programming or modeling environment or implemented separately from the programming or modeling environment. The tool receives the execution or simulation results data of the programs or models from the programming or modeling environment, and analyzes the data to provide information on the execution results of the programs or models to a user, such as a programmer and a designer. The information is provided to the user in such a manner that the user can perceive the execution results easily.
US07720660B2
A simulation environment is disclosed wherein both analog and RF signals are simulated in a single flow by a mixed-domain simulator. The simulator includes a simulator kernel with an analog solver and an RF solver to allow both analog- and RF-type of signals to be solved in an interrelated fashion. The simulator may also include a partitioner that divides the circuit into various RF and analog modules to be solved. User input may control the partitioning process, but the simulator may refine the partitions or generate sub-partitions to provide a higher probability of convergence.
US07720658B2
The invention is a method for calculating the inter-cell absolute permeability values associated with a reservoir model at the scale of the flow simulations representative of the porous medium from the absolute permeability values associated with a geologic model representative of the same porous medium.
US07720656B2
A method, system and computer program product to define and utilize functions graphically is provided which may be used in the simulation of finite state machines. The functions may combine mathematical, logical, non-linear and comparative operations. The graphical elements of the function may be hidden for ease of display of various portions of a model.
US07720655B2
In a first aspect, a first mainframe is provided for use during semiconductor device manufacturing. The first mainframe includes (1) a sidewall that defines a central transfer region adapted to house a robot; (2) a plurality of facets formed on the sidewall, each adapted to couple to a process chamber; and (3) an extended facet formed on the sidewall that allows the mainframe to be coupled to at least four full-sized process chambers while providing service access to the mainframe. Numerous other aspects are provided.
US07720642B2
The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for improving measurement fault detection in a sequential measurement processing estimator, and is particularly applied to Global Positioning Receivers.
US07720641B2
The present invention is a method for detecting an abnormal event for process units of a Delayed Coking Unit. The method compares the operation of the process units to statistical and engineering models. The statistical models are developed by principal components analysis of the normal operation for these units. The engineering models are based statistical and correlation analysis between variables. If the difference between the operation of a process unit and the normal model result indicates an abnormal condition, then the cause of the abnormal condition is determined and corrected.
US07720637B2
A method may include generating an efficiency curve for each of a plurality of power sources and operating the plurality of power sources based at least on the generated efficiency curve. Generating the efficiency curve for each power source may include coupling a test load to the power source for a period of time, measuring an output power after the period of time, determining a productivity of the power source, determining an efficiency of each power source based at least on the measured output power and the determined productivity, repeating the efficiency determination of the power source for a plurality of different test loads, and generating an efficiency curve from at least the determined efficiencies.
US07720634B2
A method for updating the return on investment (ROI) templates used by business consultants. The present invention comprises a Template Evaluation Program (TEP) and a Template Analysis Program (TAP). The TEP compares the default template to the templates modified by the consultants for the customer's ROI analysis and assigns an effectiveness factor to the modified templates. The TAP develops a data list from the default templates and the effectiveness factors and plots the data on a histogram. The TAP performs a statistical analysis for each parameter and updates the default template parameter values if the data fits a normal distribution curve. If the data forms more than one peak on the histogram, then the TAP uses one peak to update the default template and uses the second peak to create a new template. The new template's parameter value is derived from the data in the second peak.
US07720629B2
The present invention discloses a method and a system for measuring flow layer velocities using correlation velocity measuring sonar. The present invention provides a new theoretical expression for fluid medium sonar array temporal and spatial correlation function, the velocities of each flow layer are derived by fitting experimental data and a theoretical function, or fitting absolute value operated and localized experimental data and a theoretical function. The fluid medium sonar array temporal and spatial correlation function of the present invention is succinctly expressed by Kummer function, and well coincided with the experiments. This function is applicable not only to far field region, i.e. planar wave region, but also Fraunhofer region, i.e. spherical wave region. The present invention has the merits of high measurement accuracy, small calculation load, good robustness and fast convergence.
US07720622B2
Systems, devices, and methods for evaluating iontophoresis devices. An impedance spectrometer is operable to determine an impedance of an iontophoresis device and a controller configured to perform a comparison of the measured impedance of the iontophoresis device to stored reference data, and to generate a response based in part on the comparison.
US07720605B2
Aspects of the present invention are directed at using LiDAR data to identify attributes of vegetation. In this regard, a method is provided that identifies the location of individual items of vegetation from raw LiDAR data. In one embodiment, the method includes selecting a coordinate position represented in the LiDAR data that generated a return signal. Then, a determination is made regarding whether the selected coordinate position is inside a geographic area allocated to a previously identified item of vegetation. If the selected coordinate position is not within a geographic area allocated to a previously identified item of vegetation, the method determines that the selected coordinate position is associated with a new item of vegetation. In this instance, a digital representation of the new item of vegetation is generated.
US07720603B2
Provided is a network global positioning system (GPS) terminal. The network GPS terminal includes: a GPS receiver receiving GPS data; a GPS processor processing the received GPS data to a predetermined form; a network communication part communicating with an external apparatus through a network in order to receive a request for the GPS data from the external apparatus, and transmit the processed GPS data to the external apparatus in response to the request; a security access controller authenticating the external apparatus; and a network management part managing connection information and security information of the external apparatus, the network communication part simultaneously communicating with at least one external apparatus using a TCP/IP protocol. A method of providing GPS data using a network is also provided.
US07720601B2
An assisted global positioning satellite (Assisted GPS) system has a GPS reference network node (260) that collects GPS satellite broadcast messages and prepares separate GPS assistance messages to be modulated by a base transceiver station (BTS) (202) on a cellular carrier signal (201) and sent to single or multiple handset (204). In a first preferred embodiment, instead of the handset (204) receiving standard ephemeris and clock correction data elements in a GPS assistance message, a compressed GPS assistance message containing XYZ information contains a GPS satellite's coordinate position modified according to the satellite clock correction. In a second preferred embodiment, there is a first type of compressed GPS assistance message containing subframe 1, 2, 3 data of a GPS satellite broadcast message and a second type of compressed GPS assistance message containing subframe 4, 5 data of a GPS satellite broadcast message. The compressed GPS assistance messages according to the second preferred embodiment lack redundant or predictable information in order to reduce the size of the compressed GPS assistance message. The first type can be updated at a different rate than the second type in order to reduce the traffic and yet keep the handset (204) up to date.
US07720598B2
A mobile transmitter transmits a transmission signal from a vehicle to beacons. An estimator determines elapsed times for corresponding propagation paths between the vehicle and the beacons. Each propagation path includes at least one of a first propagation duration of a transmission signal and a second propagation duration of a return signal. A compensator compensates for noise or measurement error associated with a corresponding propagation path by invoking a linear fit scheme. The linear fit scheme applies a generally linear fit over fixed intervals of noisy measurements such that the noisy position measurements generally conform to a linear portion of a path plan of a vehicle. A data processor estimates a position of a vehicle at a confluence or intersection of the position curves or temporal curves based on elapsed times for the propagation paths.
US07720591B2
The present invention provides an intake air control capable of implementing a highly accurate constant negative pressure control with a smaller number of process steps under various environments. The intake air control is applicable to an engine having a variable valve actuation mechanism for adjusting at least a lift amount of an intake valve to control an intake air amount and a throttle valve for keeping a gauge pressure in an intake manifold at a desired gauge pressure. A reference throttle opening area is determined by referring to a first table based on a desired intake air amount. The first table defines a relation between an intake air amount and a throttle opening area under a reference gauge pressure, a reference atmospheric pressure and a reference intake air temperature. A throttle opening area for achieving the desired gauge pressure is determined by correcting the reference throttle opening area with a correction parameter derived based on the Bernoulli's law by using the desired gauge pressure, a current atmospheric pressure and a current intake air temperature.
US07720583B2
A powertrain control ECU sets a target driving force, and controls an internal combustion engine and a transmission of a vehicle. A first processor of the powertrain control ECU includes a driving force adjustment portion, a filter, a mode-switch, an environmental information-obtaining device, and a steering sensor. The driving force adjustment portion sets the target driving force based on at least one of instructions from a driver and from a second processor. The filter corrects the target driving force to suppress vibration on a spring of the vehicle. The mode-switch sets the running mode. The environmental information-obtaining device obtains information on the environment around the vehicle. The steering angle sensor determines the running condition. A correction amount, by which the filter corrects the target driving force, is adjusted according to the running mode, the environment, and the running condition.
US07720578B2
The invention relates to a method and device for piloting a pitching aircraft. The inventive device (1) comprises: means (4) for receiving an ordered load factor (NZc); means (11) for estimating a load factor (NZcg) that is applied to the aircraft; a means (12) for calculating a control order for a means (5) for deflecting a control surface (7) of the aircraft, taking account of at least the following expression K1·NZc+K2·NZcg, K1 and K2 representing gain values; means (13) for determining the Mach number; means (14) for determining the angle of incidence; means (15) for comparing the angle of incidence with a reference value; and means (16) for determining a modified gain value (ΔK2) with the aid of the Mach number and the angle of incidence if said angle of incidence is greater than the reference value, said modified gain value (ΔK2) replacing gain value K2 in the calculation performed by the calculation means (12).
US07720575B2
Pipeline flow optimization systems, software, and methods that emulate transient optimization are disclosed. A pipeline flow optimization system includes an upset condition handler that is adapted to provide a multivariable controller with pipeline flow adjustments to handle one or more upset conditions. The optimization system may be used with fluid pipeline systems, including gas pipeline systems and liquid pipeline systems. Systems, software, and methods according to embodiments of the invention may further include linepack transition handling capabilities and administrative tools.
US07720565B2
A production system capable of further improving production efficiency and quality. The ring management system includes size measurement unit for measuring size of the ring, first convey unit for moving the ring w whose size has been measured, a first stocker having a plurality of storage positions for storing rings conveyed by the first convey unit, a second convey unit for conveying out the rings from the first stocker means for stacking, and a control unit. The control unit includes memory means for storing the rings size measured by the size measurement means in association with the storage position in the first stocker, first selection means for selecting a ring constituting a stacked ring according to the ring size stored in the memory means, and first instruction means to instruct the second convey unit to convey out the ring selected by the first selection means from the storage position pj in the first stocker.
US07720561B2
The non-productive motion of an automatic composite tape laydown machine is optimized to increase the overall rate of the laydown. Ordering of tape courses is analyzed to determine the time required to move between courses using a time function that reflects operating characteristics and limitations of the tape laydown machine. The ordering is optimized by re-ordering, grouping and/or partitioning the tape courses so as to reduce the non-productive motion of the machine. The optimized ordering is used by a NC program that controls the operation of the machine.
US07720557B2
Systems, tools, and methods are provided in which a first signal is transmitted from a tool to a Fab indicating that all substrates to be processed have been removed from a specific carrier and that the specific carrier may be temporarily unloaded from a loadport of the tool. A second signal is transmitted from the tool to the Fab indicating that the specific carrier may be returned to the tool. While the carrier is unloaded from the tool, other carriers may be loaded on the vacated loadport. Numerous other features and aspects of the invention are disclosed.
US07720540B2
At least one of a plurality of disorders of a patient characterized at least in part by vagal activity innervating at least one of a plurality of organs of the patient is treated by a method that includes positioning an electrode on a vagus nerve. In another embodiment, the electrical signal is applied to the vagus nerve transmucosally. An electrical signal is applied to the electrode to modulate vagal activity by an amount selected to treat the disorder. In some embodiments, the disorder is pancreatitis. The signal may be a blocking or a stimulation signal. In some embodiments, the signal is selected to, at least in part, downregulate neural activity on the vagus nerve.
US07720525B2
There is provided methods and systems for optical imaging in a turbid medium that combine continuous wave (CW) and time domain (TD) approaches to substantially increase robustness of optical imaging as well as to reduce acquisition times associated with the TD approach. In one aspect, a method is provided that uses CW measurements to scale the values of a temporal point spread function (TPSF) to avoid physical unit mismatch problems. In another aspect, both CW and TD measurements are synergistically combined to estimate optical properties of the medium used in image reconstruction. Optical systems capable of realizing these methods are also provided.
US07720520B2
Methods and systems for processing and/or superimposing a medical image of an anatomical body (e.g., a heart) with graphical information are provided. Reference elements and/or reference catheter are placed in contact with the anatomical body. A physical structure within a navigational coordinate system is located using the reference elements and/or reference catheter. An image reference within an image coordinate corresponding to the physical structure is located. Location of the image reference can be accomplished, e.g., by displaying the medical image and electronically marking the displayed image reference, or by automatically locating image data corresponding to the image reference. The navigational and image coordinate systems are then registered based on the location of the physical structure within the navigational coordinate system and the location of the image reference within the image coordinate system, which allows graphical information to be accurately merged with the medical image data.
US07720511B1
The present invention determines optimal positions of a variable antenna using an artificial intelligence-based genetic algorithm (GA). The GA acquires a fitness value for an individual of a genetic algorithm population by updating positions of the antenna. The population improves through an evolutionary computational process using a fitness measure based on the signal strength. At the end of the process, the system positions the antenna to the best position found by the GA. Therefore, the final position gives exceptionally clear reception for a chosen received frequency.
US07720509B2
A system and method for harmonizing adaptive arrays for wireless communication systems. The system includes a basis beam that receives packet transmissions from stations. The system determines the angle of arrival of the packet transmissions and forms a select beam to cover at least one of the stations.
US07720507B2
A method for avoiding signal interference between a first RF device and a second RF device is provided. The first and second RF devices are co-located and the first RF device is configured to operate within a semi-stationary range of a frequency band. The second RF device is configured to operate by changing channels within the frequency band. The method initiates with a communication interface being provided between the first RF device and the second RF device. Then, the second RF device receives the semi-stationary range and a mode for the first RF device through the communication interface. Next, the second RF device is adapted to avoid the semi-stationary range of the frequency band of the first RF device when the mode of the first RF device is in an active mode. An apparatus where two RF devices are co-located without causing interference for each other is also provided.
US07720497B2
Method and apparatus for determining a transmission configuration for a dedicated channel in a wireless communication system. In one embodiment, an optimum configuration is determined based on minimizing Peak-to-Average Ratio (PAR) of the channel. The configuration is defined as a transmission pair of transmission branch and spreading code. The transmission branch may be the In-Phase (I) branch or the Quadrature (Q) branch. PAR analysis may be performed off-line to determine the optimum configuration. In operation, if the spreading code of the optimum configuration is used by another channel, the next best optimum code is used.
US07720493B2
A communication system includes an MP high-order switching device which determines, for each of a plurality of switching devices, transmission timing at the which the switching device transmits packet data to a plurality of devices connected to the switching device so that data reception timings at a mobile terminal become simultaneous among the plurality of base stations, and a communication section which, in each of the plurality of switching devices, transmits packet data to the plurality of devices connected to the switching device, based on the determined transmission timing corresponding to the switching device.
US07720490B2
A method that includes providing, by an active radio of a mobile station that comprises a plurality of radios wherein each radio is associated with a corresponding paging group having its own paging controller, a location update on behalf of an idle radio of the plurality of radios to a paging controller of the active radio's corresponding paging group. The method also includes providing, by the paging controller of the active radio's corresponding paging group, the location update to a paging controller of the idle radio's corresponding paging group. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US07720488B2
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), location finder, multiple transmitter, multiple receiver and multimode communication systems including combination and or selection of one or more of Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) or Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), spread spectrum, and cross-correlated in-phase and quadrature-phase baseband modulated signals used in Bit rate Agile (BRA) systems and mesh networks. Interoperable systems including 2G, 3G, 4G internet systems and Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, OFDM, CDMA, TDMA, GSM systems.
US07720486B2
A method and system for providing personalized services to a mobile vehicle includes receiving broadcast data at a telematics unit of the vehicle, sending the received broadcast data from the telematics unit to a portable processing device via short range wireless connection, and providing at least one personalized service at the portable processing device based on the received broadcast data. A computer usable medium with suitable computer program code is employed for providing personalized services to a mobile vehicle.
US07720485B2
Methods and apparatus related to assignment in a wireless communications system are described. A mobile is assigned an identifier and a mask value, e.g., as part of a state transition message. The mobile uses the assigned identifier and/or the assigned mask value in determining whether assignments included in assignment messages, e.g., traffic channel assignment messages, are directed to the wireless terminal. Predetermined associations between assignment slots, assigned segments, and/or mask values are utilized to limit control signaling overhead. Different groups of segments are available for assignment to different wireless terminals as a function of mask values. Different types of assignment messages use different amounts of information bits to convey the assignment. Some types of assignments use a wireless terminal identifier, while other types of assignments use a wireless terminal identifier and a mask identifier. The mask identifier, e.g., a single bit, allows for selection between a subset of the potential masks used in the system.
US07720477B2
A device capability attribute regarding a setting on communication parameters, and provision attribute information indicative of whether or not a communication terminal is in a state that it can provide communication parameters to another communication terminal are stored in advance. The communication terminal, where the device capability attribute has at least a provision capability of the communication parameters, is selected as a provision device. In a case where there are plural communication terminals where the device capability attribute has a communication parameter provision capability, a communication terminal where the device capability attribute has the communication parameter provision capability only is preferentially selected. In a case where the device capability attributes of respective communication terminals are equal, a communication terminal storing the provision attribute information indicative of the state that it can provide the communication parameters is selected as a provision device.
US07720472B1
A system has a stratospheric platform with a payload controller and a phased array antenna having a plurality of elements. A gateway station communicates with the stratospheric platform. The gateway station scales the plurality of elements to form a reconfigurable plurality of beams. The gateway station communicates a control signal to the stratospheric platform to communicate a scaling of the elements. The stratospheric platform configures the elements of the phased array antenna according to the scaling using adaptive interference rejections.
US07720468B1
Polling methods for use in a communication system, such as a fixed wireless communication system, are described. The fixed wireless communication system includes at least one wireless base unit and a plurality of fixed-location wireless transceiver units, where each transceiver unit is, for example, located at a home residence and coupled to a personal computer (PC). In one particular polling method, a wireless transceiver unit detects a failure of a primary energy source, switches to a battery backup for power, and sends a message to the wireless base unit indicating such failure. The message initiates the wireless base unit to poll the wireless transceiver unit on a periodic basis for status information. During the failure, a data traffic channel established between the units is torn down to conserve power at the wireless transceiver unit. Once the primary energy source is restored, the data traffic channel is brought back up and the periodic polling is terminated. Similar methods are applied in connection with the detection of a communication failure over the data traffic channel.
US07720467B2
A method of notifying a user to set an internal clock in a mobile communication device having a visual display therein includes powering-up the mobile communication device; determining whether digital services are available, and, if not, activating notification indicia to tell the user to manually set the internal clock in the mobile communication device.
US07720465B2
A system and method for operating a wireless network provides for sending a wakeup tone, periodically waking up from a sleep mode to listen for the wakeup tone, upon receiving the wakeup tone, listening for at least one second tone, the at least one second tone being one of (i) a tone in a frequency different from the wakeup tone and (ii) a pattern of tones including at least one frequency different from the wakeup tone, and upon receiving the at least one second tone, performing an action based on the at least one second tone.
US07720452B2
A reception circuit can receive a plurality of standard time signals and has a reception means for selectively receiving and demodulating any one of the plural standard time signals, and a control means for outputting a control signal that controls the reception means. The reception means includes a signal amplifier unit for amplifying a reception signal representing the received standard time signal; a signal extraction unit for extracting a signal of a specific frequency from the amplified reception signal; a rectifier unit for rectifying the extracted signal of the specific frequency; and a demodulation unit for demodulating the rectified signal of the specific frequency. The signal extraction unit includes a plurality of crystal filters corresponding to the frequencies of the plural standard time signals; a plurality of parallel capacitances corresponding to the plural crystal filters and parallel connected to the plural crystal filters; a filter switching unit for switching the plural crystal filters based on the control signal; and a parallel capacitance switching unit for switching the plural parallel capacitances based on the control signal. The control means outputs to the filter switching unit and the parallel capacitance switching unit a control signal denoting the switch states enabling the reception means to receive the standard time signal.
US07720440B2
Embodiments of distributed coordination of a clear channel assessment threshold are presented herein.
US07720436B2
Displaying network content searches on mobile devices involves obtaining results of a network content request via a mobile device. A geolocation of at least one object associated with the results of the network content request is also obtained. A scene is viewed in a camera view of the mobile device. A virtual location is determined in the camera view. The virtual location represents the actual location of the object relative to the scene contained in the camera view. A graphic representing the object is then displayed at the virtual location in the camera view.
US07720435B2
A business model of satellite digital audio broadcasting, also referred to as multicasting, teaches computer improvements in business operations for the determination of the number of listeners and listeners' preferences of multicast satellite transmissions and more particularly to the detection of signals from a multitude of individual client radios that simultaneously respond to a polling signal with a radio frequency chirp. A response to a polling signal instruction is synchronized utilizing an instruction embedded within a digital audio broadcast. Further embodiments teach a determination of listener count derived from signal strength, single chirp signal strength contribution derived from reception delay, and media prioritization derived from changes in user preferences.
US07720431B2
A mobile wireless system (10) includes a transmitter such as a satellite (18) that broadcasts wireless signals such as boundaries for specific areas to a mobile receiving device (22). Mobile receiving device (22) may include an antenna (26) and a mobile receiving device (28). A locating receiver (50) is used to generate locating signals so that a determination may be made to the location of the mobile receiving device. When the location is outside an area of interest the area of interest may be extended to provide services to the mobile device. Emergency information is broadcast to a first area. An emergency announcement indicator is also broadcast into a first area and an area outside the first area. The location of the mobile receiving device is compared to the first area and the emergency information is displayed when the location is within the first area.
US07720429B2
An image forming apparatus includes a printing unit and a shutter arm unit. The shutter arm unit includes a shutter arm that swings to first and second positions, and a stopper arm, connected to the shutter arm, which protrudes toward a transportation path when the shutter arm swings to the second position in which the stopper arm prevents extra sheets of recording media from moving along the transportation path. The force of the paper moving along the transportation path swings the shutter arm unit into the second position, a protrusion cam and an escape cam prevent an increase in the return load of the shutter arm, and a pair of ends of the shutter arm aligns the front end of the sheet of paper.
US07720427B2
There is provided a cleaning apparatus having a cleaning member that makes contact with a surface of an image holder and vibrates due to friction arising when the surface of the image holder moves, the image holder bearing an electrostatic latent image developed using a developer having toner containing a crystalline resin, and a cleaning member support unit that supports the cleaning member and increases the amplitude of the vibration of the cleaning member.
US07720423B2
An image heating apparatus is provided for heating an image formed on a recording material having a resin material layer at an image formation side thereof. The apparatus includes a belt for closely contacting and heating an image on the recording material to provide a high glossiness image, and a cooler for cooling the recording material heated by the belt. The belt comprises a layer of siloxane-modified polyimide and has a thermal expansion coefficient of not less than 6×10−5/° C. and not more than 10×10−5/° C.
US07720407B2
An image forming apparatus that includes: a sheet conveying belt that conveys a sheet to a position opposed to an image carrier; a cleaning unit that cleans the sheet conveying belt; a first driving unit that drives the sheet conveying belt; a second driving unit that drives the cleaning unit, the second driving unit being independent from the first driving unit; and a sheet conveying mechanism that conveys the sheet separately from the sheet conveying belt, wherein the second driving unit drives at least a part of the sheet conveying mechanism.
US07720405B2
An image forming apparatus may include an apparatus body, and a photosensitive-member unit slidably attached the apparatus body and retaining a plurality of photosensitive members. The apparatus body includes side wall portions opposing each other with a unit receiving section sandwiched therebetween, and a plurality of apparatus-body-side electrode members provided on the side wall portions, and each urged inward in an opposing direction of the side wall portions. The photosensitive-member unit includes a plurality of unit-side electrode members each protruding outward in the opposite direction and a guide path comprising a flat surface formed in a flat shape so that each of the apparatus-body-side electrode members slidably contacts to the flat surface during attachment of the photosensitive-member unit with respect to the unit receiving section, and that each of the apparatus-body-side electrode members slidably contacted maintains a constant inward and outward position in the opposite direction.
US07720404B2
The present application is directed to methods of operating a multi-color image forming device in a mono-color mode. The methods may include performing three basic loops during the printing in the mono-color mode. A first loop may include printing mono-color pages up to an initial preset maximum. The preset maximum may prevent a wear mark from forming on the non-operational PC members due to rubbing against the moving ITM. A second loop may occur when the mono-color pages exceeds the initial preset maximum. The second loop may include rotating the non-operational imaging stations to prevent wear. A third loop may occur when the number of mono-color images exceeds an overall maximum number. The third loop may include resetting the non-operational image forming stations to allow for continuing printing in the mono-color mode.
US07720392B2
The present invention is directed toward a method for setting a driving voltage of a differential quadrature phase-shift modulator, this method making signal quality superior in response to an individual difference in extinction ratio due to variations in manufacture of a device. To this end, signal quality of differential quadrature phase-shift modulated light output from a differential quadrature phase-shift modulator is acquired. An average amplitude of a first or second driving voltage signal is adjusted according to the signal quality of the thus-acquired differential quadrature phase-shift modulated light.
US07720386B2
An RF device includes a signal layer disposed over a ground plane having radio frequency (RF) transmission lines configured and dimensioned to provide impedance matching along the RF lines. A shield is formed as a part of the RF lines and disposed below the RF choke of a DC current supply to form an intermediate capacitance between the choke and the shield to control parasitic effects.
US07720380B2
To provide a node (an optical transmission apparatus) enabling expanding the upper limit of the number of nodes capable of automatically forming a squelch table generated in advance in a BLSR system. For the above purpose, when generating a squelch table, hop counts counted from an add node or a drop node are used in place of a node ID of the own, as information of the add node, the drop node, etc. to be transmitted and received using a squelch data link. Thus, it becomes unnecessary to transmit and receive two information sets, a source node ID and a destination node ID, as conventionally required. By this, the number of bits available for identifying nodes can be expanded, enabling expansion of the number of nodes for which a squelch table can be formed automatically.
US07720376B2
A method and system for determining camera positioning information from an accelerometer mounted on a camera. The accelerometer measures the orientation of the camera with respect to gravity. Orientation measurement allows user interface information to be displayed in a “right side up” orientation on a viewfinder for any camera orientation. Alternatively, an artificial horizon indicator may be displayed in the viewfinder. The accelerometer may also measure camera movement. Camera movement information together with camera orientation can be used to determine camera usage. Additionally, camera movement information can be used to determine a minimum shutter speed for a sharp picture.
US07720371B2
A camera (210) for providing an adjusted image (214) of a scene (12) includes an apparatus frame (224), an optical assembly (222), a capturing system (226), and a control system (232). The optical assembly (222) is adjustable to alternatively be focused on a first focal area (356A) and a second focal area (356B) that is different than the first focal area (356A). The capturing system (226) captures a first captured image (360A) when the optical assembly (222) is focused at the first focal area (356A) and captures a second captured image (360B) when the optical assembly (222) is focused at the second focal area (356B). The control system (232) provides the adjusted image (214) of the scene (12) based upon the first captured image (360A) and the second captured image (360B). Additionally, the control system (232) can perform object depth extraction of one or more objects (16) (18) (20) in the scene (12). Alternatively, the multiple captured images (360A) (360B) can be adjusted by a separate adjustment system (680).
US07720370B2
It is an object of the present invention to provide a lens barrel in which operability for a user is increased and a reduction in parts is achieved while provided with a manual operating member. There is provided the lens barrel that is provided with an imaging optical system for forming an optical image of an object, a focus lens unit which is included in the imaging optical system and capable of changing an object distance by moving in a direction parallel to an optical axis of the imaging optical system, moving means for moving the focus lens unit in the direction parallel to the optical axis, driving means for driving the moving means, a focus ring which is of a cylindrical shape coaxial to the optical axis of the imaging optical system and manually operated in a rotational manner in order to drive the driving means to thereby move the focus lens unit by the moving means, and a focus mode switching button which is integrally provided in the focus, and operated in order to switch between a state of allowing a manual rotating operation of the focus ring and a state of preventing the manual rotating operation.
US07720366B2
The present invention is directed to an actuator capable of retaining an image-shake correcting lens in a position(s) at which a calibration of lens optics can be affected, without additional locking means. The actuator (10) is capable of translating an image-shake correcting lens (16) so as to prevent an image from shaking, and the actuator is comprised of a fixed member (12), a movable member (14) provided with the image-shake correcting lens, supporting means (18) for supporting the movable member, a position detecting means (24, 25) for detecting a position of the movable member, a driving means (20, 22) for translating and rotating the movable member, a plurality of positioning receiving portions (15a) provided on the fixed member, a plurality of positioning contact surfaces (17a) disposed on the movable member and forced by a rotational movement of the movable member to mate and come in contact with the positioning receiving portions so that the movable member can be moved to a calibration position, and a calibrating means (37) for calibrating the position detecting means in response to detection values from the position detecting means that are received when the movable member is positioned at the calibration position.
US07720365B2
A photographic device, includes a shake detector, a shake mitigator, a first commander, and a shake controller. The shake detector detects a device shake, that is, a shaking of the photographic device. The shake mitigator mitigates the effects of the device shake to reduce an image shake that is a shake of a photographed subject image. The first commander commands the photographic device to photograph the subject image. The shake controller controls the shake mitigator so that the shake mitigator refrains from mitigating the effects of the device shake from the point when the first commander commands the photographic device to photograph the subject image, until the point when photographing the subject image commences.
US07720354B2
An operating system extension is used to implement embedded information on a DVD. The operating system extension examines DVD sector addresses requested from the DVD hardware. When address associated with an embedded link is requested, an application program that can run the embedded link is started, and the embedded link is provided to the application program. The system of the present invention has the advantage that it does not require modifying the DVD software program and thus can be used with a variety of different DVD software programs.
US07720332B2
Provided is an optical fiber illuminator used for recording and reading high density optical information according to a near field recording (NFR) scheme, a method of fabricating the optical fiber illuminator, and an optical recording head and recording apparatus having the optical fiber illuminator. The optical fiber illuminator includes: an optical fiber having a core upon which light is incident and a clad that surrounds the core, one end of the optical fiber having a mirror formed in an inclined manner; and a lens formed on an outer surface of the optical fiber for focusing light reflected by the mirror. The optical fiber illuminator has an improved optical arrangement for optical illumination and detection, it is easy to manufacture, its optical input is easy to control, and it can be readily provided in an array form. When an array type optical recording and reading apparatus having an optical recording head and multiple aperture probes adopts the optical fiber illuminator, the resulting simple arrangement and compact size enables size reduction of the overall apparatus, a signal to noise ratio is high, and high density optical information can be recorded and reproduced at an extremely high rate.
US07720324B2
An optical strain gage (1) for multi-axis strain measurement includes at least two linear light waveguide sections (2, 3, 4) with Bragg gratings (5). These are arranged next to one another in a prescribed angle (19) of 90° or 45° on a support layer (6) and are supplied with lightwaves by a common infeeding waveguide section (7). All of the light waveguide sections(2, 3, 4, 7) are provided preferably linearly on the support layer (6), and a beam dispersion element (8) is arranged between the infeeding waveguide section (7) and the measuring waveguide sections (2, 3, 4) containing the Bragg grating (5).
US07720316B2
A handwriting recognition system interprets handwritten text and produces a typed interpretation of that text. When the initial interpretation of the handwritten text is inaccurate, the handwriting recognition system alters the initial recognition by reinterpreting the handwritten text in view of a correction made by a user and constraints (e.g., derived by assumptions in user behavior). The handwriting recognition system intelligently reinterprets and renews its text recognition each time the user implements a correction. In effect, a single correction can trigger multiple adjustments to the text recognition. Therefore, with the use of a reinterpretation algorithm, the handwriting recognition system helps the user obtain the desired result in fewer correction steps.
US07720314B2
An image processing device inputs shading correction data, which can identify the image processing device itself, to a first hash function and generates comparison data. The image processing device inputs the shading correction data to a second hash function, and generates tracing identification data. The image processing device generates a tracing pattern from the tracing identification data, and adds the tracing pattern to output image data. The image processing device verifies the comparison data with standard data, which has been generated by inputting the shading correction data in a first function and previously stored in a storage device. When the comparison data matches the standard data, the image processing device permits to print out the output image data to which the tracing pattern has been added.
US07720303B2
Polynomial approximation based image filter methods, systems, and machine-readable media are described. In one aspect, multiple n-order polynomial approximations to a value of a target pixel of an input image are computed from multiple respective sets of m values of pixels in a neighborhood of the target pixel, wherein n≧0 and m≧n+1. A respective approximation error is computed from each of the computed n-order polynomial approximations. A value of a pixel of an output image is computed from the target pixel value and the computed approximation errors.
US07720300B1
A system and method for effectively performing an adaptive quantization procedure includes an energy calculator that initially determines energy values for subbands of input data. A quantizer receives initial quantization parameters that each correspond to a different respective one of the subbands. The quantizer calculates adaptive quantization parameters from the initial quantization parameters by utilizing corresponding ones of the energy values. The quantizer then utilizes the adaptive quantization parameters to generate quantized coefficients for the subbands during the adaptive quantization procedure.
US07720289B2
A method constructs descriptors for a set of data samples and determines a distance score between pairs of subsets selected from the set of data samples. A d-dimensional feature vector is extracted for each sample in each subset of samples. The feature vector includes indices to the corresponding sample and properties of the sample. The feature vectors of each subset of samples are combined into a d×d dimensional covariance matrix. The covariance matrix is a descriptor of the corresponding subset of samples. Then, a distance score is determined between the two subsets of samples using the descriptors to measure a similarity between the descriptors.
US07720288B2
In a method and system for detecting digital image compositing, a first artifact is detected in an uncompressed digital image. The first artifact is characteristic of an earlier compression of the digital image with a predetermined compression algorithm. An interpolation marker in the image is evaluated to provide interpolation results. During the evaluating, a second artifact of the compression algorithm is counteracted. The image is classified responsive to the interpolation results. The first artifact can be a blocking artifact and the second artifact and interpolation marker can be different periodicities in the image.
US07720286B2
A system is provided that includes a pen-enabled computing arrangement having a capture interface and at least one processing element. The capture interface can capture an electronic input defining a stroke through a plurality of concatenated regions. In addition, the handwriting capture interface can also optionally capture an electronic handwriting input based upon a position of the writing stylus with reference to a position-determining pattern. Each of the concatenated regions corresponds to a region of an identification pattern including a plurality of regions that are each associated with a character of an identifier associated with an object. The stroke includes a plurality of portions referenced to respective regions of the identification pattern such that the processing element can determine the identifier based upon the respective regions of the identification pattern, and associate the electronic input with the object associated with the identifier.
US07720284B2
Method and apparatus for face alignment by building a hierarchical classifier network. The hierarchical classifier network connects the tasks of face detection and face alignment into a smooth coarse-to-fine procedure. Texture classifiers are trained to recognize feature texture at different scales for different resolution layers. A multi-layer structure is employed to organize the texture classifiers, which begins with one classifier at the first layer and gradually refines the localization of feature points using additional texture classifiers in subsequent layers.
US07720279B2
A CPU 411 divides image data GD into a plurality of areas (pixel data groups), analyzes the data in image data area units, and determines the color value and dispersion value of the image data areas. When the determined color value is within a flesh toned color area and the dispersion value is at or below a reference dispersion value, the CPU 411 determines the target image data area to be a flesh area. The CPU 411 carries out a smoothing process on the image data area determined to be a flesh area.
US07720271B2
A reactive-diffusion method for estimating a diameter of an object of interest includes providing a volume of interest including a plurality of voxels, initializing at least two volumes of the volume of interest, wherein each of the voxels has at least two values corresponding to the at least two volumes of the volume of interest, respectively, performing a diffusion operation and a reaction operation on the voxels to adjust the at least two values, comparing, for each voxel, the at least two values to a threshold to assign each voxel to one of the at least two volumes, wherein the assignment of the voxels is a segmentation result, and estimating a diameter of the object of interest from the segmentation result, wherein the object of interest is represented by at least one of the at least two volumes but less than all the volumes.
US07720269B2
A method for determining a volume of interest in data includes determining fixed-bandwidth estimations of a plurality of analysis bandwidths, wherein the estimation of the fixed-bandwidth comprises, providing an estimate of a mode location of the volume of interest in the data, and determining a covariance of the volume of interest using a local Hessian matrix. The method further includes determining the volume of interest as a most stable fixed-bandwidth estimation across each of the plurality of analysis bandwidths.
US07720265B2
The invention relates to a fingerprint recognition module comprising a substrate consisting of a material that is electrically insulating at least on its upper side and at least partially thermally insulating. Said substrate receives a composite of structured thin films on its surface, which directly forms a measuring field on the surface of the substrate for measuring a fingerprint. Said composite consists of an array of resistive, temperature-dependent elements, and contains strip conductors which connect the resistive, temperature-dependent elements to at least one connection field located on the substrate, outside the measuring field, and form part of the composite of structured thin films. The substrate also contains at least one microelectronic switching circuit which is electrically connected to the at least one connection field and contains the switching circuits by which means the thin film structures are controlled in order to heat the resistive, temperature-sensitive elements, the resistive, temperature-sensitive elements are read out, and the data is retransmitted.
US07720264B2
An object to be detected is illuminated by a single broadband light source or multiple light sources emitting light at different wavelengths. The light is captured by an imager, which includes a light-detecting sensor covered by a hybrid filter.
US07720257B2
A system for tracking objects across an area having a network of cameras with overlapping and non-overlapping fields of view. The system may use a combination of color, shape, texture and/or multi-resolution histograms for object representation or target modeling for the tacking of an object from one camera to another. The system may include user and output interfacing.
US07720237B2
A system and method for minimizing the complex phase interaction between non-coincident subwoofer and satellite speakers for improved magnitude response control in a cross-over region. An all-pass filter is cascaded with bass-management filters in at least one filter channel, and preferably all-pass filters are cascaded in each satellite speaker channel. Pole angles and magnitudes for the all-pass filters are recursively calculated to minimize phase incoherence. A step of selecting an optimal cross-over frequency may be performed in conjunction with the all-pass filtering, and is preferably used to select an optimal cross-over frequency prior to determining all-pass filter coefficients.
US07720235B2
A signal processing method divides a first signal of two signals to be compared in similarity into smaller regions, selects one of the regions, and calculates the correlation of the selected one with the other second signal. The method finds a time difference, an expansion factor, and a similarity in one region in which the maximum similarity as the square of the correlation is obtained, and performs integration in the position represented by the time difference and the expansion factor of values based on similarities. The method performs similar processing on all the regions, and evaluates similarity by, in a peak where the integrated value of similarities is a maximum, compares its magnitude with a threshold value. The region corresponding to the peak can be extracted.
US07720229B2
Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) of an individual are measured in rapid fashion in an arrangement where a sound source is positioned in the individual's ear channel, while microphones are arranged in the microphone array enveloping the individual's head. The pressure waves generated by the sounds emanating from the sound source reach the microphones and are converted into corresponding electrical signals which are further processed in a processing system to extract HRTFs, which may then be used to synthesize a spatial audio scene. The acoustic field generated by the sounds from the sound source can be evaluated at any desired point inside or outside the microphone array.
US07720225B2
For a defined cryptographic process including an original substitution table, split masked substitution tables are provided to resist cryptographic attacks. The split masked substitution tables are defined with reference to a set of random value data words and a mask value. An entry in the split masked substitution tables is defined by selecting bits from the corresponding entry in the original masked substitution table, as masked by the corresponding one of the set of random value data words and by selecting bits from the corresponding one of the set of random value data words as masked by the mask value. The split masked substitution tables are usable in a modified cryptographic process based on the defined cryptographic process to permit a masked output to be generated. The split masked substitution tables are refreshed by each entry in the tables being refreshed upon access during execution of the modified cryptographic process.
US07720222B2
The aim of this invention is to be able to recover specific information of a security module when it has been replaced by a new module in a user unit connected to a broadcasting network.This aim is reached by a method of storage and transmission of information generated by a first security module connected to a user unit, this first security module comprising a unique identifier and information representative of its functioning, this first module being able to be replaced by a second security module, this method comprising the following steps: determination of the specific information contained in the first security module intended for transmission, transfer of this information in the user unit, storage of this information in the user unit, replacement of the first security module by the second security module, connection of the user unit on a transmission network, initialization of a communication between the second security module and a management center, insertion by the user unit, of a data block in the blocks transmitted by the second module, this block comprising the identifier of the first module and the data specific to said first module.
US07720218B2
A user interface, telephony device, and method for managing user control settings associated with a telephony device is described. The user interface displays a label array on a display device of the telephony device. The label array includes at least one row of labels, each representing a discrete function or feature associated with the telephony device. A button array is provided in the vicinity of the display device. The button array includes a corresponding row or rows of buttons, each button representing a discrete function or feature for the telephony device and corresponding to a label within the label array. One or more buttons in the button array are selectively illuminated to indicate a status of one or more functions or features associated with one or more labels in the label array.
US07720207B2
An enhanced telephone emulation computer system including a minidialer program for controlling a computer to add telephony functions which can be invoked from whatever active program is currently controlling the computer. The minidialer program controls the computer to alter its processing depending upon the context existing at the time when a mouse click or hot key combination event is detected indicating the user wishes to invoke a telephony function. The minidialer program determines whether the user has highlighted any text or numbers in the active window of the application currently controlling the computer and whether the highlighted material is a name or a phone number, and if a name, whether the name is stored with a phone number in a phone book or file maintained on the computer. Processing and telephony menu options displayed as available also depend upon whether the user is or is not on the phone at the time the mouse click or hot key event occurs. In some embodiments, if the user has highlighted a URL, a browser will be launched and the web page corresponding to the URL will be opened.
US07720201B2
In a communication apparatus has a line control unit that controls connection with a communication line network, a communication unit transmits/receives data through the communication line network. A detection circuit detects one of a line voltage value and a line current value when the communication apparatus is connected to the line network. A memory unit stores multiple voltage-current characteristic curves defining relationships of line voltage values with respect to line current values satisfying a predetermined standard. An adjusting unit adjusts the line voltage value and the line current value so as to satisfy the predetermined standard based on one of the voltage-current characteristic curves stored in the memory unit. A selecting unit selects another voltage-current characteristic curve different from the one of the voltage-current characteristic curves from among the multiple voltage-current characteristic curves stored in the memory unit. A re-adjusting unit adjusts one of the line voltage and a line current.
US07720200B2
A composite target for generating x-rays includes a target substrate and at least one material applied to the target substrate with a laser beam.
US07720199B2
The present invention relates to an X-ray tube, having a structure for effectively suppressing discharge at a tip of an anode, irradiated with electrons in order to generate X-rays, and an X-ray source including the X-ray tube. In the X-ray tube, electrons emitted from an electron gun are made to collide with an X-ray target, and X-rays generated at the X-ray target due to the collision are taken out to an exterior. The X-ray tube includes: a head, defining an internal space that houses a tip of an anode; an irradiation window, transmitting the generated X-rays to the exterior; an exhaust port, disposed at an inner wall surface of a casing and being for vacuum drawing of the internal space; and a shielding structure, hiding the exhaust port from the tip of the anode.
US07720198B2
A controller for an X-ray device and an X-ray device with such a controller are provided. The X-ray device includes an X-ray generator, connected to the controller and at least one camera, connected to the controller. The controller is embodied to receive image data of a patient or object from the camera. The controller includes an analytical module, embodied to analyze image data from the camera and to generate at least one control signal for control of the X-ray generator depending on the result of the analysis of the image data, transmitted thereto by the controller.
US07720197B2
An x-ray optical system for producing high intensity x-ray beams. The system includes an optic with a surface formed by revolving a defined contour around a revolving axis that is different than the geometric symmetric axis of the optic. Accordingly, the system may use a source that has a circular emission profile or a large source to provide increased flux to a sample.
US07720184B2
A technique for reducing multipath distortion in a mobile FM receiver with a plurality of antennas is accomplished through a number of steps. Initially, a first antenna signal and a second antenna signal are received. The first antenna signal is weighted with a variable first weight and the second antenna signal is weighted with a variable second weight. The weighted first antenna signal and the weighted second antenna signal are then combined to provide a combined received signal having a combined signal level. The variable first and second weights are determined by an adaptation strategy that is substantially controlled by a first algorithm, when the combined signal level is greater than a predetermined signal level. When the combined signal level is less than the predetermined signal level, the variable first and second weights are determined by an adaptation strategy substantially controlled by a second algorithm.
US07720179B2
A wireless communication system comprises a sampling module that samples a first portion and a second portion of a channel using a sampling time. A correlator module selectively correlates the first portion and the second portion, generates correlation samples, and calculates an offset based on the correlation samples. A timing module selectively adjusts the sampling time based on the offset.
US07720178B2
A method of direct RF digitization for multiple RF signal bands such GNSS or wireless communication signal bands and a receiver using the method. By using the method, an optimal sampling frequency to be used in direct RF digitization for signals of multiple RF signal bands can be easily obtained. According to the present invention, one or more of the RF signal bands are selected to be shifted to target band(s). By doing so, the optimal sampling frequency can be easily calculated. Then the obtained sampling frequency is used in executing the direct RF digitization.
US07720170B2
A low emission signal manipulating circuit for reducing emission of a given signal. This is accomplished by manupulating the signal and recovering the original signal. The inventive device includes a transmitter which modifies a given signal, a divider that resides in transmitter which divides the incoming signal, a pulse shaping circuit which generates two pulses one at the leading edge and one at the trailing edge of the incoming signal, a receiver which recovers the original signal from the modified signal, a register which generates a signal based on incoming pulses, a phase locked loop circuit that generates a signal at the output. Transmitter has a divider circuit that divides the incoming signal. It also has pulse circuits where two pulses are generated. Divider has five flip flops that divides the incoming signal's frequency by a predetermined amount. Pulse shaping circuit has two integrators and logic gates. Receiver has a register circuit and phase locked loop. Register has a flip flop. Phase Locked Loop has a phase comparator, charge pump, voltage controlled oscillator and a divider.
US07720157B2
A method for creating a coded target Continuous Presence (CP) image according to a video coding standard from a number of coded video signals including defined orders of macroblocks, each including coded video signals corresponding to a respective endpoint video image, received from endpoints participating in a multipoint video conference, the method including: decoding the coded video signals with plural decoders to generate decoded video signals; spatially mixing the decoded video signals, resulting in a number of CP images including regions respectively associated with each of the endpoint video images with a mixing unit; encoding the CP images with plural encoders; and rearranging macroblocks of the encoded CP images to create the target coded CP image with one or more re-packer units.
US07720150B2
A pixel data selection device for motion compensated interpolation and a method thereof selects pixel data in adjacent frame/fields. First and second storage portions respectively store first pixel data corresponding to a motion vector of a first frame/field that is obtained by delaying an input frame/field and second pixel data corresponding to the motion vector of a second frame/field that is obtained by delaying the first frame/field one or more times. First and second pixel data extracting portions extract individual pixel data from the first and the second pixel data corresponding to a candidate motion vector. First and second optimum pixel outputting portions output optimum pixel data for motion compensation from the extracted individual pixel data. By selecting the optimum pixel data from the adjacent frame/field of an interpolated frame/field having a current block and candidate blocks corresponding to a plurality of motion trajectories, occurrence of blocking artifacts due to inaccurate estimate of motion vectors can be reduced.
US07720148B2
There is disclosed a method of digital signal compression, coding and representation, and more particularly a method of video compression, coding and representation system that uses multi-frame motion estimation and includes both device and method aspects. The invention also provides a computer program product, such as a recording medium, carrying program instructions readable by a computing device to cause the computing device to carry out a method according to the invention.
US07720145B2
A method for achieving bit rate controlled encoding, e.g., constant bit rate, uses a bit rate control model based on bits allocated per macroblock and based on error in estimating bits consumed in an encoding process in a macroblock. The method computes bits consumed per macroblock as a function of the formed bit rate control model, and allocates bits for the macroblock. To this end, a quadratic (second order) equation is used for the model, which equation might default into a first order equation requiring fewer computations, in the event that no second order solutions exist. In one form, the bit rate control model computes the bit rate to satisfy video buffer verifier (VBV) compliance in accordance with MPEG requirements. The bit rate control model makes allowances for the type of macroblock, i.e., inter, intra or bidirectional, and provides for any frame-skips.
US07720144B2
An image signal processing apparatus for quantizing an inputted moving image signal according to a quantization step so that a code amount of one frame becomes a target code amount, and for variable-length-coding the quantized moving image signal, in which a minimum value of the quantization step is determined for each frame, and the quantization step is determined so as not to be less than the minimum value.
US07720137B2
A method of characterizing the frequency response of a frequency translation device over a wide IF bandwidth is based on a two-dimensional model to generate calibration data for a device at run-time. The model is a function of a center frequency and frequency offset for a plurality of center frequencies over a wide system bandwidth to produce a frequency response at each center frequency. The frequency responses at each center frequency are scaled and normalized relative to a reference frequency and stored.
US07720130B2
Transmit diversity (TD) has become a common technique used in modern wireless communications systems to improve performance. TD uses multiple antennas (e.g., 110 and 111) at a transmitter (e.g., 105) to transmit multiple encoded datastreams and a single (or multiple) antenna (e.g., 116) at a receiver (e.g., 115) to receive the datastreams. Preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a general architecture (e.g., 705) that can support different TD schemes and even non-TD, simplifying receiver design and minimizing hardware usage.
US07720122B2
Semiconductor laser assembly 1 is provided with semiconductor laser device 6 and heat dissipation member 24. Semiconductor laser device 6 includes semiconductor laser element 15, lead-frame 11, lower and upper enclosures 18 and 19 and plate-like spring 21 connected to lead-frame 11. Semiconductor laser element 15 is mounted on lead-frame 11 through sub-mounting member 16. Lower and upper enclosures 18 and 19 have an opening through which laser beams from semiconductor laser element 15 are emitted. Plate-like spring 21 is connected to lead-frame 11 and has wing and holding portions 22 and 23. Holding portion 23 is a C-character in cross section to put lower and upper enclosures 18 and 19 together. Heat dissipation member 24 has inside walls to define perforation 25, so that wing portions 22 of plate-like spring 21 pushes semiconductor laser device 6 against the inside walls of heat dissipation member 24 when the semiconductor laser device 6 is set in perforation 25.
US07720119B2
This invention makes it possible to meet a requirement of high-quality image printing and high-speed driving of a semiconductor laser driver in a laser beam printer or the like while suppressing radiant noise. A laser circuit substrate includes a first wiring pattern and second wiring pattern connected to a main wiring pattern, a first circuit which is connected to the first wiring pattern and has a semiconductor laser element and a driving circuit for driving the semiconductor laser element, a second circuit which is connected to the second wiring pattern and compensates noise generated by the first circuit, a first capacitor which is connected to a first point in the first wiring pattern, and a second capacitor which is connected to a second point in the second wiring pattern. The positions of the first point and second point are set such that the sum of the impedances of the first wiring pattern and first circuit viewed from the first point, and the sum of the impedances of the second wiring pattern and second circuit viewed from the second point are substantially equal to each other.
US07720113B2
A receiving apparatus (100) includes demodulation parts (101, 102) for receiving the respective one of received signals of broadast systems to output demodulated data and timing clocks synchronized with the respective demodulated data, a clock generating part (103) for outputting, to an A/V decoder (107), the two timing clocks from the demodulation parts (101, 102) as high-rate and low-rate timing clocks and for outputting a control signal for multiplexing the two demodulated data from the demodulation parts (101, 102), and a multiplexing part (104) for multiplexing, based on the control signal, the two demodulated data to output the multiplexed data to the A/V decoder (107). The A/V decoder (107) receives the multiplexed data and timing clocks from the receiving apparatus (100) to process the video/audio signals of each broadcast.
US07720103B2
A method of processing a digital television (DTV) signal in a DTV receiver, the method includes receiving a digital television signal including video streams and an event information table carrying information for events on predefined virtual channels; parsing the event information table, the parsed event information table comprising bit rate information defining one or more bit rates associated with video streams in the digital television signal; and processing the video streams according to the parsed bit rate information.
US07720102B1
The present invention sets forth a network-centric service distribution method that integrates a wireless access system/service in the residence, SOHO, business or public environment through the use of a local broadband network, such as a Residential-Business Broadband Network (RBN), to the service provider's broadband transport network and to a service provider's broadband packet network that facilitates end-to-end packet telecommunication services. The method includes the step of connecting said service provider's broadband packet network to the RBN via said service provider's broadband transport network. Call and service termination functions to a plurality of local RBN devices are also provided in the method. Signals from a plurality of wireless devices are accepted and forwarded to an IEEE 802.11b interface for a wireless modem and/or to an Ethernet interface for a Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)/Ethernet Processor, where the forwarded signals comprise intranet telephony and data.
US07720100B2
An information packet preclassification system and method are provided. The method receives a packet of information and differentiates the packet into segments. Using a decision tree with multiple levels, segments in the packet are compared to a node at a tree level, where each node includes a plurality of node reference segments and corresponding node comparison operators. The reference segment may be a different segment from the packet, or a predetermined segment value stored in memory. One, or more classification attributes are accessed in response to comparing segments, and the classification attributes are assigned to the packet. Then, the packet is processed in response to the classification attributes.
US07720099B2
A method of communicatively coupling network elements supporting multiple network protocol types comprises receiving input having multiple network protocol types from an upper-level of the protocol stack at an endpoint-flexible-interface layer in a network endpoint, mapping the input between the upper-level of a protocol stack and a common-lower-level in the protocol stack at the endpoint-flexible-interface layer, and implementing the common-lower-level protocol layer to interface the multiple network protocol types to the physical layer, so that at least two endpoints of a network are communicatively coupled.
US07720096B2
An RTP payload format for VC-1 is described. The RTP payload format accommodates an RTP payload that can include one or more Access Units (AUs). An Access Unit can provide a complete frame of VC-1 information. Alternatively, a frame of VC-1 information can be fragmented among multiple Access Units. Each Access Unit includes an Access Unit header and an Access Unit payload. The RTP payload format incorporates various provisions for improving the efficiency and robustness in the processing of the VC-1 information, enabled, in part, by control information conveyed by the respective Access Unit headers of the Access Units.
US07720095B2
Methods and systems are provided for bridging heterogeneous media packets using a single processor resource having a virtual bridge. Network interfaces associated with heterogeneous media channels relay network packets to the virtual bridge. The virtual bridge accesses metadata associated with the relayed network packets and translates the network packets between media formats. The translated network packets are then relayed to an appropriate network interface. In one embodiment, the virtual bridge is dynamically configurable within the processing resource.
US07720092B1
A hierarchical round robin arbiter includes a first set of arbitration vectors, each associated with a plurality of requesters. A second arbitration vector includes one bit for each arbitration vector in the first set. The single bit informs the round robin arbiter if any of the requesters associated with the corresponding arbitration vector in the first set are requesting service. The round robin arbiter can determine whether one of a number of requesters is requesting service by examining the single bit in the arbitration vector.
US07720085B1
Packet flow rate control techniques are enhanced by the interactive and early invocation of packet queuing to control short flows of packets and to eliminate undershoot and overshoot of a targeted flow rate. Packet queuing involves the scheduled release of packets in accordance with flow policies (priorities) to achieve a pre-selected outgoing target flow rate. The combination of controlled packet queuing and packet flow rate control with appropriate mechanisms for favoring one over the other improves the efficiency of data transmission.
US07720083B2
Intelligent routing may be provided. First, a second peer via home relay may receive presence information indicating that a first peer is connected to a first foreign relay. Then the second peer may update, in response to the presence information, a routing table to indicate that a primary place to send data to the first peer is the first foreign relay. Next, the second peer may determine from the routing table that the primary place to send the data to the first peer is the first foreign relay. Next, the home relay may receive a request from a second peer to send data to the first peer via the first foreign relay. Then, in response to determining from the routing table that the primary place to send the data to the first peer is the first foreign relay, the data may be sent to the first foreign relay.
US07720081B2
An open architecture platform bypasses data from the facilities of a telecommunications carrier, e.g. an incumbent local exchange carrier, by distinguishing between voice and data traffic, and handling voice and data traffic separately. An SS7 gateway receives and transmits SS7 signaling messages with the platform. When signaling for a call arrives, the SS7 gateway informs a control server on the platform. The control server manages the platform resources, including the SS7 gateway, tandem network access servers (NASs) and modem NASs. A tandem NAS receives the call over bearer channels. The control server determines whether the incoming call is voice traffic or data traffic, by the dialed number, and instructs the tandem NAS how to handle the call. Voiced traffic is transmitted to a switch for transmission from the platform. Data traffic is terminated at a modem NAS, where it is converted into a form suitable for a data network, such as a private data network or an Internet services provider (ISP). The converted data is sent by routers to the data network. The data network need not convert the data, as the function has already been provided by the platform. In lieu of a conversion, the modems can create a tunnel (a virtual private network) between a remote server and the data network.
US07720078B2
In one aspect, a method in a packet-switched network for accessing a first subscriber is provided. A control server receives a message intended for the first subscriber of the packet-switched network. The control server inquires a topology database for information of how to reach the first subscriber according to the topology of the packet-switched network. A response having a topological path description is received by the control server. The message is transmitted to the first subscriber in accordance with the received topological path. Whereby, the first subscriber is assessable via a plurality of control servers in the packet-switched network.
US07720077B1
In one embodiment, a gateway for a constant delay network identifies a baseband clock that is synchronized by exchanging synchronization messages over a packet switched network. The gateway then generates a strobe by manipulating the identified baseband clock using a custom multiplier that is selected according to transmission variables. The gateway then signals a front end component to process fixed length packets for transfer to a back end component according to the generated strobe, which can reduce or eliminate buffering by the back end component and can improve cable modem operation.
US07720074B2
A network management system (NMS) automatically models a path for a customer's services from a terminating unit through elements typically on a link-by-link basis, across networks if appropriate, to a network service provider (NSP) or Internet service provider (ISP). The path may be a private virtual circuit or connection (PVC), and it may traverse an “overall network” including other networks such as an asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service or sub-networks. To model a path, the NMS creates a topology including the elements and links in the overall network and respective features, functions, characteristics, and capacities thereof. The topology allows the NMS to speedily, efficiently, and automatically provision a customer's service from the terminating unit to connection to the customer's selected NSP or ISP for Internet access.
US07720072B2
A method for dynamic bandwidth allocation in Passive Optical Network (PON), said PON includes a OLT and a plurality of ONUs accessing to the OLT, comprising: classifying traffic which is to be communicated between the OLT and the ONUs into a plurality of service types, and granting a different priority to each type of the services; authorizing service ports of every type of services to transmit service data in descending sequence of said priorities of the services, and recording granting information of the service ports obtained from the authorization; reading out said granting information of every to-be-granted service port of a same ONU; and scheduling granted start time of data transmission of every to-be-granted port of current ONU, generating downlink granting messages including both said granting information and said granted start time of data transmission of every granted port of said current ONU, transmitting said downlink granting messages to said current ONU. This method for bandwidth allocation in the present invention can satisfy requirements of different types of services, increase bandwidth utilization ratio and realize equal bandwidth allocation.
US07720071B2
Disclosed are exemplary techniques for compressing ATM cells by substituting reduced headers for the original headers. A header table may be maintained at the transmitting end whereby headers are stored in table entries based on a table index generated from a hash function applied to the headers. A copy of the header table may be maintained at the receiving end and may be updated by populating idle cells with header table contents. Upon receipt of a reduced ATM cell at the receiving end, the reduced header may be replaced with a full header obtained from the copy of the header table maintained at the receiving end. The present invention further provides techniques for registration and management of hash collisions.
US07720059B2
A traffic exchanging method for a mobile node in a mobile network reduces packet loss during hand-over latency, and defines new messages in order to prevent packet disorder. By defining a message indicating that earlier received packets have all been delivered, it is possible to prevent packet disorder. This has an effect of reducing packet loss and preventing packet disordering while a mobile host exchanges traffic in a mobile network. This solves the performance degradation of application layer protocol caused by packet disordering.
US07720055B2
A method of switching packets in a network switch includes the step of receiving a packet on a source port of a network switch. Thereafter, the method includes the step of determining whether the network switch has sufficient memory capacity to process the data packet; and if memory capacity is sufficient, then the method reads a selected portion of the packet to determine if the packet is to be sent to a mirrored port. If mirroring is determined, then the method sends the data packet to the mirrored port. The method also includes the step of determining whether the packet is to be sent to a remote CPU for further handling, and sending the data packet to the remote CPU if appropriate. The method additionally includes the step of determining whether the packet is a unicast packet, and if so, placing the packet on an internal communication channel within the network switch for appropriate storing and forwarding. If the packet is not a unicast packet, then the method determines if the packet is a multicast packet. If the packet is determined to be a multicast packet, then performing simultaneous lookups and switching using layer 2 lookup tables and addresses, and layer 3 lookup tables and addresses, thereby providing hybrid multicast handling of the packet.
US07720052B2
Radio protocol for a next generation mobile communication system is disclosed including a radio link control layer for connecting to an upper layer through a service access point provided in advance and for connecting to a lower layer through a plurality of logic channels provided in advance. The radio link control layer includes at least one radio link control entity for transmission/reception of data to/from up-link or down-link according to a form of a data transmission mode.
US07720051B2
An internet protocol (IP) telephone device includes a plurality of IP modules and an IP-module selecting unit that selects an IP module based on a call command received from an opponent telephone terminal device.
US07720050B1
A method and apparatus for implementing and managing a network architecture capable of delivering wireless telephony and data services of carrier class quality over a local or wide-area network using industry standard wireless protocols is disclosed. A high bandwidth microwave ring array provides redundant point-to-point communications between nodes that are located to optimize geographical coverage through radio-frequency wireless transceivers. The total system is managed and monitored through web-based software to provide the speed and reliability of wired systems at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems, facilitating service in rural areas or areas of dispersed populations where other communications infrastructure is impractical.
US07720049B1
A service broker of telecommunications networks is described herein. According to one embodiment, in response to a telephony call event from a subscriber to be serviced by a plurality of services, for each of the plurality of services, a service description associated with the respective service is examined to identify which of the plurality of service is capable of handling the telephony call event, where the service description semantically describes the respective service. Thereafter, the telephony call event is distributed to one or more of the identified services that are capable of handling the telephony call event, where the telephony call event is processed by the one or more services. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.
US07720047B1
Techniques are described for managing periodic communications between devices. For example, a periodic packet process may receive configuration parameters from a routing protocol process. The periodic packet process may manage periodic communication sessions with neighboring devices in accordance with the configuration parameters from the routing protocol process. The periodic packet process may monitor for incoming periodic packets from a specified neighboring device in a specified periodic time interval. The periodic packet process may also send outbound periodic packets at a specified periodic time interval.
US07720041B2
A device for communicating with a mobile device is provided. The devices includes a transmitter. The transmitter transmit a first modulation scheme, a first transport block size, and a first redundancy version to a mobile device. The first transport block size is represented by a first number of bits and the first redundancy version is represented by a second number of bits. The transmitter transmits a packet based on the first modulation scheme to a mobile device. transmitter transmits a second modulation scheme, a second transport block size, and a second redundancy version to the mobile device. The second transport block size is represented by a third number of bits and the second redundancy version is represented by a fourth number of bits, wherein the third number of bits is greater than the first number of bits, and the fourth number of bits is less than the second number of bits. The transmitter transmits the packet based on the second modulation scheme to the mobile device.
US07720029B2
Channel selection in a wireless telecommunication system includes determining at least one transmission frequency used by a first transceiver from information on the first transceiver. The harmonics of the transmission frequency are determined and at least one channel used by the second transceiver is selected by at least taking into account the harmonics of the transmission frequency of the first transceiver.
US07720025B2
Method for searching services, resources and/or functionalities in a network wherein the network comprises a multitude of nodes to which routable network addresses are assigned, and wherein the services, resources and/or functionalities which are to be searched, are specified by a source node (Q) that is characterized in that a corresponding direction is specified within the network by at least one destination node (Z) and/or nodes near to the destination node (Z), by which a routing path is defined between the source node (Q) and the corresponding destination node (Z), and characterized in that only pre-configurable nodes near to the routing path between source node (Q) and destination node (Z) are included in the search.
US07720023B2
This invention relates to a system and a method for a telecommunication system, comprising a circuit switched network connected with mobile terminals, moreover comprising, for the transmission of streaming video content from a streaming video server within the internet to the mobile terminals, a gateway, connected to the circuit switched network at the one side and connected to the internet at the other side, the gateway being fit for the conversion of files having an internet compatible streaming video format received from the streaming video server, into streaming video bitstreams in a format fit to be transmitted to the mobile terminals via the circuit switched network, wherein the telecommunication system further comprises a registration unit, connectable with the mobile terminals via a packet switched network and fit for registering, for each relevant mobile terminal, a terminal identifier linked to the mobile terminal's node address at the circuit switched network.
US07720018B2
A process for secure, safe, and easy provisioning of a wireless device with credentials to connect to a wireless network. A connecting wireless device and an established wireless device both utilize low power transmission at close proximity to exchange wireless connection setting information and/or a password. The connecting wireless device is moved into proximity with the established wireless device and a low power setting is discovered at which the wireless devices may communicate with a sufficiently low error rate. The connecting wireless device is then passed the secret information by the established network device.
US07720017B2
A system and method are provided for parallel path turbo decoding in a portable wireless communications user terminal (UT). The method accepts a coded stream having a first order of information packets, and demultiplexes the coded stream into first coded and second coded information streams. The first coded stream is turbo decoded, generating a first decoded information stream. Likewise, the second coded stream is decoded to generate a second decoded information stream, asynchronously with respect to the first decoded stream. Then, the first and second decoded streams are combined into a combined stream having the first order of decoded information packets. The first and second decoded streams are combined by parallel buffering the first and second decoded streams, generating parallel-buffered decoded streams. Then, the parallel-buffered decoded streams are multiplexed to create a combined stream, which is stored in an output buffer.
US07720016B2
A routing method for communication from a source node to a destination node in a distributed wireless network which comprises a plurality of wireless mobile nodes. The method has the following steps: (1) a query step where the source node sends a route request query, which is relayed by one or more mobile nodes along one or more paths to the destination node; (2) a route reply step where the destination node upon receiving the route request query sends a route reply packet, which is relayed by one or more mobile nodes along one or more selected paths back to the source node; (3) a bandwidth reservation step performed during the same time when step (2) is performed, where each said mobile node that receives said route reply packet carries out bandwidth reservation, resulting one or more paths with bandwidth reservation from said source node to said destination node; (4) an outgoing path selection step where a single path is selected from the paths with bandwidth reservation resulted in step (3); and (5) a proactive erasure step where each mobile node which has bandwidth reservation but is not in the path selected in step (4) removes its bandwidth reservation.
US07720006B1
A system for determining reachablity of a neighboring node from a node. A packet is received over a network by node. The packet has a destination address of a node other than the receiving node. The node reads a source address from the packet. The node then determines whether the source address is for a neighboring node in which the node has an interest. The node then determines whether the packet indicates a forward link from the node to the neighboring node. Reachablity information for the neighboring node is then stored in a memory responsive to a determination of the forward link.
US07720003B2
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a method and apparatus for the identification or discovery for properties of MPLS networks through a modeling technique. Aspects of the present invention provide for discovering or identifying the Label Switched Paths in MPLS networks. The method comprises the steps of representing a network by a model comprising a plurality of configuration non-specific first object classes that are representations of types of components associated with the network components, and a plurality of configuration non-specific second object classes that are representations of relationships among the representation of types of component, identifying instances of a first one and a second one of the types of components object class, and identifying the label switch path by traversing the instances of the first and second types of components object classes through select ones of the relationship object classes associated with the first and second type of components object classes.
US07719999B2
A method and apparatus of predicting link quality of a link are disclosed. One exemplary method includes a receiver receiving multi-carrier modulated signals over a period of time. A signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each received sub-carrier is estimated. An ordered sequence of the signal to noise ratios (SNR)s are constructed based on interleaving of the multi-carrier modulated signals, wherein an order of the interleaving is used to set the ordered sequence of the signal to noise ratios (SNR)s. The receiver estimates link packet error rate (PER) based upon knowledge of encoding of the multi-carrier modulated signals used during transmission and the ordered sequence.
US07719996B2
A logging system comprising counting logic adapted to generate a raw timestamp. The system further comprises encoding logic coupled to the counting logic and adapted to insert a group of bits of the raw timestamp into a predetermined timestamp template to produce an encoded timestamp. The template is selected based on a position of a most significant bit of the raw timestamp.
US07719984B2
A network communication system and a method of controlling the network communication system are provided. The network communication system includes: a member reading at least one piece of data stored in an access point (AP); a member giving priority to the data; a member re-transmitting the data having the priority to the AP; and a member processing the data in the AP according to the priority. Thus, data can be efficiently processed according to predetermined priority using a low-end type AP as a high-end type AP is used.
US07719983B2
An exemplary method of resource allocation is provided. A relationship is estimated between at least one controlled resource and at least one dependent parameter. A resource allocation of the at least one controlled resource is adjusted to effect a desired system goal expressed in terms of the at least one dependent parameter.
US07719979B1
Effective bandwidth of a communication link is determined in a heterogeneous, packet switched network between a source and a destination, where effective bandwidth is defined as actual available bandwidth between the server and the client, minus the overhead of the various network protocols used to transmit the data. The method includes measuring transmission times between the source and a destination for a plurality data segments having different characteristics, such as different sized files or subfiles of data; processing the transmission times to cancel effects of transmission latencies other than the different characteristics of the data segments; and indicating a bandwidth based on said processing. The processing is done in parallel with the return of user resources to the destination, and using a bandwidth detection engine associated with a proxy server.
US07719977B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates dynamic allocation of upstream bandwidth in a passive optical network which includes a central node and at least one remote node. Each remote node is coupled to at least one logical entity, which corresponds to a device or a user, that transmits upstream data to the central node and receives downstream data from the central node. The central node is coupled to an external network outside of the passive optical network through a shared out-going uplink.
US07719974B2
A method for loadbalancing in a network environment is provided that includes receiving a request from an end user for a communication session at a central node. The method further includes identifying a selected one of a plurality of network nodes to facilitate the communication session for the end user based on feedback information provided by the selected network node. The feedback information is communicated from the selected network node and processed before making a decision to establish the communication session between the selected network node and the end user.
US07719969B1
Method and system for assigning port addresses for a plurality of network devices based on a link rate associated with each network device is provided. The method includes discovering a link rate associated with each of the plurality of network devices; assigning a device address for each of the plurality of network devices, where at least a portion of the device address is selected based on the discovered link rate; assigning communication lanes among the plurality of network devices for network communication, wherein the communication lanes are assigned such that network devices with similar link rates use a same communication lane.
US07719962B2
A method to increase the capacity efficiency of span-restorable mesh networking on sparse facility graphs. The new approach views the network as a “meta-mesh of chain sub-networks”. This makes the prospect of WDM mesh networking more economically viable than with previous mesh-based design where the average nodal degree is low. The meta-mesh graph is a homeomorphism of the complete network in which edges are either direct spans or chains of degree-2 nodes. The main advantage is that loop-back type spare capacity is provided only for the working demands that originate or terminate in a chain, not for the entire flow that crosses chains. The latter “express” flows are entirely mesh-protected within the meta-mesh graph which is of higher average degree and hence efficiency for mesh restoration, than the network as a whole. Nodal equipment savings also arise from the grooming of express lightpaths onto the logical chain-bypass span. Only the meta-mesh nodes need optical cross-connect functionality. Other sites use OADMs and/or glassthroughs. The resultant designs comprise a special class of restorable network that is intermediate between pure span restoration and path restoration. Most of the efficiency of path restoration is achieved, but with a span restoration mechanism which is more localized and potentially faster and simpler than path restoration. The concept lends itself to implementation with OADMs having a passive waveband pass-through feature to support the logical chain bypass spans for express lightpaths.
US07719961B2
Communications adapters and methods are provided for interfacing communications for an EtherNet/Ip or other general purpose industrial network, a Fieldbus or other open protocol device network, and a PointBus or other proprietary network. The adapter may be integrated in a module of a backplane system with connections to the general purpose, proprietary, and open protocol device networks, and provides a bridging for communications across the networks to make devices on the proprietary and open protocol networks accessible as if they were on a single device network and with sequential addressing capabilities.
US07719960B2
Network traffic is sent via alternate paths in cases of network link or node failure. An alternate node responds to U-Turn traffic from a primary neighbor to select a further alternate. An algorithm for determining the alternate paths is provided to select loop-free neighbors.
US07719958B1
Multicast traffic may be routed using DVMRP or PIM over a Split MultiLink Trunk (SMLT). Network elements on the split side of the SMLT are interconnected by an Inter-Switch Trunk (IST) to enable them to exchange control messages associated with the multicast. When a control message is received on the IST, the network element will determine if the multicast control message is associated with a normal multicast or is associated with multicast over an SMLT link. Control messages related to SMLT links will be processed as if they were received over the SMLT link rather than the IST link. To prevent traffic from being forwarded by multiple network elements over the SMLT link, data traffic from an IST link may not be transmitted over an SMLT link. Flags are used to indicate whether a link is a SMLT link or regular link. Fast recovery may occur by causing participants to transmit triggered join messages upon recovery from a failure.
US07719952B2
An optical information recording medium having a structure in which irregular reflection of information light and recording/reproducing light from the reflective layer of an optical information record medium is prevented, thereby reducing the noise appearing on the reproduced image. The optical information recording medium for recording information by holography comprises a transparent substrate, a recording layer where information is recorded by an interference pattern, and a filter layer formed between the transparent substrate and the recording layer and adapted to transmit a light of a first wavelength and reflect a light of a second wavelength. The filter layer of the thus structured optical information recording medium transmits a light of the first wavelength (for example, red light) and reflects a light of the second wavelength (for example, green light). As a result, two lights of different wavelengths can be separated and used for different purposes without being influenced by each other.
US07719941B2
A method for identifying an optical disk according to a radio frequency integration filtering signal includes the steps of: moving an optical head to an initial position; rotating the optical disk and making focus, moving the optical head in a direction toward an inner ring until the optical head is moved to a home position or the focus fails, reading the radio frequency integration filtering signal, and recording a maximum and a minimum thereof when the optical head is being moved; stopping the optical head and determining whether a difference between the maximum and the minimum is greater than a predetermined threshold value; setting the optical disk as a second type of disk if the difference is greater than the predetermined threshold value; and setting the optical disk as a first type of disk if the difference is smaller than or equal to the predetermined threshold value.
US07719935B2
An information storage medium is provided with a plurality of information storage layers, each of which includes an optimal power control (OPC) area for obtaining an optimal recording condition. Optimal power control areas in odd-numbered and even-numbered information storage layers viewed from a direction in which light is incident upon the information storage medium are disposed one on another to not directly face each other. An actually usable area of an optimal power control area in each of the information storage layers varies depending on use circumstances of each of the information storage layers. Therefore, when an OPC area of one information storage layer performs OPC, this OPC does not affect another information storage layer. Also, an area of each of the information storage layers can be efficiently used.
US07719931B2
An optical disk device is disclosed that includes loop gain adjustment means for finding the first tracking loop gain of a first region, and loop gain estimation means for estimating the second loop gain of a second region on the basis of the loop gain of the first region. Accordingly, it is possible to set the optimal tracking control loop gain for all regions. As a side benefit, good tracking control stability can be ensured regardless of the region, which improves the reliability of reproduction and recording.
US07719922B2
An address counter includes FIFO units and first to third command counters that controls the groups. In the FIFO units, latch circuits including input gates and output gates are connected in parallel. The first command counter conducts any one of the input gates in response to a first internal command; the second command counter conducts any one of the output gates in response to a second internal command; and the third command counter conducts any one of the output gates in response to a third internal command. Thereby, the same address signals can be outputted successively at a plurality of timings, and thus, a circuit scale of the address counter can be reduced.
US07719919B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, a first row decoder which drives the memory cell array, and a second row decoder which drives the memory cell array. The first and second row decoders simultaneously drive the memory cell array.
US07719918B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a plurality of sense amplifiers that amplify data transferred from each of a couple of banks and output them as amplified signals; a controller configured to determine the output states of the amplified signals outputted from each of the couple of sense amplifiers and to output driving signals corresponding to the output amplified signals; and a driver configured to receive driving signals and to drive a global input/output line in response to the driving signals, wherein the couple of sense amplifiers share the one driver.
US07719911B2
A semiconductor storage device is provided which enables use of an overdrive method at low voltage and for a small device area. The semiconductor device includes: memory cells; sense amplifiers, each having P-channel and N-channel MOS transistors and amplifying a signal read from a memory cell; a first power supply line connected to a source terminal of the P-channel MOS transistor provided in each of the sense amplifiers; a second power supply line which supplies an overdrive voltage to the sense amplifiers at a potential higher than a write potential of the memory cell; a third power supply line connected to an external power supply, a connection element which connects and disconnects the first power supply line and the second power supply line; a capacitance element connected to the second power supply line; and a resistance element inserted between the second power supply line and the third power supply line.
US07719910B2
A sense amplifier of a DRAM includes, in series between two terminals of application of a supply voltage, at least one first transistor of a first channel type, and an amplification stage formed of two parallel branches each including a second transistor of the first channel type in series with a transistor of a second channel type. The gates of the transistors of a same branch are connected to the junction point of the transistors of the other branch. Each branch including at least one first additional transistor of the first channel type in parallel with at least each second transistor of the first channel type.
US07719906B2
Disclosed is a semiconductor storage device in which a cell array including a plurality of cells in need of refresh for data retention includes the redundancy area, which has a plurality of redundant cells for replacing faulty cells of a normal area within the cell array. When the redundancy area is tested, a refresh counter circuit for generating and outputting refresh addresses rearranges the address in such a manner that a row address of the redundancy area is substantially reduced and placed on a lower-order bit side inclusive of the LSB of the counter.
US07719896B1
A configurable memory device includes an array of configurable memory units arranged into rows and columns. The configurable memory unit includes a memory cell comprising a first storage element configured to store a first value and a second storage element configured to store a second value. The memory unit can be either a single-ended or a differential configuration. In the single-ended configuration, the stored value of each storage element is interpreted as one bit. In the differential configuration, the stored first and second values of the storage elements are interpreted as a differential single bit. An external control signal determines in which configuration the unit is in.
US07719895B2
In an integrated circuit device, a continuous-output, zero-standby-current non-volatile storage cell is formed by P-MOS and N-MOS transistor elements coupled in series between first and second power supply nodes (e.g., VDD and ground) and having a shared floating gate. When a positive charge is stored on the shared floating gate, the N-MOS transistor is switched to a conducting state, coupling the common-drain output of the transistor elements to the more negative power supply node to output a first logic value, and when a negative charge is stored on the shared floating gate, the P-MOS transistor element is switched to a conducting state, coupling the common-drain output to the more positive power supply node to output a second logic value.
US07719892B2
An apparatus, system, and computer-implemented method for controlling data transfer between a plurality of serial data link interfaces and a plurality of memory banks in a semiconductor memory is disclosed. In one example, a flash memory device with multiple links and memory banks, where the links are independent of the banks, is disclosed. The flash memory devices may be cascaded in a daisy-chain configuration using echo signal lines to serially communicate between memory devices. In addition, a virtual multiple link configuration is described wherein a single link is used to emulate multiple links.
US07719885B2
Read word lines and write word lines are provided corresponding to the respective MTJ (Magnetic Tunnel Junction) memory cell rows, and bit lines and reference voltage lines are provided corresponding to the respective MTJ memory cell columns. Adjacent MTJ memory cells share at least one of these signal lines. As a result, the pitches of signal lines provided in the entire memory array can be widened. Thus, the MTJ memory cells can be efficiently arranged, achieving improved integration of the memory array.
US07719880B2
Methods and systems for embodiments of a 9T memory cell, memory devices which utilize such 9T memory cells and the creation of embodiments of such memory devices are disclosed. More specifically, an embodiment of a 9T memory cell may comprise a 6T memory cell portion and a 3T read port. Additionally, in one embodiment, a memory which utilizes 9T memory cells may be made by from a grid comprising columns and rows of transistors formed according to a layout for 6T memory cells.
US07719879B2
A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a word line extending along a first direction, a first and a second N-well regions, a P-well region disposed between the first and the second N-well regions, a memory cell having a first, second, third, and fourth PMOS transistors, and a first and second NMOS transistors, the first and the second PMOS transistors disposed in the first N-well region along a second direction which is different from the first direction, the first and the second NMOS transistors disposed in the P-well region, and the third and the fourth PMOS transistors disposed in the second N-well region along the second direction.
US07719878B2
The write disturb that occurs in polymer memories may be reduced by writing back data after a read in a fashion which offsets any effect on the polarity of bits in bit lines associated with the addressed bit. For example, each time the data is written back, its polarity may be alternately changed. In another embodiment, the polarity may be randomly changed.
US07719877B2
To increase the quantity of stored charges of memory cells by a simple configuration to improve the operating margin, and to allow dummy cells to be unnecessary to improve the operating margin of a DRAM without increasing the power consumption and/or the chip area. A voltage of a common plate line is changed from a first voltage to a second voltage lower than the first voltage while a word line is a third voltage which makes the word line a selected state. The voltage of the word line is changed into a fourth voltage which makes the memory cell a non-selected state and is lower than the third voltage and higher than a fifth voltage which makes the word line a non-selected state, and the voltage of the plate line is changed into the first voltage after the voltage of the word line has been changed into the fourth voltage.
US07719875B2
A resistance change memory device including: a substrate; cell arrays stacked thereabove, each including a matrix layout of memory cells; a write circuit configured to write a pair cell constituted by two neighboring memory cells; and a read circuit configured to read complementary resistance value states of the pair cell as one bit of data, wherein the memory cell includes a variable resistance element for storing as information a resistance value, and wherein the variable resistance element has a recording layer formed of a first composite compound expressed by AxMyOz (where “A” and “M” are cation elements different from each other; “O” oxygen; and 0.5≦x≦1.5, 0.5≦y≦2.5 and 1.5≦z≦4.5) and a second composite compound containing at least one transition element and a cavity site for housing a cation ion.
US07719873B2
A memory includes: memory elements arranged in a matrix, each memory element having such characteristics that when an electric signal at a level equal to or higher than that of a first threshold signal is applied to the memory element, the resistance thereof is changed from a high value to a low value, and when an electric signal at a level equal to or higher than that of a second threshold signal is applied thereto, the resistance is changed from the low value to the high value, the polarities of the first and second threshold signals being different from each other; electric circuits for applying electric signals to the memory elements; and detection units each for measuring a current flowing through the corresponding memory element or a voltage applied thereto from the start of the application of electric signals to detect whether the resistance is high or low.
US07719871B2
Provided are a complementary nonvolatile memory device, methods of operating and manufacturing the same, a logic device and semiconductor device having the same, and a reading circuit for the same. The complementary nonvolatile memory device includes a first nonvolatile memory and a second nonvolatile memory which are sequentially stacked and have a complementary relationship. The first and second nonvolatile memories are arranged so that upper surfaces thereof are contiguous.
US07719868B2
An integrated semiconductor memory has memory cells, with at least one pair of bit lines which comprises a first bit line and a second bit line, and with at least one sense amplifier which has the first bit line and the second bit line connected to it. The bit lines respectively have a first conductor track structure and a second conductor track structure, where the memory cells are respectively connected to the second conductor track structure, and where the first conductor track structure is respectively interposed between the sense amplifier and the second conductor track structure of the respective bit line and is arranged at a greater distance from the substrate area than the respective second conductor track structure.
US07719866B2
A control circuit for a switching DC/DC Converter comprising: an input for an indicator signal indicative of an output current level from said converter; a peak detector for detecting and storing a maximum value of said indicator signal; a comparator element for comparing an instantaneous value of said indicator signal with said stored maximum value, and for generating a switching signal when said instantaneous value becomes less than a predetermined fraction of said stored value; reinitializer means for reinitializing said peak detector in response to said switching signal; and means for generating a control signal that switches between a state in which it increases over time and a state in which it decreases over time in response to said switching signal. A control module for photovoltaic generator, the module including such a control circuit, and a photovoltaic generator system comprising a plurality of such modules, each controlling a respective photovoltaic generator.
US07719860B2
When an AC power supply (9) is powered up, a constant current supply section (14) supplies a constant current to a capacitor (C3) to charge the capacitor (C3). When a voltage across the capacitor (C3) becomes equal to or greater than a predetermined voltage, a switch control section (17) sets a switch (13) off. When an output current drops to lead to a light load, a load detecting circuit (15) stops the operation of a PWM control circuit (12) and activates a timer (16). The timer (16) supplies a switch-ON signal to the switch control section (17) when it is activated and a predetermined time measured elapses. When supplied with the switch-ON signal, the switch control section (17) sets the switch (13) on. When the switch (13) is set on, the capacitor (C3) is charged again, applying a voltage to the PWM control circuit (12).
US07719855B2
A spacing device for adapting electronic modules for insertion into a system is disclosed. In one embodiment, the spacing device includes a body and guide features configured to align the body with mating guide features of electronic modules. The spacing device also includes a coupling portion having coupling arms, which is configured to secure the electronic modules to the body.
US07719852B2
A high-reliability electronic component without reduction in insulation resistance under high-temperature and high-humidity conditions has satisfactory solderability of external electrodes. The electronic component includes a main body and external electrodes disposed on surfaces of the main body, the external electrodes include underlying electrode layers each containing a metal, alloy layers each disposed on the corresponding underlying electrode layer, Ni plating layers each disposed on the corresponding alloy layer, Ni oxide layers each disposed on the corresponding Ni plating layers, and upper plating layers each disposed on the corresponding Ni oxide layer, each Ni oxide layer having a thickness of about 150 nm or less, and each Ni plating layer having an average particle size of Ni particles of about 2 μm or more. To form the Ni plating layers having reduced grain boundaries, heat treatment is performed at about 500° C. to about 900° C. inclusive in a reducing atmosphere having an oxygen concentration of about 100 ppm or less.
US07719849B2
Included are systems and methods for providing access of test points. An embodiment of a system includes an electrical module including at least one electrical circuit configured to communicate at least one electrical signal, the electrical module further including at least one multiple access test point configured to provide access for measurements of the electrical circuit. Some embodiments include an environmental housing that includes at least one access port, the environmental housing configured to receive the electrical module such that at least one access port provides access to at least one multiple access test point.
US07719847B2
A multi-memory media adapter having a port, a surface, and a set of contact pins adapted to connect to different types of flash cards. Signals are mapped to the contact pins depending upon the type of flash card. In one embodiment, a controller has signal lines connected to an interconnection means which connects wires, cables or traces to the sets of contact pins. Signals are mapped on the signal lines depending upon the type of flash card inserted.
US07719843B2
The present invention enables assembly of drive boxes that stack drives more than one drive deep without requiring large numbers of PC boards or that the drive box to be pulled out of a rack to remove/replace the drives. A shielded multiple drive plug-in cable connects a single PC board to a plurality of drives in the drive box. The multiple drive plug-in cable provides power from the PC board to the drives and/or passes signal between the PC board and the drives. The multiple drive plug-in cable is configured to occupy a minimal cross-sectional area in order to maximize air flow within the drive box. The present invention reduces the cost of manufacturing the drive box, reduces EMI (electromagnetic interference), and prevents drops in signal integrity by reducing the number of PC boards required for a drive box.
US07719840B2
A heat sink assembly includes a fixing base and a heat sink mounted on the fixing base. The fixing base has a bottom face attached to an electronic component mounted on a printed circuit board. The fixing base includes a pair of hooks extending from a rear side thereof and engaging with a support beam fixed to the printed circuit board. A pair of sleeves extend from a front side of the fixing base and two fasteners are received in the sleeves and threadedly engage with the printed circuit board. The rear and front sides of the fixing base are firmly secured to the printed circuit board, whereby the heat sink mounted on the fixing base can dissipate heat from the electronic component via the fixing base.
US07719831B2
According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus is provided with a circuit board contained in a case and including a first surface and a second surface formed on the reverse side of the first surface, a first heat generating component mounted on the first surface, a second heat generating component mounted on the second surface, a radiator section located off the circuit board, a first heat transfer member extending along the first surface and provided between the first heat generating component and the radiator section, and a second heat transfer member extending along the second surface and provided between the second heat generating component and the radiator section.
US07719828B2
A rugged hard disk drive storage assembly is disclosed. The rugged hard disk drive storage assembly includes an enclosure capable of containing multiple hard disk drives. The enclosure also contains multiple shock and vibration absorbers that are configured to elastically support all the hard disk drives contained within the enclosure. The multiple shock absorbers protect the delicate electronic hard disk drives and their sensitive information from shock and vibration damage, even when the enclosure has been removed from the drive container, and is being carried away by personal in a harsh combat environment. In addition, the enclosure is hermetically sealed such that the hard disk drives are isolated from external environment.
US07719820B2
An electrolyte solution proposed for double layer capacitors contains at least one conducting salt comprising a cation having a maximum diameter<9.20 Á which additionally comprises substituents on the central atom which are not all the same and further contains at least one solvent comprising a functional group selected from lactones and nitrites. Such electrolyte solutions are superior to conventional electrolyte solutions at low temperatures when acetonitrile is the solvent, so that double layer capacitors provided with electrolyte solutions according to the invention have improved electrical properties at low temperatures.
US07719816B2
One embodiment of the present invention is a compliant thermal contactor that includes a resilient metal film having a plurality of first thermally conductive, compliant posts disposed in an array on a top side thereof and a plurality of second thermally conductive, compliant posts disposed in an array on a bottom side thereof.
US07719811B2
A FET monitoring and protecting system (10) that includes a FET switch device (20). The FET switch device (20) includes a FET (22), a logic device (57), and a feedback status output (26). The logic device (57) is electrically coupled to the FET (22) and generates a feedback status signal. A counter (60) is incremented in response to an actual short circuit condition of the FET switch device (20). A controller (18) is electrically coupled to the feedback status output (26). The controller (18) permits the activation of the FET (22) in response to the feedback status signal and a value of the counter (60).
US07719801B2
Magnetoresistive (MR) elements having flux guides defined by the free layer are disclosed. The MR element includes a free layer, a spacer/barrier layer, a pinned layer, and a pinning layer. A back edge of the free layer (opposite the sensing surface of the MR element) extends past a back edge of the spacer/barrier layer. The portion of the free layer extending past the back edge of the spacer/barrier layer defines a continuous flux guide. The flux guide is processed to reduce the conductive characteristics of the flux guide, thereby reducing current shunt loss in the flux guide.
US07719799B2
A magnetoresistive element has a first magnetic layer and a second magnetic layer separate from each other, the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer each having a magnetization whose direction is substantially pinned, and a non-magnetic conductive layer formed in contact with the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer and electrically connecting the first and second magnetic layers, the non-magnetic conductive layer forming a path of spin-polarized electrons from one of the magnetic layer to the other magnetic layer, the non-magnetic conductive layer comprising a portion located between the first magnetic layer and the second magnetic layer, the portion being a sensing area.
US07719791B2
Embodiments of the present invention pertain to reducing a probability of an organic ring forming on an air bearing surface of a slider while manufacturing the head stack assembly. According to one embodiment, clean dry air is received. The clean dry air is blown at a location on a suspension for the slider to vaporize at least a portion of a solution that potentially causes the organic ring to form on the air bearing surface of the slider.
US07719789B2
A magnetic storage medium has tracks and guard bands magnetically separating adjacent tracks. The tracks and the guard bands are alternately and concentrically disposed. The tracks includes a plurality of data tracks in which data can be written and from which data can be reproduced and servo patterns disposed between the data tracks and allowing reproduction of positional information of the data tracks. The magnetic storage medium includes an offset-amount measurement area in which traverse tracks are formed so as to traverse adjacent tracks via each of the guard bands so that writing regarding offset measurement data for measuring an offset amount between a storage element and a reproducing element of a magnetic head unit is allowed at a center position of the storage element.
US07719785B2
Embodiments of the present invention help to accomplish accurate and reliable clearance control. In one embodiment of the present invention, a disk drive device adjusts the clearance between a head element portion and a disk with a heater on a slider. The clearance control according to the present embodiment incorporates the variation in heater power efficiency in the clearance variation depending on the radial position. The clearance variation in a unit of heater power varies depending on the radial position. Taking account of the variation in the heater power efficiency in the thermal fly-height control (TFC) depending on the radial position in addition to the clearance variation between the head element portion and the disk caused by variation in fly-height or attitude, accomplishes more accurate TFC.
US07719780B2
A color filter array suitable for a display panel is provided. The color filter array includes a first pixel, a second pixel, a third pixel and a forth pixel. The first pixel is consisted of a green filter, a blue filter and a transparent filter. The second pixel is consisted of a red filter, a blue filter and a transparent filter. The third pixel is consisted of a red filter, a green filter and a transparent filter. The fourth pixel is consisted of a red filter, a blue filter and a green filter. The architecture of the color filter array is able to increase the image brightness of the display panel.
US07719770B2
The present invention relates to a 3-dimensional video display device using a single image source for background image and object image display, which uses a double Fresnel lens structure, multi-reflector, and half mirror part. In particular, the present invention relates to a 3-dimensional image device with which the problem in prior art of spatial size in obtaining a background image is resolved, and with which a background image of a large display and a 3-dimensional image having an enhanced sense of depth and a large image are displayed simultaneously using only a single image source.
US07719767B2
A composite light dividing device is provided. The composite light dividing device receives a light beam mixed by lights of at least two wavebands. The composite light dividing device includes a refracting/diffracting unit, and a refracting unit. The refracting/diffracting unit is adapted for receiving the light beam and condensing the light beam into a condensed light beam, and dividing the condensed light beam at a deflection direction to obtain the lights of the wavebands. The refracting unit is adapted for deflecting the divided lights of the wavebands for outputting them from a specific direction. The composite light dividing device for example can be used in an image apparatus, and the divided lights of the wavebands can serve as primary color lights of the pixel colors.
US07719756B2
A display apparatus according to one or more embodiments includes an array substrate and an opposite substrate facing the array substrate. Pixels areas are defined in the array substrate, and each pixel area includes a pixel electrode having concave-convex patterns at the edges thereof when viewed in a plan view. The concave-convex patterns vary directions of fringe fields generated from the edges of the pixel electrode, so that an area in which a fringe field is formed relative to one pixel area may be prevented from overlapping with a peripheral pixel area.
US07719754B2
In various embodiments described herein, methods for forming a plurality of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices on a substrate are described. The MEMS devices comprise x number of different sacrificial or mechanical structures with x number of different sacrificial structure thicknesses or mechanical structure stiffnesses and wherein the x number of sacrificial or mechanical structures are formed by x-1 depositions and x-1 masks.
US07719744B2
A one-dimensional (1D) spatial light modulator (SLM) and an image output device employing the same are provided. The 1D SLM includes: a light deflector including a light guide that is formed of a photonic crystal material having a refractive index that can be varied according to an applied voltage and allows incident light to continue along an original propagation path or deflects the incident light from the original propagation path on a pixel-by-pixel basis, and an electrode portion individually applying a voltage to the light guide; and a light blocking member facing a light exiting surface of the light deflector and blocking a portion of light exiting the light deflector.
US07719741B2
The image sensor 15 of the information processing apparatus 1 can capture the retroreflective sheet 17 subjected to infrared light emitted from the infrared emitting diodes 11 since the retroreflective sheet 17 is exposed when the open-close portion 19 is opened. Therefore, it is possible to detect the input device 3. On the other hand, when the open-close portion 19 is closed, the image sensor 15 can not capture the retroreflective sheet 17 since the reflective sheet 17 is not exposed. Therefore, the input device is not detected.
US07719734B2
A hologram recording device records holograms by interference between an recording beam and a reference beam. The device includes an objective lens exhibiting a predetermined aberration. It is supposed that the laser beam applied to the beam splitter has an light intensity of 1, the recording beam and the reference beam emitted from the beam splitter have light intensities of P and 1−P, respectively, the optical magnification for the recording beam traveling from the beam splitter to the objective lens is a, and N pixels are used for modulation of the recording beam in the spatial light modulator. When the recording beam at the predetermined region has an amplitude 1/k times the amplitude of the reference beam, and the amplitude of the recording beam is X times as great as when there is no aberration, the predetermined aberration of the objective lens is determined to satisfy the formula: 0 < X < a ( 1 - P ) 0.6 P × 1 kN .
US07719731B2
An image reading apparatus includes, with the purpose of accurately correcting noise in an image due to dust on a platen, three line sensors spaced from each other in a sub scanning direction to scan an original in the sub scanning direction, a platen between the original and the three line sensors, a moving mechanism for moving the platen, a noise detection processor detecting a noise pixel from each of multiple data output from the three line sensors, a second pixel extractor extracting a second pixel present in first data for correcting the noise pixel, based on a value of a first pixel present in second data different from the first data and corresponding to the same location on the original as the noise pixel, and a corrector correcting the noise pixel based on the extracted second pixel.
US07719729B2
A method for a film transfer device includes receiving a digital image in the film transfer device, wherein the digital image comprises a plurality of square pixels, wherein the digital image comprises a first number of pixels in a horizontal direction and a second number of pixels in a vertical direction, and wherein the digital image comprises a non-anamorphic version of an image, and optically converting the digital image into an optical output image to film media in the film transfer device, wherein the optical output image is associated with a plurality of non-square pixels, wherein the optical output image is associated with the first number of pixels in the horizontal direction and the second number of pixels in the vertical direction, and wherein the optical output image comprises an anamorphic version of the image.
US07719724B2
A first set-value calculating unit calculates a first set value of a black-level feedback based on a reflection amount that increases a speed of tracking to a black-level target value in a black-level feedback control. A second set-value calculating unit calculates a second set value of a black-level feedback based on a reflection amount that slows down a tracking to a black-level target value as compared to the speed of tracking of the first set-value calculating unit. A selecting unit selects and outputs any one of the first set value and the second set value and outputs selected value as a set value. A controlling unit controls selection of any one of the first set value and the second set value by the selecting unit based on the black differential value and a gain of the image data.
US07719710B2
An image forming system, which forms an image relating to subject data on a recording medium having a holding unit holding identification information specific to the storage medium, including: a detection unit which detects identification information held by the holding unit of an arbitrary recording medium on which an image is recorded; and a control unit which acquires subject data corresponding to the detected identification information and forms an image relating to the acquired subject data on the recording medium.
US07719709B2
A print control apparatus which transmits print data to a printing apparatus according to a print instruction for a logical printer. The print control apparatus includes a logical printer information management unit which manages logical printer information that is provided for each logical printer and is used to store information including a network address of a printing apparatus corresponding to a logical printer, a printing apparatus search unit which searches for printing apparatuses connected to a network, and a print data transmitting unit which transmits print data to a network address of a printing apparatus found by the printing apparatus search unit if no network address corresponding to a logical printer specified in a print instruction is registered in the logical printer information.
US07719707B2
Improvement of printing speed is set out in an image processing apparatus, which is connected communicably with a printing apparatus, for transferring a recorded image to the printing apparatus and having the printing apparatus print the image. To achieve this object, the present invention has the following configuration. Namely, the invention provides an image processing method of an image capturing apparatus, communicably connected with a printing apparatus which prints transmitted image data. The image processing method comprises: a receiving step (step S101, S104) of receiving information regarding a printing condition of the printing apparatus for printing the transmitted image data; a processing step (step S103, S106) of processing image data to be transmitted to the printing apparatus based on the information regarding the printing condition received in the receiving step; and a transmitting step (step S108) of transmitting the image data processed in the processing step to the printing apparatus.
US07719704B1
A digital telecommunication station is provided, operative in a telecommunication network to receive at least two different types of signals and divert signals of at least one of these types from the transmission path along which signals of the other types are transmitted.
US07719700B2
Various embodiments of an image forming device, programs and methods are provided. In one representative embodiment an image forming device receives a document for printing and prints at least a portion of the document monochromatically or in color. Whether the portion of the document is printed monochromatically or in color is based upon the print mode setting associated with the document and the state of the print mode actuator of the image forming device.
US07719693B2
A stroboscopic imaging interferometer system includes an environmental chamber having a novel viewing window equipped with a rigidly integrated beam splitter and piezo actuated reference mirror for illuminating a device providing an object beam and reference mirror for providing a reference beam, upon the reflection of both beams, produces interference of the object beam by the reference beam for providing absolute phase observations of the device, that may be a MEMS device under test.
US07719692B2
Methods, systems and computer program products for generating parameters for software dispersion compensation in optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems are provided. Raw spectral interferogram data is acquired for a given lateral position on a sample and a given reference reflection. A trial spectral phase corresponding to each wavenumber sample of the acquired spectral interferogram data is postulated. The acquired raw spectral data and the postulated trial spectral phase data are assembled into trial complex spectrum data. Trial A-scan data is computed by performing an inverse Fourier transform on the trial complex spectrum data and determining the magnitude of a result.
US07719690B2
An optical inclination sensor is provided having at least one reflective surface and at least two separate optical fibers having ends spaced from a reflective surface. As the reflective surface tilts with respect to a pre-determined reference position the gap lengths between the fiber ends and the reflective surface change and the differences in these gap lengths is used to calculate an angle of inclination with respect to a reference position. The optical inclination sensor can include at least one mass attached to a housing and moveable with respect to the housing as the mass and housing are rotated about one or more axes. Optical strain sensors are disposed a various locations between the mass and housing so that as the mass moves with respect to the housing, each one of the optical strain sensors are placed in compression or tension. The housing can be a generally u-shaped housing having two arms and a base section with the mass disposed within the housing. Alternatively, the housing includes a first beam, and the mass is a second beam arranged generally orthogonal to the first beam and pivotally attached thereto. The optical strain sensors are disposed between the first beam and the second beam. The optical strain sensors are placed in tension or compression as the second beam pivots with respect to the first beam.
US07719687B2
A reflection characteristic measuring apparatus for measuring a characteristic, such as a gloss, of a sample surface. The apparatus includes at least one illuminator for illuminating a sample surface to be measured with light and a plurality of light receiving sections which are arranged axially symmetrically to each other with respect to a normal to an intended object surface and which output two-dimensional light receiving data. A deriving section derives a characteristic of the sample surface such as gloss based on a weighted average obtained by applying a weighting factor to each of the light receiving data outputted from the light receiving sections.
US07719686B2
A system utilizing the flow cell of the present invention includes a reflectance mode spectrophotometer positioned with respect to the flow cell or a probe. Either the flow cell or the probe has a thin partition mounted in spaced relationship with respect to a transparent window. The partition has a predetermined index of refraction and has a thickness dimension that is less than that of the window. The spacing between the partition and the window is such that evanescent coupling of radiation reflected from the liquid into the material of the window is prevented.The spectrophotometer directs interrogating radiation toward a liquid flowing through the sample chamber and responds to interrogating radiation reflected from the liquid to produce an electrical signal representative of a color property thereof.
US07719685B2
An imaging-type near-field optical microscope mainly comprises a light source and a photodetector array. The array functions as imaging array where each cell or photodetector has subwavelength dimensions. A sample under test is disposed in optical near field of the photodetectors, e.g., on surface of the array. As a result of subwavelength dimensions and near-field effect, resolution can break the diffraction limit and even reach nanoscale. The microscope has a fast speed, works with soft sample and sample in solution, and is capable of dynamic observations. In addition, the array surface doubles as a platform for molecule manipulation.
US07719684B2
This invention solves a problem of registration and improves signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) when using division-by-focal-plane array to produce multiple polarization images. This is achieved by processing a sequence of angular-position-dithered frames to generate a high-definition, Nyquist-sampled, integrated image for each of the polarizations. The integration method transforms individually under-sampled, high-resolution image frames into resultant high-resolution frames that meet the Nyquist sampling criterion. During the resampling transformation, each polarization or waveband is resampled to produce precise registration to the other polarizations, since registration offsets are fixed and defined by the arrangement of the polarized pixels in the focal-plane-array. In the most straight-forward implementation, these offsets would be integer pixel shifts in X and Y.
US07719667B2
First and second optical fibers are spliced by a mechanical splice-based connecting device having a portion whereby light leaked from the splice can leave the connecting device. A reference power level (PREF) of light leaked while only the first fiber is inserted into the connecting device, and a measured power level (PM) light leaked while both fibers are inserted are measured. Insertion loss of the splice is derived from the measured power level (PM), the measured reference power level (PREF) and a calibration factor (C) previously obtained by using the same or substantially identical measuring apparatus and connecting device to measure a corresponding calibration input power level (P′IN) and calibration reference power level (P′REF) with only the first fiber inserted, and a calibration measured power level (P′M) and output power level (P′F) of light coupled into a second fiber after the second fiber has been inserted.
US07719656B2
It is an object of the present invention to provide a liquid crystal display device in which a liquid crystal layer may form a stable transparent state and, in addition, which provides for a black display with an excellent viewing angle characteristic, as well as a high contrast ratio and a high response speed in liquid crystal display. The present invention is directed to a liquid crystal display device comprising an electrode and a liquid crystal layer between substrates, said liquid crystal layer consists of a liquid crystalline material containing liquid crystal molecules and fine particles, and is optically isotropic when the voltage applied to the electrode is lower than a threshold value and undergoes optical transition due to change in the arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules when the applied voltage is not lower than the threshold value.
US07719652B2
An array substrate for an in-plane switching liquid crystal display device includes a substrate, gate lines arranged in a first direction on the substrate, data lines crossing the gate lines to define a pixel region, the pixel region consists of four sub-pixel regions, a switching element at the crossing of the gate and data lines, a pixel electrode in each of the sub-pixel regions, and a common electrode alternatively arranged with the pixel electrode to form a plurality of blocks in each of the sub-pixel regions. Two of the sub-pixel regions include an n-number of blocks (n is a natural number). Two of the sub-pixel regions include an (n+2)-number of blocks.
US07719651B2
An in-plane switching liquid crystal display device including: first and second substrates; a gate line and data line arranged vertically and horizontally, respectively, on the first substrate and defining a pixel region; a thin film transistor (TFT) formed at a crossing of the gate line and the data line; common electrodes and pixel electrodes alternately disposed in the pixel region in a curvature form and generating an in-plane electric field; a common electrode connection line electrically connecting the common electrodes; a pixel electrode connection line electrically connecting pixel electrodes; a compensation electrode formed along at least one of the common electrode connection line and the pixel electrode connection line and compensating electric field; and a liquid crystal layer formed between the first and second substrates.
US07719643B2
A retardation layer capable of effectively restraining the display quality deterioration without generating a bright and dark pattern in the display image even when a retardation layer is disposed in between a liquid crystal cell and a polarizing plate. The retardation layer includes a plurality of minute units (domains) having molecular structure of cholesteric structure. Moreover, in the retardation layer, the helical pitch of the molecular structure is adjusted such that the selective reflected wavelength of the selected reflected light deriving from the molecular structure is shorter than the wavelength of the incident light on the retardation layer.
US07719625B2
An active device array substrate is provided. The active device array substrate includes a plurality of pixel units. Each of the pixel units includes a first active device, a first scan line, a second active device, a second scan line, a data line, a common line, and a pixel electrode. The first scan line is electrically connected to a first gate of the first active device. The second scan line is electrically connected to a second gate of the second active device. The data line is electrically connected to a first source of the first active device. The common line is electrically connected to a second source of the second active device. The pixel electrode is electrically connected to a first drain of the first active device and a second drain of the second active device.
US07719608B2
An image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup unit for picking up an image, a lens barrier for covering the front of a lens of the image pickup unit, a display for displaying image data recorded on a recording unit, and a controller for controlling mode switching of the image pickup apparatus in response to a mode switching command from a mode switching unit. The controller switches among three modes including an image pickup mode, a play mode, and a review mode. During the image pickup mode, power is supplied to the image pickup unit for image pickup. During the play mode, data is played on the display with power supplied to the image pickup unit for image pickup. After an elapse of a predetermined threshold time, power supplying to the image pickup unit is stopped. During the review mode, data is played on the display.
US07719607B2
The invention provides an electronic camera system which operates an electronic camera in a minimum power mode when a not-genuine secondary battery is attached to the electronic camera. Namely, for the electronic camera which uses a detachable secondary battery as a power source, it determines from identification information whether the secondary battery is a genuine battery of the electronic camera. When determining that the secondary battery is a genuine battery, the electronic camera system allows the electronic camera to normally operate. When determining that the secondary battery is not a genuine battery, it places the electronic camera into the minimum power mode.
US07719602B2
An electronic device can perform photographing by an AF (Auto-Focusing) function and a PF (Pan-Focus) function, and can give improvement of quickness of the taking of an image by automatically selecting an image, which is taken into the device, from a relation between the AF function and a shutter operation. The electronic device has an imaging part which catches an image obtained through an optical system, and also has a focusing mechanism which moves the optical system to an auto-focusing position or a fixed focus position. The electronic device further comprises a switch and a control part. The switch functions as a focusing switch ordering the focusing mechanism a focusing action, and also functions as a shutter switch ordering taking of an image caught by the imaging part. By this, the switch orders the focusing action or the taking of the caught image. The control part, in the case in which the shutter operation of the switch is performed during the focusing action of the focusing mechanism due to the switch, switches the optical system to the fixed focus position from auto-focusing position, and takes a fixed focus image.
US07719600B2
This invention can more efficiently remove, at a more effective timing, a foreign substance such as dust adhering on an optical member inserted on the image capturing optical axis. An image capturing apparatus having an image sensor which photo-electrically converts an object image includes an optical element arranged on the image sensor on a side close to an object, a foreign substance removing unit which removes a foreign substance adhering to the surface of the optical element, an instruction unit which issues instructions to power on and power off the image capturing apparatus, and a control unit which controls the foreign substance removing unit to execute a foreign substance removing operation in accordance with the instruction to power off the image capturing apparatus by the instruction unit.
US07719596B2
A burn-in correction system including a display unit equipped with a display panel displaying an image according to input image data, and an imaging unit acquiring imaged image data by imaging the display panel from a viewing side, the system correcting burn-in on the display panel. The system further includes: a lighting unit lighting each pixel constituting the display panel in order under a preset lighting condition; a calculation unit calculating a difference value between luminance of the imaged image data of each pixel lighted by the lighting unit, the imaged image data acquired by imaging each lighted pixel with the imaging unit, and luminance preset in the lighting condition; and a correction unit correcting luminance of each pixel based on the input image data, the correcting performed based on the difference value calculated by the calculation unit.
US07719588B2
Provided is a solid-state imaging device which is able to achieve reductions in size and in thickness of the device, while being also able to have an auxiliary function of imaging lenses, an infrared cut filter, an antireflection function, a dust preventing function for downsizing of packaging, and an infrared light imaging function for capturing images at night. The solid-state imaging device includes: a light-collecting element which collects incident light; and a transparent thin film formed above the light-collecting element, and an air gap is formed between the light-collecting element and the transparent thin film. On the transparent thin film, the auxiliary function of imaging lenses, the infrared cut filter, the antireflection function, the dust preventing function for downsizing of packaging, and the infrared light imaging function for capturing images at night are integrated.
US07719581B2
An active pixel sensor array sampling system includes a plurality of video circuits and reset circuits. A video circuit generates a video voltage from each one of the pixels of a column of pixels. An associated reset circuit generates a reset voltage for each of the pixels of a column of pixels. The video circuits and the reset circuits are closed loop sample and hold circuits. The active pixel sensor array is integrated on an integrated circuit.
US07719574B2
A CPU 231 calculates modified brightness correction amount tCurve_Y with consideration of exposure correction amount (or exposure value) EV if photography information PI (or Exif IFD) is included in image data GF. Specifically, the modified brightness correction amount tCurve_Y is calculated by dividing original brightness correction amount tCurve_Yorg by 2|EV|. Therefore, it decreases in geometrical progression as the exposure correction amount increases. The CPU 231 applies the obtained modified brightness correction amount tCurve_Y to a tone curve to adjust image quality including brightness. More specifically, it uses the modified brightness correction amount tCurve_Y to modify the characteristics of the tone curve, and then uses the modified tone curve to adjust the image quality of the image data.
US07719570B2
A digital camera includes: an optical system for forming an optical image of a subject; an image pickup unit that converts the formed optical image of the subject and outputs a subject image; and a recording unit that associates the subject image output by the image pickup unit with a layout definition data group and stores the subject image in a nonvolatile memory. The layout definition data group is stored in the nonvolatile memory and is made up of pieces of layout definition data that define a layout to draw a subject image for a drawing medium of a specific size. The pieces of layout definition data making up the layout definition data group with which the subject image is associated defines similar layouts for drawing media of difference sizes.
US07719566B2
The invention concerns an optical identification device comprising a digital camera (4), the camera including a member for changing focal length between at least a visual observation focal length and a print recognition focal length, and the device including an automatic print recognition system (10), which is connected to the camera to be activated when the camera is in the print recognition focal length.
US07719546B1
Computer-implemented methods and apparatus for processing a graphical element that has an associated original type, including blending at least part of the graphical element and at least part of one or more other graphical elements to produce a transformed graphical element. The transformed graphical element has an associated transformed type, and the transformed type is different than the original type. Information about the original type is stored, and the transformed graphical element, an adjacent graphical element, or both are processed using the stored information about the original type.
US07719534B2
Methods and systems for associating two objects in a drawing application with one another are provided. Embodiments of the invention are directed toward a method in a computing environment that includes receiving a command to designate a target and designating the target. The method can further include identifying a subject and providing a suggested association of the subject with the target. The method can still further include receiving a command to accept the suggested association and associating the subject with the target as suggested.
US07719532B2
Embodiments of the invention provide an efficient and flexible organization of data for an acceleration data structure (e.g., spatial index). In contrast to storing primitive information within a spatial index, embodiments of the invention may store pointers in the spatial index which point to or link to primitive-defining information in buffers. Storing pointers to primitive-defining information may reduce the size of the spatial index. Additionally, embodiments of the invention enable vertex and triangle sharing. Vertex and triangle sharing may reduce the amount of storage space required to define the primitives within the three-dimensional scene. Furthermore, the data organization provided by the embodiments of the invention allows for easy manipulation of the spatial index and primitive data.
US07719515B2
The invention concerns an input device including an input receiving panel and a stylus enabling an input, the input device sensing an input by means of capacitive coupling between a panel electrode on the input receiving panel and a stylus electrode on the stylus, and includes: a signal supply section supplying an input sensing signal to the panel electrode; a signal detecting circuit detecting a signal generated in the stylus electrode; and an input sensing section comparing the input sensing signal with the detection signal detected by the signal detecting circuit and sensing an input based on a result of the comparison. An input-sensing digital code is superimposed on the input sensing signal. This allows for further reduction in the possibility of false sensing caused by noise than conventional techniques.
US07719511B2
A display apparatus with dynamic blinking backlights, a control method and a device thereof are provided. The dynamic blinking backlight control method for dynamically controlling the lighting status of the backlights of the display panel includes the following steps. First, the motion condition of a frame to be displayed on the display panel is detected for obtaining a motion detection result. The scanning frequency is determined in accordance with the motion detection result. Also, the lighting status of the backlights is controlled sequentially and respectively in accordance with the determined scanning frequency.
US07719503B2
Disclosed herein is a display device using a field inversion driving system, the display device being formed by arranging pixels each including an electrooptic element in a form of a matrix and inverting polarity of a display signal to be written to each of the pixels in field periods, the display device including: double-speed converting means for converting an input display signal into a double-speed display signal having a field frequency twice a field frequency of said display signal; and crosstalk correcting means for correcting crosstalk in a second field of two fields as a unit of said double-speed display signal generated by said double-speed converting means, using information of the first field.
US07719499B2
A multi-color pixel array and method includes an organic active layer of a material emitting a first spectral distribution of visible light having a first color; a transparent conducting layer, each of which include portions that correspond to individual pixels and sub-pixels of the array; one or more pairs of electrodes for selectively energizing sub-pixel areas of the organic active layer to generate an emission of visible light of a first spectral distribution; wherein different sub-pixels within individual pixels of the array have different optical thicknesses based at least on corresponding sub-pixel portions of the transparent conducting layer having different optical thicknesses; and wherein at least one sub-pixel of has a selected color different from the first color due to at least one narrowed spectral band being selected out of the first spectral distribution as emitted light is coupled out of the display through the transparent conducting layer.
US07719494B2
A brightness adjustment circuit for an electroluminescent display is provided. The brightness adjustment circuit is electrically connected to an electroluminescent panel and a power supply. The brightness adjustment circuit provides a feedback voltage to the power supply. The power supply provides a working voltage to the electroluminescent panel in response to the feedback voltage. The brightness adjustment circuit includes a circuit module and a switch or a circuit module and a voltage supply unit. The feedback voltage is modulated by operating the switch in accordance with a control signal or by a control voltage provided by a voltage supply unit.
US07719493B2
A data driving circuit, used to drive display devices, comprises a digital-to-analog current converter (DAC), a reset circuit connected to the output terminal of the DAC for resetting the output potential of the DAC to a specific gray scale potential, and plural stages of data driver units connected to the output terminal of the DAC and the reset circuit to drive data lines of the display devices. Each of the data driver units comprises a sample-holding circuit and a control circuit.
US07719492B2
An active matrix electroluminescent display device has a shorting transistor (30) connected between the gate and drain of the drive transistor (22). Means (42) is provided for measuring a voltage on the data line (6). The shorting transistor (30) can be used to discharge the voltage on the gate of the drive transistor (22) until it switches off. By storing the resultant voltage on the data line (6) through an address transistor (16), the data line is used as one of the control/measurement lines for the threshold measurement.
US07719484B2
A vehicle simulator having a projection system for projecting a generated scene and symbology onto a common viewing screen. Tracking apparatus is provided for providing position and/or angular orientation signals representative of the eye of a person viewing the projected scene and symbology. An image generation system is included for generating the scene and symbology for the projection system, such scene and symbology being generated as a function of the position and/or angular orientation signals provided by the tracking apparatus. Such symbology is representative of symbology produced by a head-up display. The image generation system generates the scene and symbology with characteristics which simulate vignetting and/or occulting effect characteristics of the head-up display. The OTW scene and symbology are projected onto a screen and are co-located while the image generator, base or data of the eye position of the user, produces the symbology to simulate the collimation, vignetting and occulting effects of the HUD optical type used in the vehicle that is simulated.
US07719476B2
A complex antenna adapted for used in a electronic device, comprises a rod antenna, a helical antenna, a dipole antenna comprising a radiating element and a grounding element, and a feeding line. The feeding line comprises an inner conductor electrically connecting to the radiating element at a first joint position and an outer conductor electrically connecting to the grounding element at a second joint position. The first joint position is tightly covered by a insulating tubular element for avoiding to be destroyed and oxidized.
US07719474B2
An antenna structure includes a substrate, a signal transmission unit and at least one fixing unit. The substrate is made of a dielectric material and has at least a through hole. The signal transmission unit has a transmission path and goes through the through hole. The fixing unit is made of a flexible or deformable material, and is in contact with the signal transmission unit and the inner surface of the through hole to fix the signal transmission unit on the substrate.
US07719473B2
An antenna unit is provided with an inverted F-type antenna element provided with a feeding point and a ground connection point, and a non-feed antenna element configured so as to resonate with the inverted F-type antenna element through electrical coupling. In addition, the antenna unit may also be provided with a ground part which is grounded to the earth and connected to the ground connection point provided on one edge of the inverted F-type antenna element, and a resonance element, one edge of which is connected to the ground part, resonated by the non-feed antenna element through electrical coupling.
US07719470B2
An antenna, and an associated methodology, for a portable radio device, such as a mobile station capable of operation at a plurality of frequency bands spread across a wide range of frequencies. The antenna includes a first antenna patch and a second antenna patch. The first antenna patch comprises an L-shaped patch disposed upon a substrate. A second antenna patch forms a folded patch formed of three contiguous portions, folded about fold lines in a manner to cause the second antenna patch to include a first contiguous portion that extends upwardly beyond the first antenna patch at an angle perpendicular thereto. Second and third contiguous portions are formed by folding additional portions of the second antenna patch about additional fold lines.
US07719469B2
A position determination method including a step of transmitting a periodic signal having a carrier frequency, a step of sequentially receiving the periodic signal having the carrier frequency at various locations using at least one antenna, and a step of determining a first coordinate of the object location on the basis of a zero crossing of a Doppler frequency response which may be associated with the first coordinate of the object location, the first coordinate of the object location corresponding to a coordinate of that location of the at least one antenna which it has when receiving the periodic signal at the zero crossing in relation to the object location.
US07719468B2
A terminal device searches for a satellite signal by performing a correlation process over a predetermined first accumulation time within a predetermined frequency range in units of search frequencies at specific intervals. When the terminal device has failed in searching for the satellite signal, the terminal device searches for the satellite signal by performing the correlation process over a predetermined second accumulation time longer than the first accumulation time at the search frequency and frequencies differing from the search frequency by a specific frequency which is less than the interval of the search frequencies and specified based on a drift of a reference oscillator of the terminal device within the second accumulation time. The terminal device determines a search result of the satellite signal based on a search result at the search frequency and search results at the frequencies differing from the search frequency by the specific frequency.
US07719458B1
A radar system having first and second modes of operation comprising a dual antenna assembly comprising first and second antennas having respective first and second antenna waveguides coupled to a waveguide switch operable to divert RF energy to or from either said antenna waveguide, said waveguide switch coupled to a common waveguide, said dual antenna assembly mounted to an antenna support assembly, said first and second antennas being designed for use in said first and second modes respectively and operable for coupling said RF energy to a transmit medium, and for coupling reflected RF energy from transmit medium to said first or second antenna waveguide; and a control processor configured with control logic operable to control the functions of said radar system wherein said first and second antennas are mounted generally perpendicularly in the vertical plane with respect to each other and wherein said radar system operates in only one of said modes of operation at any time.
US07719456B2
A technique for correcting errors in Bucket Brigade Device (BBD)-based pipelined devices, such as Analog-to Digital Converters (ADCs). The gain between pipeline stages is desired to be a specific amount, such as unity: that is, all net charge present in each stage ideally is transferred to the next stage. In practical BBD-based circuits, however, the charge-transfer gain is less than ideal, resulting in errors. The approach described herein provides analog correction of such errors due to both capacitor mismatch and to sub-unity charge-transfer gain. In certain embodiments the adjustment circuit may use an adjustable current source and Field Effect Transistor to introduce the correction. In still other embodiments, the adjustment circuit may determine a voltage-feedback coefficient.
US07719455B2
Provided are a dynamic element-matching method, a multi-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), and a delta-sigma modulator with the multi-bit DAC and delta-sigma DAC with the multi-bit DAC. The dynamic element-matching method relates to preventing periodic signal components (in-band tones) from being generated from a delta-sigma modulator of a delta-sigma Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and a multi-bit DAC used in a delta-sigma DAC. Unit elements are selected in a new sequence according to a simple algorithm every time that each of unit elements is selected once, and thus the unit elements are not periodically used. Consequently, it is possible to prevent in-band tones caused by a conventional Data Weighted Averaging (DWA) algorithm.
US07719454B2
A method and a system are disclosed for transmitting an N-bit digital signal at a source. The N-bit digital signal representing a binary value is used to modulate an electrical current by using N discrete voltages representing each bit. The N discrete voltages are coupled to N corresponding switches to control the switches. The switches conduct a corresponding electrical current if the value of the corresponding discrete voltage is the binary value of 1. The currents from each of the closed switches are summed to form a current-encoded data signal in a single physical conductor representing the original N-bit digital signal. The current-encoded data signal is transmitted through the single physical conductor to a current decoder for decoding the current-encoded data signal and extracting the original N-bit digital signal at a destination.
US07719451B2
In order to provide a signal measuring apparatus which satisfies multiple performances at a high level all together, the signal measuring apparatus includes: DC performance; noise performance; distortion performance; spurious performance; and the like, a signal measuring apparatus includes: multiple A/D converters which respectively have different conversion characteristics for converting from an analog signal outputted from a DUT to digital signals; digital circuits which are provided in correspondence with the A/D converters and which conduct predetermined operations based on the conversion characteristics of the A/D converters.
US07719441B1
A method of communicating bit-oriented data over an Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) character-oriented data link comprises splitting the bit-oriented data into a plurality of segments; calculating a plurality of intermediate values corresponding to each segment; mapping each intermediate value to an ACARS character; and transmitting the ACARS characters over the ACARS data link.
US07719426B2
Systems and methods provide management of a program of correctional supervision via a stored-value card. Through a stored-value card issued to a criminal offender in a program of correctional supervision, the offender's transactions are compared to a rule set for the program, and it is determined whether an alert condition has occurred as a result of the transaction. Monies owed by the criminal offender may be collected using the card and the stored-value card provides a criminal offender a card for purchases and other transactions usually unavailable to the unbanked.
US07719415B2
An external access station for interfacing with existing building monitoring systems to obtain data and control at least some of the systems for use by first responders to an emergency. The access station includes a protective enclosure recessed into a building exterior wall or adjacent kiosk housing a panel PC and touch screen display viewable upon opening a locked cover.
US07719414B1
A device and method for sending medic alert information electronically. The device may have a memory component and a processing component. The memory component may store medic alert information. The processing component may generate an electronic message containing the medic alert information and send the electronic message via a communications network. The device may also have an input component for receiving a user request to initiate a connection with an emergency contact, such as a 911 dispatcher. The electronic message may be automatically generated and sent in response to the user request.
US07719403B2
A thin film resistor (5) of an integrated circuit comprises an elongate resistive film (7) extending between electrical contact pads (10,11). A low impedance element (20) overlays and is electrically coupled to a portion of the resistive film (7) in an intermediate portion (22) thereof adjacent a second side edge (17) of the resistive film (7) for conducting current in parallel with the intermediate portion (22), and for reducing current density in the intermediate portion (22). First and second transverse edges (28,29) formed by spaced apart first and second slots (26,27) which extend from a first side edge (16) into the resistive film (7) define with a first side edge (16) of the resistive film (7) and the low impedance element (20) first and second trimmable areas (30,31) in the intermediate portion (22). Coarse trimming of the thin film resistor (5) is carried out by progressively extending a first trimming slot (34) into the first trimmable area (30) from the first transverse edge (28), and fine trimming is carried out by extending a second trimming slot (35) into the second trimmable area (31) from the second transverse edge (29).
US07719401B2
A temperature probe assembly is provided. The temperature probe assembly may comprise a housing formed of a first thermally conductive material and having an inner diameter defined by an inner bore, an insert formed of a second thermally conductive material disposed in the inner bore and having an outer diameter that is substantially equal to the inner diameter of the housing at a first temperature and a temperature sensor mounted within the insert. The second thermally conductive material has a thermal coefficient of expansion that is greater than the first thermally conductive material, such that the insert is insertable into the inner bore at the first temperature and is tightly locked in the inner bore at a second temperature that is greater than the first temperature.
US07719400B1
One example of the present subject matter includes a first elongate section having a first flexible conductor enveloped by a first jacket; a second elongate section having a second flexible conductor enveloped by a second jacket; and an sensor section having an elongate flexible tubular shape, the sensor section housing a resistance temperature detector element which is at least partially coiled and which is resistance welded to the first flexible conductor at a first weld and to the second flexible conductor at a second weld; wherein the sensor section at least partially envelops and overlaps the first elongate section and the second elongate section, with a first band crimping the sensor section to the first elongate section, and a second band crimping the sensor section to the second elongate section, and with the first and second welds disposed between the first and second bands.
US07719394B2
A linear solenoid includes a pair of soft iron pole members which are in a spaced apart linear arrangement. A permanent magnet is attached to the end of a plunger which rides between the pole members. When a first of two electro-magnet coils is energized the plunger which is latched to one of the pole members is repelled to the opposite pole member and latched. When the second coil is energized the plunger returns to the original pole member and is latched.
US07719374B2
An oscillator signal stabilization method is provided for a radio transceiver, for example. In the present stabilization method, amplitude variation of a radio frequency oscillator signal generated by a frequency-adjustable oscillator signal generator is stabilized in an adaptive compensation circuit having adjustable compensation parameters. The stabilized oscillator signal is fed from the compensation circuit to one or more frequency dividers for frequency division. The compensation circuit is configured to stabilize signal variations caused by component non-idealities and, thereby, prevent undesired frequency division errors in the frequency dividers.
US07719372B2
A variable capacitance unit that configures a voltage controlled piezoelectric oscillator including a first variable capacitance diode, a first condenser connected in parallel with the first variable capacitance diode, the second variable capacitance diode, a second condenser inserted and connected between a cathode of the first variable capacitance diode and an anode of the second variable capacitance diode, a third condenser inserted and connected between an anode of the first variable capacitance diode and a cathode of the second variable capacitance diode. The external control voltage is applied to the first variable capacitance diode and the second variable capacitance diode so that respective polarities thereof are reversed.
US07719361B2
A differential amplifier includes a first electrical path formed between a first transistor and a first load impedance; a second electrical path formed between a second transistor and a second load impedance; a tail-current transistor coupled to the first and second transistors; an input end of a feedback amplifier coupled directly to the first and second electrical paths for receiving a differential voltage output signal; and an output end of the feedback amplifier coupled directly to the tail-current transistor for adjusting the current provided through each of the first and second electrical paths. The feedback amplifier includes a non-inverting input node and an inverting input node, each node coupled directly to one or the other of the first and second electrical paths.
US07719349B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a filter circuit which improves NF of a Gm-C filter. The filter circuit comprises a filter comprising at least one first operational transconductance amplifier whose mutual conductance varies depending on a first control signal and a first capacitor, a second operational transconductance amplifier whose mutual conductance is controlled by the first control signal, a third operational transconductance amplifier whose mutual conductance is controlled by a second control signal, and a second capacitor connected to output terminals of the first and second operational transconductance amplifiers and input terminals of the filter.
US07719346B2
Provided is a reference voltage circuit whose power supply rejection ratio is large even in a case where a power supply voltage is low. Even in a case where the power supply voltage of a power supply terminal (10) becomes lower and thus an NMOS transistor (71) operates in non-saturation to reduce an output resistance (ro71) of the NMOS transistor (71), when a gain (Ao) of a differential amplifier circuit (60) is large, the power supply rejection ratio (PSRRLF) is also large. Therefore, even when a minimum operating voltage of the reference voltage circuit is low, the power supply rejection ratio (PSRRLF) can be made larger. In other words, since the gain (Ao) of the differential amplifier circuit (60) contributes to the power supply rejection ratio (PSRRLF), when the gain (Ao) of the differential amplifier circuit (60) increases, the power supply rejection ratio (PSRRLF) also becomes larger by the increase.
US07719345B2
A reference buffer circuit is disclosed, providing a reference voltage at an output node and comprising a closed-loop branch comprising an amplifier and first and second MOS transistors and an open-loop branch comprising third and fourth MOS transistors and a tracking circuit. The first MOS transistor has a gate coupled to an output terminal of the amplifier and a source coupled to a negative input terminal of the amplifier. The second MOS transistor is coupled to the source of the first MOS transistor. The third MOS transistor has a gate coupled to the output terminal and a source coupled to the output node. The fourth MOS transistor has a drain coupled to the source of the third MOS transistor. A gate voltage of the fourth MOS transistor tracks a drain voltage of the third MOS transistor through the tracking circuit.
US07719342B2
An input latch circuit of a semiconductor device includes a setup time adjusting unit configured to selectively delay a clock signal and a hold time adjusting unit configured to selectively delay an input signal. The input latch circuit also includes a latch unit configured to latch an output signal of the hold time adjusting unit according to an output signal of the setup time adjusting unit. The input latch circuit changes and delays the clock signal and the input signal by cutting a fuse within the setup time adjusting unit and the hold time adjusting unit without requiring a change to a circuit in order to adjust a setup time and a hold time.
US07719334B2
An apparatus and method for multi-phase clock generation are disclosed. One embodiment of the apparatus includes a clock divider generating first and second intermediate signals having edges delayed from first edges of a clock signal having a first frequency. Each of the first and second intermediate signals has a second frequency that is half of the first frequency. The first and second intermediate signals have a phase difference of 180° from each other. The apparatus also includes a first delay element delaying the first intermediate signal by a first delay amount; a second delay element delaying the first intermediate signal by a second delay amount; a third delay element delaying the second intermediate signal by a third delay amount; and a fourth delay element delaying the second intermediate signal by a fourth delay amount. The third delay amount is equal to the first delay amount. The fourth delay amount is equal to the second delay amount. The apparatus also includes a delay detection loop to adjust the second and fourth delays.
US07719333B2
A power control circuit includes a check unit that receives a reference clock and generates a check signal for cyclically activating a feedback loop of a DLL circuit, a phase detecting unit that detects a phase difference between the reference clock and a feedback clock, and generates a phase difference detection signal, and a signal combining unit that generates a power cutoff signal in response to a locking completion signal, the check signal, and the phase difference detection signal.
US07719326B2
The dual-modulus prescaler circuit (1) is devised to operate at a very high frequency. This circuit includes an assembly formed of two dynamic D-type flip flops (12, 13), and two NAND logic gates (15, 16) arranged in negative feedback between the two flip flops. The two flip flops are clocked by an input clock signal (CK) to supply a divided output signal (OUT) whose frequency matches the input clock frequency divided by 2 or by 3 as a function of a division mode selection signal (divb) applied to the input of the first NAND logic gate (15). One non-inverted output of the second flip flop is connected to one input of the first flip flop (12). The first dynamic flip flop includes three active branches and supplies a single inverted output signal. A third flip flop (14) with three active branches receives an inverted mode selection signal (div) at input in order to supply the mode selection signal to the inverted output thereof, clocked by the non-inverted output signal of the second flip flop.
US07719325B1
An active-load dominant circuit for common-mode glitch interference cancellation, biased between a first voltage potential and a second voltage potential with an accompanying common-mode glitch interferer. The active-load dominant circuit includes a pair of pull-up networks and a pair of active-load networks. The common-mode glitch interferer is cancelled out due to a symmetric structure of the pair of pull-up networks. At least one set signal and at least one reset signal are provided to a latch in response to a clock signal or a complemented clock signal. At least one of the set signal and the reset signal can be pulled up to the first voltage potential or pulled down to the second voltage potential. The voltage difference of the set signal and the reset signal is large enough for a latch.
US07719314B1
An interface driver circuit includes a plurality of delay cells. Each delay cell includes a data input, a delayed data output configured to communicate with the data input of an adjacent one of the plurality of delay cells. A delay time input is configured to set a delay value between receiving data at the data input and generating the delayed data output. A plurality of predrivers is configured to receive an output enable signal. A plurality of predrivers is configured to receive a corresponding one of the plurality of delayed data outputs. A plurality of predrivers is configured to generate a predriver output signal based on the output enable signal and the corresponding one of the plurality of delayed data outputs. The output enable signal enables and disables the plurality of predrivers and is independent of data of each delayed data output.
US07719311B1
The present invention provides integrated circuits with improved logic cells. In one embodiment, an integrated circuit having a plurality of logic cells (LC) is provided, each LC comprising: a lookup table having a LUT output terminal; and, a first multiplexer; wherein, a first multiplexer input terminal is connected to of a first input terminal of the LC, a second multiplexer input terminal is connected to the LUT output terminal, a multiplexer output terminal is connected to a first output terminal of the LC, and a multiplexer select terminal is connected to a second input terminal of the LC so as to select which of the signals appearing at the first and second multiplexer input terminal to pass through; wherein, by coupling in chain the first input terminal of one LC to the first output terminal of another LC, a WLUT chain is formed.
US07719310B2
A circuit for attaining reduction in AC noise on power supply line caused by IR drop upon use of a decoupling capacitor represented by a cross-coupled decoupling capacitor with enhanced resistance to electrostatic breakdown, required in the case of a process of a high technology. There is also provided a circuit for suppressing the AC noise on power supply line due to resonance. MOS transistors composing the cross-coupled decoupling capacitor with enhanced resistance to electrostatic breakdown are caused to have lower threshold voltages Vth, thereby reducing a resistance between a source and a drain of each of the MOS transistors, resulting in reduction in IR drop. Further, a damping resistance is effective for suppressing the AC noise on power supply line, and the source-to-drain resistance of each of the MOS transistors is utilized as the damping resistance. At this point in time, a resistance value as desired is attained through combination of decoupling capacitors having threshold voltages Vth differing from each other.
US07719292B2
A method and apparatus for simultaneously and continuously monitoring both the general and localized corrosion of a working metallic electrode is provided, wherein a low frequency, low amplitude periodic potential excitation is used to perturb the electrode around its free corrosion potential. The potential is controlled with respect to a reference electrode by means of a potentiostat, and an auxiliary electrode used to stimulate current flow. The current response of the working electrode is monitored and analyzed continuously for general and localized corrosion activity. Means are provided for validation of the integrity of the current response to the applied potential excitation. Simultaneous and continuous outputs for both general and localized corrosion activity are also provided.
US07719285B2
The present invention relates to a ground fault detection arrangement for a synchronous three-phase electrical machine, and an electrical system comprising a ground fault detection arrangement and a synchronous three-phase electrical machine. The ground fault detection arrangement injects an off-nominal frequency voltage between a neutral point of the synchronous three-phase electrical machine and ground and measure resultant currents to detect a ground fault.
US07719283B2
A switching circuit includes a capacitor, a combination battery having a plurality of unit cells connected in series, each of the unit cells containing battery, and a plurality of change-over switches sequentially connecting both ends of the each of the unit cells to the capacitor. The change-over switch has two semiconductor switches connected in series so that the source-drain directions thereof are oriented opposite to each other.
US07719280B2
A detection system having a receiver for detecting a material having a magnetic resonance response to illumination by pulses of ultra-wideband (UWB) electromagnetic radiation is disclosed. The receiver comprises a detector for detecting the pulses after they have interacted with the material, and a discriminator arranged to identify in the detected pulses the magnetic resonance response of the material. By scanning an item tagged with a tag having a material having a magnetic resonant response, by illuminating the item with UWB pulses and identifying in detected pulses the magnetic resonance response of the material, items can be located, imaged, or activated. The magnetic resonance response of the tag can cause activation of the tag. The tag can have a magnetic resonance response arranged to provide an identifiable magnetic resonance signature such that different tags can be identified and distinguished by their signatures.
US07719278B2
A method and apparatus for Magnetic Resonance Imaging with specialized imaging coils possessing high Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR). Imaging and/or Radio Frequency receiving coils include a ballistic electrical conductor such as carbon nanotubes, the ballistic electrical conductor having a resistance that does not increase significantly with length. Due to their enhanced SNR properties, system designs with smaller static magnetic field strength can be constructed for the same quality of imaging, leading to substantial reductions in system size and cost, as well as to enhanced imaging with existing MRI systems.
US07719272B2
A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus includes a bed, a static field magnet, a gradient coil, a liner and a heat transfer material. The bed includes a table-top capable of placing thereon an object. The static field magnet generates a static magnetic field. The gradient coil, formed inside the static field magnet, generates gradient magnetic fields. The liner, provided inside the gradient coil, forms a bore in which the table-top is advanced or retreated. Further, the heat transfer material is attached to the liner.
US07719262B2
An inductive proximity sensor or switch and a method of using same. The sensor or switch includes an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (“ASIC”) and a plurality of external components. The ASIC is implemented in CMOS technology and has an oscillator. A switch point of the sensor or switch is predetermined by selection of a bias voltage to a potential node of the oscillator.
US07719258B2
A method and apparatus for current measurement using Hall sensors without iron cores, used to estimate a flowing current in an electric conducting cable are provided by the exemplary examples of the present invention. The method for current measurement using Hall sensors without iron cores includes the following step: (a) providing Hall sensors to be attached to or located near the electric conducting cable; (b) using each of the Hall sensors to measure the flux density of the magnetic field generated by the flowing current, so as to generate an output voltage according to the flux density of the magnetic field; (c) performing a statistical operation on the output voltages of the Hall sensors, so as to generate a statistical voltage; (d) estimating the flowing current in the electric conducting cable according to the statistical voltage.
US07719253B2
The present invention relates to system diagnostic circuitry for antenna systems with active antenna components. More specifically, the present invention discloses an apparatus comprising a connection between an antenna and a power supply conducting a first DC voltage, a source of a pulse width modulated signal, a lowpass filter for converting the pulse width modulated signal to a second DC voltage, and a comparator for comparing the first DC voltage and the second DC voltage and generating an output signal responsive to the difference between the first DC voltage and the second DC voltage.
US07719247B2
A DC/DC converter includes a switch, an inductor, a capacitor, a resistor, and a voltage divider. The switch is coupled to the input voltage. The inductor is used for coupling the first switch to an output node of the DC/DC converter so as to generate the output voltage at the output node. The capacitor is coupled to the output voltage. The resistor is coupled to the capacitor in series, and is coupled to ground. The voltage divider is coupled across the capacitor so as to reduce the zero frequency of the DC/DC converter.
US07719244B2
A voltage regulator circuit is operated by enabling a bias network operable to set a bias current in an amplifier. A startup circuit is connected to the bias network, the startup circuit operable to assist the bias network in setting the amplifier bias current during a startup period. The startup circuit is disconnected from the bias network responsive to the startup period lapsing while the voltage regulator circuit is enabled for resetting the startup circuit to an initial state. The bias network may be disabled to reduce the amplifier bias current. Subsequent re-enablement of the bias network is prevented until the amplifier is reliably disabled.
US07719227B2
Electrical energy supply methods and electrical energy power supplies are described. According to one aspect, an electrical energy supply method includes providing first and second battery assemblies individually configured to store electrical energy, coupling the first and second battery assemblies to form a unitary device configured to supply electrical energy to a load, charging one of the first and the second battery assemblies using electrical energy from a supply at a first moment in time, discharging electrical energy from the first and second battery assemblies to the load at a second moment in time, and disabling discharging of electrical energy from the other of the first and second battery assemblies during the charging.
US07719222B2
An all-terrain mobile robot comprising a mobile robotic platform, having either wheels or tank-treaded-like legs capable of navigating over rough terrain, wherein the robotic platform utilizes dynamic balancing behavior; a hydraulic powered anthropomorphic torso and articulated arms, wherein the hydraulic system possesses a pressure sensor for enabling the anthropomorphic torso and articulated arms to lift a payload using acute and delicate movements that reduce the chance of causing structural harm to the payload.
US07719221B2
A servo control apparatus includes a motor including a motor shaft, the motor for driving a drive subject; a detecting section that detects a rotation position of the motor shaft; and a control system configured to generate a motor torque command for the motor using the rotation position. The control system includes an observer configured to estimate friction torque occurring in the vicinity of the motor shaft on the basis of the rotation position and an application voltage to the motor. The observer is configured to generate a compensation voltage to be added to the application voltage on the basis of the friction torque.
US07719220B2
An electrical control system comprising a controllably conductive device, an input receiving circuit and a timer circuit. The controllably conductive device selectively applies power to an electrically operated servo. The input receiving circuit receives an input signal from an input switch for selection of the motion of the control surface operated by the electrically operated servo. The input signal receiving circuit is coupled to the controllably conductive device to cause it to be conductive in response to the input signal. The timer circuit is responsive to a signal from the input receiving circuit for causing the controllably conductive device to be non-conductive if the input signal is present for greater than a selectable time period.
US07719216B2
A motor drive control device for controlling the driving of a brushless motor includes position detecting units (e.g. sensors or Hall elements), a drive signal determining unit and a drive signal outputting unit (an output circuit). The position detecting units are disposed in positions apart from each other by an electric angle of 120 degrees and output position detection signals representing the position of the rotor with respect to the stator. The drive signal determining unit determines drive signals for driving the 3-phase drive coils on the basis of the position detection signals. The drive signal outputting unit generates and outputs, to the 3-phase drive coils, the drive signals that have been determined by the drive signal determining unit.
US07719213B2
An actuating mechanism for a door includes a first antenna block having a first integrated microcontroller electrically connected to a first transceiver device and a first antenna. A second antenna block having a second integrated microcontroller is electrically connected to a second transceiver device and a second antenna. A processor device is electrically connected between the first and second microcontrollers and a first switch. The first and second antennas receive a first radio frequency signal from a third, mobile transceiver device. The processor device measures a time difference of arrival (TDOA) of the first radio frequency signal. The processor device computes a direction of arrival (DOA). The DOA measurement is compared against a predefined range of DOAs. The processor device sends a control signal to the first switch to actuate the door in the event of a match.
US07719209B2
An apparatus for controlling two light sources using an input voltage from a mains light dimmer, the light sources comprising a first light source configured to emit light having a second colour temperature, wherein the second colour temperature is higher than the first colour temperature, the apparatus comprising an input connection for receiving the input voltage from the mains light dimmer, a sensor for sensing a value voltage of the input voltage, driving means for driving the light sources, and a controller for controlling the driving means responsive to said sensing.
US07719200B2
A plasma generator, comprising a dielectric tube having a first end and a second end, wherein the first end is sealed, but for a gas inlet; at least one first dielectric disk located within the dielectric tube, wherein the first dielectric disk includes at least one first dielectric aperture formed therein; a first ring electrode that at least partially surrounds the at least one first dielectric aperture and is electrically coupled to a power supply; at least one second dielectric disk located proximate the second end of the dielectric tube, wherein the second dielectric disk includes at least one second dielectric aperture formed therein; and a second ring electrode that at least partially surrounds the at least one second dielectric aperture and is electrically coupled to the power supply. During use, the plasma generator produces at least one plasma plume that is launched into open air.
US07719199B2
A system and apparatus for controlled fusion in a field reversed configuration (FRC) magnetic topology and conversion of fusion product energies directly to electric power. Preferably, plasma ions are magnetically confined in the FRC while plasma electrons are electrostatically confined in a deep energy well, created by tuning an externally applied magnetic field. In this configuration, ions and electrons may have adequate density and temperature so that upon collisions they are fused together by the nuclear force, thus forming fusion products that emerge in the form of an annular beam. Energy is removed from the fusion product ions as they spiral past electrodes of an inverse cyclotron converter. Advantageously, the fusion fuel plasmas that can be used with the present confinement and energy conversion system include advanced (aneutronic) fuels.
US07719198B2
A power supply circuit for plasma generation by which a large quantity of generated plasma can be smoothly obtained without increasing the sizes of an apparatus. An electric discharge generating electrode is composed of two or more first electrodes and one or more second electrodes. An LC series circuit is provided by connecting a capacitor C and a coil L in series between one of outputs of an alternating high voltage generating circuit which generates an alternating high voltage to be applied between the electrodes of electric discharge generating electrode, and the first electrode. When electricity is discharged in one of the electrode pair, voltage drop is suppressed by the coil, and since electric discharge from the other electrode pair is induced without being disturbed, a large quantity of plasma can be smoothly generated by common use of the alternating high voltage generating circuit.
US07719194B2
A foil connector (28, 30) suited for use in a lamp (10) is provided. The foil connector includes a substrate layer (40) formed from an electrically conductive material. A coating (42) is provided for reducing oxidation of the substrate during lamp operation. The coating includes a first coating layer (44) on the substrate comprising a noble metal, a second coating layer (46) spaced from the substrate by the first coating layer, the second coating layer comprising a noble metal, and optionally, a third coating layer (48) spaced from the substrate by the first and second coating layers, the third coating layer comprising a noble metal.
US07719191B2
A plasma display panel has an image display region(17)and a non-image display region formed by facing front glass substrate (3) to back glass substrate (10), and has a sealed part (18) formed by sealing peripheries of the glass substrates in the non-image display region with a seal layer(19). A thickness of at least one of the front glass substrate (3) and the back glass substrate (10) is 2.0 mm or less, and an interval between the glass substrates in the sealed part longer than an interval between the glass substrates in the image display region.
US07719188B2
A plasma display apparatus is disclosed. The plasma display apparatus includes a plasma display panel, on which an image is displayed, and a filter positioned in front of the plasma display panel. A discharge gas filled in the plasma display panel contains xenon (Xe) equal to or more than 10% based on total weight of the discharge gas. The filter includes a base portion, and a pattern portion formed on the base portion, having a color darker than a color of the base portion.
US07719183B2
One embodiment of the present invention is a manufacturing method of an organic electroluminescent device, the method including: forming a first electrode on a substrate; forming an organic luminescence media layer over the first electrode which emits light by applying a voltage wherein the organic luminescence media layer includes a hole transport layer and an organic luminous layer; and forming a second electrode on the organic luminescence media layer, wherein the method further includes: forming the hole transport layer by applying a polymeric hole transport material, and further forming the organic luminous layer on the hole transport layer by applying an ink including 0.3% by weight 3% by weight of a low molecular organic luminous material having a molecular weight less than or equal to 5000 Daltons.
US07719182B2
An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) device, comprising: first and second non-metallic transparent electrodes, and one or more layers of organic material formed between the first and second non-metallic transparent electrodes, the layers of organic material including one or more light-emitting layers; and one or more non-metallic reflective layers located on a side of either of the first or second non-metallic transparent electrodes opposite to the organic material layers; wherein the device further comprises a light transmissive scattering layer in optical contact with the organic material layers and the electrodes or wherein at least one of the one or more non-metallic reflective layers comprises a reflective scattering layer in optical contact with the organic material layers and the electrodes. Additionally, a low-index layer is preferably employed in various embodiments to improve device sharpness.
US07719180B2
An inverted OLED device, comprising: a substrate; a cathode disposed on the substrate; an anode spaced from the cathode; at least one light-emitting layer disposed between the anode and the cathode; a hole-transporting layer disposed between the anode and the light-emitting layer(s); an electron-transporting layer disposed between the cathode and the light-emitting layer(s); a first electron-accepting layer disposed between the hole-transporting layer and the anode and including a first electron-deficient organic material constituting more than 50% by volume of the first electron-accepting layer and having a reduction potential greater than −0.5 V vs. a Saturated Calomel Electrode; and a second electron-accepting layer disposed between the electron-transporting layer and the cathode including a second electron-deficient organic material constituting more than 50% by volume of the second electron-accepting layer and having a reduction potential greater than −0.5 V vs. a Saturated Calomel Electrode.
US07719176B2
A spacer, disposed between first and second substrates of an electron emission display, includes a main body, a resistive layer arranged on a side surface of the main body, a secondary electron emission preventing layer arranged on the resistive layer, and a diffusion preventing layer arranged between the resistive layer and the secondary electron emission layer. The diffusion preventing layer prevents interdiffusion between the resistive layer and the secondary electron emission preventing layer.
US07719174B2
A surface mounting discharge tube, comprise of a cylindrical ceramic envelope sealed at its two ends by side surfaces of electrodes, designed to be directly soldered on to a mounting board, where the electrodes at the two ends are rectangular, project outward radially at the ends of the ceramic envelope and are provided at peripheral edges at the side surfaces of the electrodes with soldering use tapers or step differences, whereby positional deviation at the time of soldering is suppressed and sufficient PCT properties are secured.
US07719173B2
An electrodeless discharge lamp has a bulb into which a discharge gas and a mercury, which is controlled at a temperature of a coldest spot are filled. A power coupler generates a high frequency electromagnetic field. A ferrule couples the bulb and the power coupler. The bulb is configured as a substantially spherical barrel formed of a transparent material and has an opening. A sealing member is welded to the opening of the barrel having a substantially cylindrical cavity. A protrusion, which becomes the coldest spot when the lamp is lit in a state that the ferrule is disposed upward, is formed at an apex of the bulb. A protruding portion is formed in a vicinity just above the ferrule of the bulb, that is, in a bulb neck portion, so that the bulb neck portion becomes the coldest spot when the lamp is lit in a state that the ferrule is disposed downward. Thereby, a constant optical output is obtained, regardless of a posture of installation of the electrodeless discharge lamp.
US07719167B2
An electroactive polymer actuator and a method for manufacturing the electroactive polymer actuator are provided. The electroactive polymer actuator includes an actuator unit which is a laminate of a plurality of deformation layers; and a support layer which supports the actuator unit so that the actuator unit provides displacement corresponding to a voltage if the voltage is applied to the actuator unit. Therefore, it is possible to provide an electroactive polymer actuator suitable for a compact mobile device with a low driving voltage.
US07719156B2
The invention relates to a stator module for a synchronous machine with transversal flux guidance, in particular a transversal flux machine having at least one phase, having a stator unit that is provided for the single phase and bearing an armature winding and that, in the assembled position, is provided for a rotor with the formation of an air gap, which is arranged in the radial direction in relation to the axis of rotation of the rotor of the synchronous machine. Said stator unit comprises two rows of teeth that are arranged in succession in the circumferential direction, the rows being connected together by means of a yoke unit for conduction of the magnetic flux. The invention is characterized by the following features: the yoke has an annular design; the yoke unit comprises magnetic lamination sheets stacked in succession in the circumferential direction.
US07719154B2
A single field rotor motor comprising a rotor mounted for rotation with respect to a stator. The stator has a plurality of stator poles each having a coil for creating a magnetic pole force. The rotor has a plurality of circumferentially spaced salient rotor poles formed thereon, and has a first axial end and a second axial end. Magnetic means are provided for creating an unchanging, single polarity field on all of the rotor poles by inducing flux into the axial ends of the rotor. Circuit means for alternately charge said stator coils to alternate the polarity of a given stator pole to alternately attract and repel said rotor poles to produce rotation of said rotor.
US07719150B2
The present invention provides a vibration-generating stepping motor including: two stator yokes; a bearing that magnetically couples the two stator yokes; a rotor frame that rotates on a circumference of the stator yokes; and an eccentric weight that shifts a gravity center of the rotor frame from a rotation center of the rotor frame.
US07719145B2
Enhanced internal electrical generators are provided which include pole pieces that form air gaps flanked with conductive wire coils. Rotatable armatures supporting permanent magnets are arranged to swing or revolve relative to the air gaps such that the magnetic flux thereof is intersected by the wire coils to generate electrical voltage and current therein. These generators may be incorporated within the housing of many portable devices such as cell phones to self generate electrical current useful for operating the device or recharging its batteries or other component that stores the generated electrical energy.
US07719143B2
An apparatus is provided for mounting between a light fixture and an electrical box supplying a source of electrical power to the fixture where the apparatus includes an auxiliary electrical outlet that is electrically connected to the source of electrical power.
US07719142B2
An interface comprises a switch supported in relation to a motor vehicle interior trim component. The switch is operable to actuate and de-actuate an electrically operated device of the motor vehicle. A sensory feedback component is operatively connected to the switch for producing a sensory feedback when the switch is operated.
US07719136B2
A control circuit for a power supply device, a power supply device, and the like are provided in which the power supply device has a plurality of DC/DC converters provided for generating voltage while the mutual relationship of potential between the voltage outputs is maintained. The control circuit 20 in the power supply device 10 which outputs different direct current voltages (VCC, VBGP, and VBGN) includes a voltage setting unit 22 for determining the setting level of a second direct current voltage VBGP which has a potential relationship with the setting level of the first direct current voltage VCC which is one of a plurality of the different direct current voltages.
US07719134B2
In an in-vehicle mount electronic controller, a constant-voltage power supply generates a high-precision small-capacity 5V output voltage Vad, a low-precision large-capacity 5V output voltage Vif and a low-precision large-capacity 3.3V output voltage Vcp, and also generates at least one of a low-precision small-capacity 2.8V output voltage Vup and a high-precision small-capacity 3.3V output voltage Vsb. A judgment signal input circuit logically combines comparison results of divided voltages of the above output voltages Vif, Vcp, Vup and Vsb with a divided voltage of the output voltage Vad as a reference voltage, and inputs relative voltage information ER2, ER3, ER4 and ER5 to a microprocessor. The microprocessor comprehensively judges the output voltages containing the comparison reference voltage, and reports abnormality or saves abnormality occurrence information.
US07719133B2
The invention relates to a simplified digital wiring system for vehicles. The invention comprises a synchronisation generator (2) which is connected to a plurality of multiplexer modules (1a, 1b, 1b′) via a synchronisation (6) and, at other times, data line. In turn, the aforementioned multiplexer modules (1a, 1b, 1b′) are connected to a plurality of inputs and/or outputs for receiving/transmitting data from/to electroelectronic devices, such that the synchronisation generator selects a multiplexer module so that said module manages the inputs and/or outputs thereof and, in this way, can control the operations of the different electroelectronic devices (13-19). Moreover, the multiplexer modules can be connected to the synchronisation generator (2) in parallel (1a) or in series (1b, 1b′). The invention is advantageous in that the multiplexer modules (1a, 1b, 1b′) are connected using a single synchronisation (6) and data (7) line, thereby simplifying the wiring.
US07719130B2
In a DC power transmission and distribution line, a power cable line for making it possible to easily supply power to various electric power machines used for operation of the line is provided.A power cable line includes a power cable (1g, 1r, 1p, 1m, 1n) for executing DC transmission and distribution, an AC superposing section 2 for superposing an AC component on the power cable, and a branch power supply section 3 for taking out power induced by the superposed AC component from the cable. The AC component is superposed on the power cable by the AC superposing section 2 and AC power together with DC power is transmitted to the power cable. The superposed AC component is taken out by the branch power supply section 3 provided in a midway point of the cable and is supplied to various electric power machines.
US07719129B2
A generator housed in a wind turbine nacelle includes a generator rotor that is mounted to gearbox output pinions, thereby eliminating the need for couplings. The generator frame is located directly on the gearbox and is located to control the air gap. To facilitate removal of the generator, tapers are used that have steep angles that exceed the friction coefficient of the materials used. To provide adequate support over its length, the shaft employs dual tapers, each short and precisely located conical surface of which provides exact location on the near and far sides of the shaft. The length of straight shaft between the dual locating tapers serves to support the generator during mounting and de-mounting. During installation, the tapers center the rotor and bullet pins center the frame (stator). When the system aligns the rotor and stator, retainer elements act as labyrinth seals designed to protect the generator interior from contamination.
US07719128B2
An apparatus and method for controlling a wind turbine having a plurality of blades such that the blade angle of each blade is continuously adjusted during loss of grid power relative to a wind direction relative to an orientation of the nacelle (i.e., yaw offset) and a rotor azimuth while keeping the orientation of the nacelle of the wind turbine substantially constant. The wind turbine is capable of pitching the blades a full 360 degrees and generating power from the rotation of the rotor shaft during loss of grid power.
US07719122B2
A system-in-package (SiP) package is provided. In one embodiment, the SiP package comprises a substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, the substrate having a set of bond wire studs on bond pads formed on the second surface thereof; a first semiconductor chip having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, wherein the first surface of the first semiconductor chip is mounted to the second surface of the substrate by means of solder bumps; an underfill material disposed between the first semiconductor chip and the substrate, encapsulating the solder bumps; a second semiconductor chip having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, wherein the first surface of the second semiconductor chip is mounted to the second surface of the first semiconductor chip; and a set of bond wires electrically coupled from the second semiconductor chip to the set of bond wire studs on the substrate.
US07719120B2
An integrated circuit connection is describe that includes a first, securing member and a second, connection member. The first member, in an embodiment, is a spike that has a portion of its body fixed in a layer of an integrated circuit structure and extends outwardly from the integrated circuit structure. The second material is adapted to form a mechanical connection to a further electrical device. The second material (e.g., solder), is held by the first member to the integrated circuit structure. The first member increases the strength of the connection and assists in controlling the collapse of second member to form the mechanical connection to another circuit. The connection is formed by coating the integrated circuit structure with a patterned resist and etching the layer beneath the resist. A first member material (e.g., metal) is deposited. The resist is removed. The collapsible material is fixed to the first member.
US07719114B2
An edit structure is disclosed that allows the input of a logic gate to be changed by modifying any one of the metal and via masks that are used to form the metal interconnect structure. As a result, a first permanent logic state provided by a tie-in circuit can be changed to a second permanent logic state by modifying any one of the metal and via masks that are used to form the metal interconnect structure.
US07719110B2
A flip chip package generally includes a substrate, a flip chip die, and a heat spreader. The flip chip die is coupled to the substrate. The heat spreader is coupled to the flip chip die. The heat spreader can include one or more walls. Generally, the one or more walls at least partially laterally surround the flip chip die and/or the substrate. The walls can completely laterally surround the flip chip die to define a cavity in the heat spreader. The flip chip package can further include an encapsulate. For example, the encapsulate can be injected between the one or more walls of the heat spreader and the flip chip die and/or other components of the flip chip package. The encapsulate and/or the one or more walls of the heat spreader can protect one or more components of the flip chip package against moisture, corrosives, heat, or radiation, to provide some examples.
US07719109B2
A linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between two materials, such as between a microelectronic die and a mounting substrate, may induce stress at the interface of the materials. The temperature changes present during the process of attaching a die to a mounting substrate can cause cracking and failure in the electrical connections used to connect the die and mounting substrate. A material with a CTE approximately matching the die CTE is introduced in the mounting substrate to reduce the stress and cracking at the electrical connections between the die and mounting substrate. Additionally, this material may comprise thin film capacitors useful for decoupling power supplies.
US07719108B2
A method of packaging a semiconductor component with a printed wiring board is disclosed. The method includes determining a first distance, applying a thin film onto a surface of the semiconductor component such that the thin film is spaced apart from a support of the semiconductor, applying a solder pad onto the printed wiring board, placing the semiconductor component with the thin film onto the printed wiring board, and positioning the thin film adjacent the solder pad.
US07719103B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor device in which a first conductive layer included in a stack having a transistor and a second conductive layer over a substrate are electrically connected. The semiconductor device provides a conductive layer for electrically connecting the first conductive layer included in the stack having the transistor (for example, a conductive layer provided on the same layer as a gate electrode included in the transistor, a conductive layer provided on the same layer as a source wiring or a drain wiring connected to a source or drain of the transistor, a conductive layer provided in the same layer as the wire connected to the source wiring or the drain wiring, or the like) and the second conductive layer (for example, a conductive layer functioning as an antenna or a connection wire) provided over the substrate.
US07719093B2
A printed circuit board includes a source interconnect and a ground interconnect, and the circuit board has a two-dimensional geometry having a corner. Protruding portions are provided in circumferences of the source interconnect and the ground interconnect in regions except the corner in plan view, and the source interconnect and the ground interconnect are connected to a common first decoupling capacitor in each of the protruding portions.
US07719087B2
A semiconductor device includes: a GaAs chip; and a resin sealing the GaAs chip. The GaAs chip includes: a p-type GaAs layer; an n-type GaAs layer on the p-type GaAs layer; a metal electrode located on the n-type GaAs layer along an edge of the GaAs chip and to which a positive voltage is applied; a device region located in a central portion of the GaAs chip; a semi-insulating region located between the metal electrode and the device region and extending in the p-type GaAs layer and the n-type GaAs layer; and a connecting portion disposed outside the semi-insulating region and electrically connecting the p-type GaAs layer to the metal electrode.
US07719086B2
In a semiconductor device of the present invention, a first base region 16 is extended to a part under a gate electrode 7 while having a vertical concentration profile of an impurity that increases from the surface of a semiconductor layer 3 and becomes maximum under an emitter region 5, and the length in the lateral direction from a point where the impurity concentration becomes maximum located under an end of the gate electrode 7 to the boundary with a second base region 15 is not smaller than the length in the vertical direction from the point where the impurity concentration becomes maximum to the boundary with the second base region 15.
US07719083B2
An integrated receiver with channel selection and image rejection substantially implemented on a single CMOS integrated circuit is described. A receiver front end provides programmable attenuation and a programmable gain low noise amplifier. Frequency conversion circuitry advantageously uses LC filters integrated onto the substrate in conjunction with image reject mixers to provide sufficient image frequency rejection. Filter tuning and inductor Q compensation over temperature are performed on chip. The filters utilize multi track spiral inductors with shields to increase circuit Q. The filters are tuned using local oscillators to tune a substitute filter, and frequency scaling during filter component values to those of the filter being tuned. In conjunction with filtering, frequency planning provides additional image rejection. The advantageous choice of local oscillator signal generation methods on chip is by PLL out of band local oscillation and by direct synthesis for in band local oscillator. The VCOs in the PLLs are centered using a control circuit to center the tuning capacitance range. A differential crystal oscillator is advantageously used as a frequency reference. Differential signal transmission is advantageously used throughout the receiver. ESD protection is provided by a pad ring and ESD clamping structure that maintains signal integrity. Also provided are shunts at each pin to discharge ESD build up. The shunts utilize a gate boosting structure to provide sufficient small signal RF performance, and minimal parasitic loading.
US07719082B2
A memory device 10 has an arrangement in which a memory thin film 4 is sandwiched between first and second electrodes 2 and 6, the memory thin film 6 contains at least rare earth elements, the memory thin film 4 or a layer 3 in contact with the memory thin film 4 contains any one of elements selected from Cu, Ag, Zn and the memory thin film 4 or the layer 3 in contact with the memory thin film 4 contains any one of elements selected from Te, S, Se. The memory device can record and read information with ease stably, and this memory device can be manufactured easily by a relatively simple manufacturing method.
US07719077B2
Disclosed is a method for the production of a semiconductor component provided with at least one first vertical power component (5,9) and at least one lateral, active component (6) and/or at least one second vertical power component (10) between which is placed at least one trench (2) filled with an insulation (4). Also disclosed is a semiconductor component produced with the method.The semiconductor component is distinguished by an eccentric or concentric arrangement of the respective functional components (5,6,9,10) which are separated from each other by a trench insulation.To produce such a semiconductor component, at least one trench (2), which completely encompasses at least one part area of the front side and then is filled with an insulation (4) is etched into a silicon substrate (1). In the further course of the method, the entire area of the silicon substrate (1) is thinned (1) from said back side to said insulation (4), i.e. to the bottom side of the insulation. Contacting of the power components (5,9,10) occurs from the back side.
US07719076B2
A HV MOS transistor device having a substrate, a gate, a source, a drain, a first ion well of a first conductive type disposed in the substrate, and a plurality of field plates disposed on the substrate is disclosed. The HV MOS transistor device further has a first doped region of a second conductive type positioned in the first ion well. Therefore, a first interface and a second interface between the first ion well and the first doped region are formed, and the first interface and the second interface are respectively positioned near the drain and the source. In addition, the first interface is positioned under a respective field plate to produce a smooth field distribution and to increase the breakdown voltage of the HV transistor device.
US07719071B1
A bipolar spin transistor is provided. In one embodiment of the present invention, the bipolar spin transistor includes a first semiconductor region having a first conductivity type, a second semiconductor region having a second conductivity type that is different from the first conductivity type and also having a spin polarization, and a third semiconductor region having a conductivity type that is the same conductivity type of the first semiconductor region. The first semiconductor region and the second semiconductor region are adjacent to each other so as to form a first charge depletion layer therebetween, the first charge depletion layer having a first side facing the first semiconductor region and an opposing second side facing the second semiconductor region. Additionally, the second semiconductor region and the third semiconductor region are adjacent to each other so as to form a second charge depletion layer therebetween, the second charge depletion layer having a first side facing the second semiconductor region and an opposing second side facing the third semiconductor region.
US07719067B2
Electro-mechanical switches and memory cells using vertically-oriented nanofabric articles and methods of making the same. Under one aspect, a nanotube device includes a substantially horizontal substrate having a vertically oriented feature; and a nanotube film substantially conforming to a horizontal feature of the substrate and also to at least the vertically oriented feature. Under another aspect, an electromechanical device includes a structure having a major horizontal surface and a channel formed therein, the channel having first and second wall electrodes defining at least a portion of first and second vertical walls of the channel; first and second nanotube articles vertically suspended in the channel and in spaced relation to a corresponding first and second wall electrode, and electromechanically deflectable in a horizontal direction toward or away from the corresponding first and second wall electrode in response to electrical stimulation.
US07719062B2
A method for forming a slot contact structure for n-type transistor performance enhancement. A slot contact opening is formed to expose a contact region, and a barrier plug is disposed within a portion of the slot contact opening in order to induce a tensile stress on an adjacent channel region. The remainder of the slot contact opening is filled with a lower resistivity contact metal. Barrier plug deposition temperature can be varied in order to tune the tensile stress on the adjacent channel region.
US07719059B2
A fin field effect transistor arrangement comprises a substrate and a first fin field effect transistor on and/or in the substrate. The first fin field effect transistor includes a fin in which a channel region is formed between a first source/drain region and a second source/drain region and above which a gate region is formed. A second fin field effect transistor is provided on and/or in the substrate including a fin in which a channel region is formed between a first source/drain region and a second source/drain region and above which a gate region is formed. The second fin field effect transistor is arranged laterally alongside the first fin field effect transistor, wherein a height of the fin of the first fin field effect transistor is greater than a height of the fin of the second fin field effect transistor.
US07719052B2
The degree of integration and the number of rewriting of a semiconductor device having a nonvolatile memory element are improved. A first MONOS nonvolatile-memory-element and a second MONOS nonvolatile-memory-element having a large gate width compared with the first MONOS nonvolatile-memory-element are mounted together on the same substrate, and the first MONOS nonvolatile-memory-element is used for storing program data which is scarcely rewritten, and the second MONOS nonvolatile-memory-element is used for storing processed data which is frequently rewritten.
US07719036B2
A six-phase charge coupled device (CCD) pixel includes a pixel pair, with each pixel having two adjacent control gates overlying corresponding variable potential wells, where voltages applied to the control gates enable charge to be accumulated into and transferred out of the wells. A clear window region overlies a fixed potential gradient region, decreasing in potential away from the control gates. This region enables a wide band of photons to be sensed by the photosensitive silicon of the CCD. The decreasing potential levels facilitate high charge transfer efficiency (i.e., high CTE) from pixel to pixel via the control or transfer gates. By applying particular voltages to the control gates, charge can be quickly and efficiently transferred between pixels. In addition, the window provides a self aligned mask for the implantation steps and thus prevents the formation of pockets (or wells) due to misalignments that decrease the charge transfer efficiency and causes non-uniformity problems as associated with prior art. Furthermore the window provides a flat region that can be covered with an anti-reflective (AR) coating layer, thus further increasing the quantum efficiency.
US07719033B2
Semiconductor devices having thin film transistors (TFTs) and methods of fabricating the same are provided. The semiconductor devices include a semiconductor substrate and a lower interlayer insulating layer disposed on the semiconductor substrate. A lower semiconductor body disposed on or in the lower interlayer insulating layer. A lower TFT includes a lower source region and a lower drain region, which are disposed in the lower semiconductor body, and a lower gate electrode, which covers and crosses at least portions of at least two surfaces of the lower semiconductor body disposed between the lower source and drain regions.
US07719019B2
Light-emitting devices, and related components, systems and methods are disclosed.
US07719016B2
A light-emitting diode device and backlight apparatus and liquid-crystal display apparatus using light-emitting diode device are provided. A light-emitting diode device has a lens covered around a light-emitting diode chip and a processed portion for adjusting light going from the light-emitting diode chip along the central axis of the lens is provided at the light-emitting diode chip or the lens or being provided right above the lens. The light-emitting diode chip is processed near the central axis by a suitable method such as etching. Alternatively, a diffusion material containing low refractive index material portion or an angle selective film is provided on the lens. A light-emitting diode device is able to adjust a quantity of light emitted from the LED chip along the central axis of the lens so that light can be radiated with a desired angle distribution. A backlight apparatus and a liquid-crystal display apparatus are able to suppress ununiformity of brightness and ununiformity of color by using the above-mentioned light-emitting diode device.
US07719010B2
A thin film transistor showing desirable contact characteristics during contact with indium tin oxide (ITO) or indium zinc oxide (IZO), in which a first conductive pattern including a gate electrode and a second conductive pattern including a source electrode and a drain electrode are formed without an etching process, a TFT substrate including the TFTs, and a method of manufacturing the same. The thin film transistor includes a gate electrode formed of a first conductive layer, a gate insulating layer covering the gate electrode, a semiconductor layer forming a channel on the gate insulating layer; an ohmic contact layer formed on the semiconductor layer, and a source electrode and a drain electrode formed of a second conductive layer and of a third conductive layer. The second conductive layer includes an aluminum-nickel alloy and nitrogen and is formed on the semiconductor layer. The third conductive layer includes an aluminum-nickel alloy and is formed on the second conductive layer.
US07719009B2
A thin film transistor array panel includes a gate line formed on a substrate, an interlayer insulating film formed on the gate line and having an opening, a gate insulator formed in the opening, a data line formed on the interlayer insulating film and including a first conductive layer made of a transparent conductive oxide and a second conductive layer made of a metal, a source electrode connected to the data line and made of a transparent conductive oxide, a drain electrode facing the source electrode and made of a transparent conductive oxide, a pixel electrode connected to the drain electrode, and an organic semiconductor contacting the source electrode and the drain electrode.
US07719005B2
According to the present invention, there is disclosed a thermal detection device and method of using the device for characterizing and monitoring the dependence of pattern density on thermal absorption of a semiconductor. One or more of the devices can be disposed on a die of a test wafer. The thermal detection device comprises a silicon substrate having a test structure located substantially in the center of the silicon substrate. Frame shaped structures of polysilicon, silicon and oxide, in various configurations, form a collocated arrangement on the silicon substrate. The test wafer is subjected to a rapid thermal process and the resistance of the at least one testing structure is measured and the measured resistance of the at least one test structure is tabulated to a thermal absorption value of the at least one die.
US07719004B2
The invention concerns a sensor with silicon-containing components from whose sensitive detection element electrical signals relevant to a present analyte can be read out by means of a silicon semiconductor system. The invention is characterized in that the silicon-containing components are covered with a layer made of hydrophobic material in order to prevent unwanted signals caused by moisture.
US07718994B2
Array substrates for use in TFT-LCDs and fabrication methods thereof. A transparent conductive layer, a first metal layer, a first insulating layer, a semiconductor layer, a second insulating layer and a sacrificial layer are sequentially formed on a substrate. With a first photomask, a photoresist layer with various thicknesses is formed on part of the sacrificial layer. Using the photoresist layer as an etching mask, a gate line having a gate, a channel layer on the gate, a gate pad at the end portion of the gate line, a pixel electrode and a source pad are defined. An insulating spacer is formed on the sidewalls of the gate and gate line. With a second photomask, a source line, source and drain are formed. The source pad connects the end portion of the source line. An array substrate is thus obtained with only two photomasks.
US07718991B2
A lighting device comprises a solid state light emitter, first and second electrodes connected to the emitter, an encapsulant region comprising a silicone compound and a supporting region. The encapsulant region extends to an external surface of the lighting device. At least a portion of the first electrode is surrounded by the supporting region. The encapsulant region and the supporting region together define an outer surface which substantially encompasses the emitter. A method of making a lighting device, comprises electrically connecting first and second electrodes to an emitter; inserting the emitter into mold cavity; inserting an encapsulant composition comprising a one silicone compound; and then inserting a second composition to substantially surround at least a portion of the first electrode.
US07718988B2
Provided are a multi-bit memory device having resistive material layers as a storage node, and methods of manufacturing and operating the same. The memory device includes a substrate, a transistor formed on the substrate, and a storage node coupled to the transistor, wherein the storage node includes: a lower electrode connected to the substrate; a first phase change layer formed on the lower electrode; a first barrier layer overlying the first phase change layer; a second phase change layer overlying the first barrier layer; and an upper electrode formed on the second phase change layer.
US07718984B2
A composition for radiation shielding or range of compositions which compositions may be used for a variety of radiation shielding applications. With proper adhesive selection and processing, the construction forms an integral bond with the craft as compatible adhesives form strong bonds. This eliminates the potential for delaminating associated with the use of metallic layered shielding. While prior art protects electronics with a direct coating to electronic packages, this approach allows larger equipment systems, such as optics, or spectrometers, to be shielded.
US07718976B2
The present invention provides a stable charged particle beam apparatus to enable high-resolution observation by reducing the influence of the noise of a large number of power supplies used in an aberration corrector. The charged particle beam apparatus that has: an SEM column for irradiating an electron beam onto a specimen and making the electron beam scan it; a specimen chamber for housing a specimen stage on which the specimen is placed and held; a detector for detecting secondary electrons generated by the scanning of the electron beam; display means for displaying an output signal of the detector as an SEM image; and a control unit for controlling component parts including the SEM column, the specimen chamber, and the display means. The SEM column has a pair of accelerating electrodes and an aberration corrector that is placed between the pair of accelerating electrodes and corrects aberration of the electron beam, and accelerates the electron beam during a period when being transmitted through the aberration corrector by a high voltage being impressed across the pair of accelerating electrodes.
US07718973B2
A radiation imaging apparatus comprises a read unit reading electric signals from radiation detecting elements that are arranged two-dimensionally and that convert incident radiation into electric signals. A control unit controls the radiation detecting unit such that a first radiation detecting element is switched into a state in which charge generated therein cannot be taken out (a “senseless state”) and a second radiation detecting element is switched into a state in which it charge generated therein by incident radiation can be taken out (a “sensible state”), and a signal processing unit performs a subtraction processing such that the electric signal from the radiation detecting element that is in the senseless state is subtracted from the electric signal from the radiation detecting element that is in the sensible state, to reduce conspicuous line noise in an image by means of a relatively simple configuration.
US07718972B2
An emitted light in a scintillator element is sufficiently diffused in the scintillator array to be inputted into a photo multiplier tube (PMT) using a side face light guide that is optically coupled with respect to a side face of a scintillator array, except for in an end area. In the end area, the emitted light in the scintillator element is sufficiently diffused also in the side face light guide to be inputted into the PMT. In this way, also in the scintillator element in the end area, the emitted light is sufficiently diffused in the side face light guide, and thereby the precision of separation of a position calculation map in the end area may be improved, resulting in improved discriminating ability of a position in the end area.
US07718965B1
Microbolometer infrared detector elements that may be formed and implemented by varying type/s of precursors used to form amorphous silicon-based microbolometer membrane material/s and/or by varying composition of the final amorphous silicon-based microbolometer membrane material/s (e.g., by adjusting alloy composition) to vary the material properties such as activation energy and carrier mobility. The amorphous silicon-based microbolometer membrane material/s materials may include varying amounts of one or more additional and optional materials, including hydrogen, fluorine, germanium, n-type dopants and p-type dopants.
US07718954B2
A method and apparatus for calibrating a PET scanner is provided. First phantom sinogram data is acquired from a scan of a solid cylinder phantom within a PET scanner imaging FOV; second phantom sinogram data is acquired from a scan of a second solid plane or scanning line phantom within the PET scanner imaging FOV; and a PET scanner detector component scanner efficiency normalization is determined from at least one of the first and second sinogram data. In one aspect a crystal determining efficiency factor is determined as a function of phantom sinogram data without a solid angle correction, and a detector geometry factor is determined as a function of the crystal efficiency factor and phantom sinogram data. In one aspect a smoothed crystal efficiency normalization factor is determined from a noisy crystal efficiency factor through an iterative smoothing technique.
US07718953B2
Described herein are electromagnetic traps or tweezers. Desired results are achieved by combining two recently developed techniques, 3D negative refraction flat lenses (3DNRFLs) and optical tweezers. The very unique advantages of using 3DNRFLs for electromagnetic traps have been demonstrated. Super-resolution and short focal distance of the flat lens result in a highly focused and strongly convergent beam, which is a key requirement for a stable and accurate electromagnetic trap. The translation symmetry of 3DNRFL provides translation-invariance for imaging, which allows an electromagnetic trap to be translated without moving the lens, and permits a trap array by using multiple sources with a single lens.
US07718946B2
An image generating method and apparatus are provided. The image generating method irradiates a light with a predetermined wavelength to a target object at a predetermined interval, passes a light having a wavelength required to generate a color image from among lights reflected from the target object, detects color values according to the passed light, generates a depth image of the target object using color values detected during a period in which the light with the predetermined wavelength is irradiated, and generates the color image of the target object using color values detected during a period other than the period in which the light with the predetermined wavelength is irradiated. Accordingly, the image generating method can generate a depth image having high resolution while maintaining the resolution of the color image.
US07718942B2
Systems and methods for illumination and color management in a system having a plurality of color sources and a plurality of color sensors, wherein there are more color sources than color sensors are described herein. An embodiment of the method includes emitting a plurality of different colors of light from at least two of the color sources, wherein the plurality of colors consist of different intensities of light emitted by the plurality of color sources. Colors of light emitted by the at least two color sources are detected using at least one of the color sensors. The color rendering index for each of the plurality of colors emitted is determined. A color of light to be emitted by the light sources is selected. The intensities of light to be emitted by the color sources is selected, based at least in part on the color rendering index, to achieve the selected color of light.
US07718941B2
A directional alignment and alignment monitoring sensor system that is designed to be mounted to a directional or omni-directional antenna wherein the system includes a sensor having one or more phototransistors that are associated with one or more baffle members and wherein each baffle member defines a restrictive light passageway toward a phototransistor such the by measuring the time that a phototransistor is illuminated, a correct orientation of the antenna may be accurately determined.
US07718940B2
A plurality of imaging optical lenses (301a to 301c) form a plurality of subject images on a plurality of imaging regions (302a to 302c), respectively. When viewed along a direction parallel with optical axes, at least one straight line connecting corresponding points in at least one pair of the subject images that are formed by at least one pair of the imaging optical lenses is inclined with respect to a direction in which pixels are arranged in the imaging regions. In this way, a high-resolution image always can be obtained regardless of the subject distance.
US07718937B1
A beam-riding missile (10) has a freely rotating control portion (11) forming its nose and carrying a pair of fixed ailerons (13) and a pair of fixed elevators (14). Detecting means (not shown) gather information indicative of the location of the missile in the beam and steering logic circuitry (not shown) provides signals to a clutch (18) which interfers with the free rotation of the nose in such a way that the elevators are effective to maintain the chosen flight path.The clutch can be electromagnetic, piezo-electric or function on the Johnson-Raebeck effect.The combination of fixed control surfaces and steering by a single actuator leads to the possibility of useful reductions in the size, weight and complexity of the missile.
US07718929B2
A substrate is made of a crystallized glass having translucency and an average linear thermal expansion coefficient of −5×10−7/° C. at 30 to 500° C. The substrate has a first surface (working surface) of a smooth surface having a surface roughness Rmax of less than 0.5 μm, and a second surface (non-working surface) of a rough surface having a surface roughness Rmax of 4 μm. A light shielding layer consisting of a light shielding film and an antioxidant film is formed on the second surface of the substrate through sputtering.
US07718922B2
An optical processing apparatus that is capable of detecting accurately the sticking status of deposits sticking to optical means in a background of same color as deposits, preventing occurrence of defective soldering due to feeding failure of wire solder, and detecting solder failure when the leading end portion of the wire solder does not reach up to the processing area. This optical processing apparatus comprises light energy output means for producing light energy, a first optical path for guiding the light energy into a work, optical means disposed in the first optical path for shaping the light energy, a second optical path sharing part of the first optical path for guiding the light from the work to photo receiving means, and driving means for changing the relative positions of at least the optical means and the work.
US07718921B2
A laser energy delivery system includes a relay imaging system. Input optics arranged to receive the laser energy, a transmitting mirror having adjustable angle of incidence relative to the input optics, and a robot mounted optical assembly are configured to direct laser energy toward the movable target image plane. The laser energy follows an optical path including an essentially straight segment from the transmitting mirror to the receiving mirror, having a variable length and a variable angle relative to the input optics through air. Diagnostics on the processing head facilitate operation.
US07718919B2
Industrial plasma reactor for plasma assisted thermal debinding of power injection-molded parts is a reactor used for the plasma assisted debinding and sintering of metallic or ceramic parts produced by the powder injection molding process, comprising a vacuum chamber (1) containing a cathode-anode (7,8) system for plasma generation and a resistive heating system (6) in the same vacuum chamber (1) ambient.
US07718916B2
A weld cylinder having a dual piston arrangement is provided. The cylinder has a movable retract piston assembly with the piston arranged within the retract piston assembly. The piston supports a rod that is movable between home, intermediate, work, and advanced work positions. The rod moves rapidly from the home position to the intermediate position however, the rod moves more slowly from the intermediate position to the work position to reduce the impact force. A cushion chamber slowly exhausts through a hole in the cushion valve while an isolator is in an open position. Once the cushion valve opens in response to a weld-forward pressure on the cushion valve, the cushion chamber exhausts rapidly so that weld force increases rapidly to minimize increases in cycle time.
US07718911B2
An electronic device comprises a housing, a circuit board, a cover and a switch. The housing comprises an opening receiving a card. The circuit board is disposed in the housing. The cover is disposed on the housing corresponding to the opening. The switch is disposed on the circuit board, wherein when the cover is moved, the cover actuates the switch to control the circuit board.
US07718903B2
The component placement substrate of the present invention can be produced easily with suppressed cracks in a thin film formed on a pattern film of the substrate. The present invention provides a component placement substrate provided with one or more pattern films on a substrate, wherein at least one of the pattern film(s) has a cross-sectional shape composed of a semi-elliptical circular upper part, and one of a forward taper shaped lower part and a approximately vertical taper shaped lower part and the average thickness of the lower part is 50 Å or larger and 3,000 Å or smaller.
